ravelympics! (no interesting entry title)

So, like every other knitter on the entire internet, I’ve signed up for a Ravelympics* team – mine is headed up by Julie. What this really means is that you guys had better like the way this project looks, as you’ll be seeing a lot of it in the near future as I try to finish it before the 28th.

I got a bit of a late start, waiting for the postman to bring my yarn, but I cast on while Mike Robertson was winning his silver medal for Canada, which I think made up for it.

The goal, for me, is to knit myself a sweater that I will wear often, and with a lot of things, which is why I’m making the Treeline Striped Cardigan, in boring blue and tan. I’ll look a little bit like Where’s Waldo, but hopefully in a cute way, and it’ll match most of the stuff in my wardrobe.

The goal is also to treat myself a little bit, which is why I’m knitting it with Tanis Fiber Arts’ Green Label Aran, something I’ve been secretly pining for after working with her sock yarn a few times. Rad.

*The Ravelympics, for the uninitiated, are a totally dorky challenge where you try to begin and end a knitting project over the duration of the Olympic Games. It’s more fun than it sounds.

rather than flaunt my style, i’d flash you a smile of clean pearly whites

So, I’ve spent the past few days holed up in my apartment, recovering (chipmunk-cheeked) from getting my wisdom teeth extracted. Really, the only good thing to have come from this is a lot of extra time for knitting. For instance – I finished my boring purple socks!

The yarn for these is Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label, in Grape. I am still a little in love with this yarn – I have yet to see how well it will actually wear as socks, but it was a complete joy to knit with, and the yardage was fantastic. I could have made these so much taller, had I planned ahead and knit from the toe up.

These socks also have the distinction of being the first pair for which I’ve knit an actual heel flap in, literally, years. I’m still not sure how I feel about that (I’m having issues with the picked-up stitches making gaps that I’m not quite sure how to resolve), but it was a nice change of pace.

(The heel did not come off the needles that fuzzy. I may have got a little too excited and worn these socks out of the house to run errands before I could take photos for the blog.)

Song of the Entry: Owl City – Dental Care (Listen

dreaming ’bout brand new spaces and brand new faces

I have a bit of a mishmash of things to talk about, today. First of all, this sleeve.

It rose from the ashes of the sweater I started a few weeks ago, which I worked on for a solid eight or nine inches of body before I decided that really, it wasn’t going to look that good on me at all. I was so confident that I didn’t even take a picture – I just gave up, frogged, and drew a whole bunch of sketches. So, now I’m making up a sweater from scratch. (Give or take. I have an EZ book and a couple of tutorials that I’m hoping will guide me.)

I’ve also started a sock. This one is purple,, and really that’s the only exciting thing it’s got going for it. The yarn is (more) Tanis Fiber Arts, and at this point my affection for her yarn is probably starting to seem a little creepy, except that, okay. So, remember all of this wool, the sock yarn I bought that was going to be a pair of stripey socks and maybe an Ulmus?

I was really excited about it, and took it everywhere I went, and knit three-quarters of a pair of lovely striped socks, and then. Uh. Possibly I left it in class in a bag (with my spare Addi and a couple of spare sets of sock needles) and have yet to track it down. Possibly it has disappeared into the ether, forever. I’m still kind of in mourning.

So, when I was at the Creativ Festival a couple of weekends ago, I picked up some more yarn at the Purple Purl booth (a skein of sock yarn and a Fiddlehead Mitten Kit), and I’m making myself a new pair of socks that I definitely, definitely, for suresies won’t lose.

They’re purple.

Song of the Entry: Michael Bernard Fitzgerald – Brand New Spaces (Watch/Listen to the best music video ever.)