A Change of Plans

Can you believe it? Our team has already completed two mittens and hat, and we are barely a day into the event. AMAZING!

Well, we knitters know a secret -- that you can always rip and frog(except when felting or using really fuzzy yarn). After all, plans for an item can change.

So, after showing the pattern for the youth sweater for Afghans for Afghans yesterday (which I may still make for myself someday), I decided I wanted to use another simpler pattern. I remembered that there are some unpatterns published on the web and found the Incredible Custom-Fit Raglan recipe. Lovely pattern, very easy to follow, and even has a cardigan option. I'm good to go. (And I heard about another recipe that I'm tempted by on the new Knotions magazine website - check it out.)

Then I had to figure out the stripe pattern. Again, memory bells rang to say that somewhere there are stripe-generating tools on the web. I found this one, and it worked like a charm -- you click on the colors you are using, enter a number for the rows you'll be working the stripes. Then you hit enter until you get a randomly created pattern that you like. Then you simply print out the pattern or save it as the instructions show.

I'm past the neckline, and doing the increases down to the armpits -- it's going a bit slower with the color changes for the striping, but I'm really liking the yarn (Wash-Day Wool by Reynolds, which I'm doubling for warmth), which I got on deep sale in So Cal.

Ravelympics: The Knitting Begins

So, the sign-ups are done, the team is formed. We have a great, great team, you can find them here if you are on Ravelry.

My first and biggest project is a top-down raglan cardigan -- I'm kinda following this pattern from Cosmic Pluto -- but I'm sure I'll make adjustments as I go along.

For training, I swatched the yarn (doubling it)




Now I have gathered the yarn and the pattern (still need to get the Knitpicks options put together), and I'm ready to cast on today!



But before I do, I need to watch this again for the proper inspiration:

The Temperature is Rising

So, today, the Queen of Afghans for Afghans sends out an email to everyone telling them to sign up for Ravelympics Team Afghan for Afghan by tomorrow. This is clearly a plan to make sure that I stay behind the entries.

But the project total is 110 so far!

Ravelympics Fever

Ok, this Ravelympics thing has gotten way, way out of control. Over 4300 knitters signed up, over 11,000 projects and not everyone has signed up yet. That's a lot of butts sitting in front of TVs over the next couple of weeks. Well, sitting somewhere.

You see, one curious non-rule is that you don't have to be paying attention to the Olympics, I mean, the TV doesn't even have to BE ON, and you don't get fined, or anything. You could go to Antartica and ignore the whole thing, and the knitters would be fine as long as you turn in your FO on the right thread of Ravelry. So, while it claims to be a part of the Olympics fever, I am not convinced. I think it is a subversive way for knitters to take over the world. The knitting is what matters.

Me, I ended up as a serf (team captain) for Team Afghans for Afghans. This means that I spend a lot of time in the Captains' Lounge thread trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing (there's no job description -- this is VERY Beta), and trying not to fight with a former therapist who kept harping on people who mostly had managed to miss-tag their projects as FOs. She's now left because we weren't playing her game, and I'm hopeful that peace is breaking out in the Spirit of the Ravelympics.

But back to being Captain. This mostly consists of me trying to track down people who have mis-tagged their projects in a bunch of different ways that will keep them out of of the fun unless they change them before August 6th. Sometimes they post to the right thread that they are there -- these are the easy ones. Others I have to use more sophisticated searches, then send them polite messages that they need to get their acts together.

On top of this, two slavedrivers named Kay and Ann have this little blog called Mason-Dixon Knitting, and they posted about our team there, increasing my work by three-fold. You know, now that they've published their second book, and have this fancy-schmancy column in the new Twist Collective, they think that they can simply get people to knit for incredibly good causes and there be NO CONSEQUENCES AT ALL. As if the world is needing their assistance to provide warm sweaters to children in Afghanistan...sheesh. I mean, ok, there will be at least 60+ sweaters or afghans knit because of them. But, overlooking that little thing called being a generous knitter, they really have stepped over the line...

No Finishing (Almost) Knitting

First, thank you to all who have supported me in this time of loss. It's been exhausting, what with a new job, extra training for my very part time water fitness teaching. I am surviving, barely. But onto the knitting!

I love Elizabeth Zimmermann. The woman was a genius, and my only regret is that only recently did I find her books and start into her wonderful world. I can't figure out how, having knit for so long, I managed to miss her.

So, I've been plugging away at a sweater for afghans for afghans for a while. I used her percentage system, and while the first one I did came out a bit squirrly, this one is going beautifully. You knit bottom up, in the round, do the sleeves (which I did at the same time on two circulars, so that they would match for once), connect it all together for the yoke. Brilliant, the woman was brilliant!

I changed the bottom ribbing from this


to this




because the ribbing didn't go with this yoke that I created (notes on this are on my Ravelry project page):



I have to say that I really, really like how this turned out, and since I'm not a yoke-sweater kind of girl, this is saying a lot!

When you cast off this sweater, the best part is that it looks like a sweater! The only "seams" are a total of two small sets of stitches to graft at the underarms:



and then all I have left is weaving in ends (yes, some of it occured in the knitting, but not all of it).

Next up, a sweater for my little cousin it's Ariann (ravelry link) from Chic Knits in Berrocco's Ultra Alpac. I knit her sister Allison a sweater for her birthday, and now it's time for Rachel to get one. She picked this pattern out of three cardigan patterns that I gave her to choose. I may make one for myself after I finish hers -- it's cute! Now I have to get her on the phone to find out her bust measurement to know what size to make...20 somethings can be hard to reach. Anybody know how to text?

The other project is part of the Ravelympics -- I'm captain of the Afghans for Afghans team, and I'm entered in the sweater sprint with another sweater for Afghans for Afghans -- I got some wool superwash when I was down in LA on one of my trips at the San Marino store A Stitch in Time.) I think this one will be a top-down raglan cardigan in the round.

Gratitude for Knitting

On June 19th, my world changed. In San Jose at a national conference for my church, I received a phone call from my mother, who told me that the police had come to her house to notify her that my brother, Randy, age 56, had died. It was a total shock. We will never know what happened -- the coroner has said that his cause of death is undetermined.

The intervening weeks have been a blur. I have put a lot of miles on the car, flown to Denver and back, and dealt with what I have had the energy to deal with.

Thank goodness for the knitting. My Knitpicks lace sampler kit had finally come, and I wanted to make a shawl for the Afghans for Afghans project. I had started the shawl just before leaving for the conference, and it became my sanity-saver the past few weeks.

It started small,


and grew and grew:



I knit the whole thing in just 3 weeks. It was my prayer for my brother, my mother and me...

I also finished knitting a scarf:



Two easy knits, one of which that I can wear into the future, the other of which that will brighten the world of someone carrying many more burdens than myself.

I thank God for knitting.

Fair Weather Knitting

This year I was inspired to enter some of my knitting by my friend, Judy, who entered items last year and did well. She did well this year too! A baby hat and cardigan:



And Judy also submitted Socks:


and Handspun in a couple of kinds, and a beautiful Tuscany shawl.


To my surprise, my Hanami shawl won the other special awards:


and this mystery item also did well:



Since I'm thinking of submitting this as an original pattern, I must not show a photo!

Many of you know that a family loss has occurred, and I want to thank all the knitters for their support. I will be blogging more about this soon, including about the solace of knitting in times of loss...