Monday, February 13, 2006

unofficially knitting in the Olympics?

So part of the reason that I wasn't participating in the Olympics was because I didn't have a project I was psyched about to start on Friday...

When I got home from work, I compared the ill-fitting orange cabled vest to an existing sweater that fits well, but a little loosely. After a variety of rearrangements and consideration of strategies, I frogged it. I restarted in the next bigger size, added a few alternate cables in three of the central columns, I made the "regular" cables a little taller *and* I decided to alternate the cable length as called for in the original pattern. I'm using a heavy DK weight instead of a worsted, and it was just making cables that were too thick, so instead of cabling every 8 rows, I'm cabling every 10 and 12 rows. The fabric is lying flatter, but it will still have some stretch to accentuate my curves. :-)

As of the end of the bus ride this morning, I have 11" of the back knit. Part of me thinks I should count this as Olympic knitting since I started on Friday, and the other part of me thinks that with two more weekends until the Olympics are over, this is much too easy for an Olympic challenge.

And then I start to think of a real challenge...and I think about trying to finish everything I have on the needles before the flame goes out. (Advantage - I have a knitting GTG on the afternoon of the 26th - so there's a good 4 hours I'll get on the last day...) But then I think it's crazy and wonder if I really want to spend that much time knitting over the next couple of weeks when there are plenty of things I want to do around the house.

Maybe I'll just make it my goal to not start anything new before the 26th and try to finish what I can. Can you tell I'm being wishy-washy about this whole Knitting Olympics thing? I'm not really sure why. It could be that I'm really enjoying a period of my life with no outside-of-work deadlines.

On the needles:
- Orange Cabled Vest (11" of back done)
- Pink Vogue Pullover (back done, in the midst of armholes on front)
- Grey Alpaca socks (1 cuff 75% done)
- Lavender Baby Cardigan (2 sleeves done, 3" of back done)

Not bad, but a lot for 14 days...especially if I want to have a life. ;-)

I finished the rust colored socks. They are a little long, but I'm very pleased with them. The cabling is just what I wanted and they are comfy (not scratchy at all). They are not super warm, but that just means that they aren't the socks to put on when it's below 40 outside.

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