I'm not much of a sports enthusiast - indeed, I usually only watch the opening and closing ceremonies of Olympic games, and even those only when the hosting country is somehow interesting or significant to me.
The night of the Vancouver games opening ceremony I found myself once again suffering from insomnia, so I gave up trying to sleep and watched the live 4am opening ceremony instead. I love Canada; I spent six months there in 2005 and found the nature beautiful and the people extremely friendly and hospitable. Seeing the Rocky Mountains in the horizon wherever I went grounded me in a way that I had never experienced in Finland (which is very flat). The only annoying thing about Canada is the fact that sales tax is not included in price tags!
The (other) reason I was looking forward to the opening ceremony was Ravelympics. No, it has nothing to do with dance raves. Ravelympics are the "alternative Olympics" at Ravelry, spurring knitters into producing wonderful things with sticks and yarn. One is allowed to cast on once the Olympic fire has been lit and hands must be off the needles when the flame is extinguished. I am pleased to announce that as of now, I have earned four medals for Team Finland, and have another two medals pending!
I took part in Scarf Super-G with two entries: a scarf for myself and one for Tristan.
You may remember the
scrumptious Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend that I received in my Christmas swap package. Originally I had other plans for it, but it was just begging to be a scarf. Hey, I never met a silk and merino scarf I didn't like!When handling the yarn it made me think of seashells, and I knew I had the perfect pattern for it. The Spiral Scarf from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan consists of (in my case) 17 hexagons, each one a stitch smaller per side than the one before. Although it may look complicated, it is actually a very simple pattern and excellent TV knitting. I hate picking up stitches because I suck at it, but since the stitches of once side of each hexagon were picked up from the previous hexagon, I learnt to live with it and maybe even got a bit better at it.
I knitted Tristan a cable scarf last year for Valentine's Day but underestimated the required length - usually a good scarf length is the recipient's height. This time I played it safe and the scarf ended up 2½ metres long! Despite the length, the scarf was started one day and finished the next, thanks to the bulky yarn (Rowan RYC Soft Tweed; 56% wool / 20% viscose / 14% polyamide / 10% silk; colourways Oatmeal, Twig and Slate Blue; discontinued).The pattern is Men's Rustic Scarf by Joelle Hoverson from the book Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. The scarf is knitted lengthways and it is pure garter stitch. Very meditative. The problem is, Tristan loves the scarf and so do I! I may have to knit myself one too.
I had grand plans about making a fine-gauge alpaca hat for myself as a Ravelympics project; unfortunately the scarves kept me too busy to even consider it. However, I were still able to partake in Hat Halfpipe and Single Skein Speed Skate with another quickie project, namely a Calorimetry (pattern by .
Half a hat, half a headband, this... thing is excellent if you, like me, often wear your hair up and still want to be snug in the winter weather. It is constructed by using short rows, a technique that I had previously not really tried, so yay. The pattern says to repeat the short row sequence 15 times but I only did 9 as my yarn of choice was bulky and also I preferred to make a slightly narrower band.The yarn here is Schoeller+Stahl Cornwall (70% virgin wool / 30% acrylic). The project only took three hours from cast on to bind off, so it would be an excellent project for a beginner!
In addition to the above new projects, I entered Aerial Unwind with two projects. Aerial Unwind is perhaps the quickest event to take part in; it involves unravelling (or "frogging") a previously knitted project. My two projects were the Un-Lucky Clover Lace Wrap (a cardigan in fingering weight cotton that I worked on and off on since June 2008; a study in how one should not keep knitting if there is a nagging voice in the back of one's mind saying that it looks awful!) and the red hat that I knitted last October.
Why oh why, you ask? I know, I loved that hat. In fact, I loved it so much that I wore it almost every day. What I didn't take into account is the fact that silk doesn't stretch, therefore it is very poor in bouncing back. The hat, with its ribbed edge, kept growing and growing and GROWING until it was more like a bag and would regularly fall off my head. Sad.
I have interesting plans for the yarn though, as I've been tossing the ball from hand to hand, imagining new (non-ribbed) things that it could yet become. And that, my friend, is the beauty of knitting.
