Saturday, February 25, 2006

Olympic Knitting done

With a scant 14 hours and 43 minutes remaining, I've finished my Olympic knitting project!
I just bound off and wove in the ends on the last finger of my fingerless glove. That's right, one glove. Please, no Michael Jackson jokes--I WILL make a second one.



My original Knitting Olympics project was an Aran-Weight Victorian Lace shawl, but pneumonia got in the way. Once I *finally* placed my order for the yarn and realized that it just simply wasn't going to happen, I revised me expectations downward. Considerably. I looked at the time left in the Olympics, looked at what I had in my stash (since the KnitPicks order wasn't made early enough to get anything done with what I'd ordered), and decided that a realistic--but challenging--goal would be to get one fingerless glove designed and made by the deadline.

A while back I'd seen a fingerless glove with a cable on the back take shape on beadlizard's blog and decided that I had to do something similar. Mine ended up with a braid up the back, which isn't as eye-catching as the wonderfully intricate cable on Beadlizard's mitts, but I'm fine with that.

Now I just need to make the other one. Sans notes, as I didn't write much down as I went....

The yarn is the luscious Merino Style from KnitPicks, in Hollyberry. I used about 7/8ths of a skein for this glove, although if it wasn't as late as it is I'd pull out the postal scale and the yarn ball band and give you a more exact amount. But I'm tired, so I won't. :-) I used size 3 metal double point needles. Yeah, I knit loosely.

The other project I made was something quite a bit less mentally taxing:

It's a multidirectional scarf based on Iris Schreier's Modular Knits book--I didn't have the book, and I didn't want to wait to get the pattern from the list, so I struck out on my own. I think it turned out pretty well. This is for my sister-in-law, Heather, who requested "a weird brown scarf." I took that to mean a "not your ordinary garter stitch scarf" and I hope she likes it.

The yarn is an older Patons Canadiana Bouclé that I had in my stash. I used almost a whole skein. I was getting a little nervous as I don't think this yarn is available any more, and since it's more than 3 years old I wouldn't stand a chance of a dye lot being the same anyway. I do have a little ball left though, which I'll save for scrapbooking embellishment. I used US size 7 straights for this one.

It should be arriving at my sister-in-law's post office box any day now, as I shipped it Wednesday morning and it just has to go to Nevada. I'm eager to hear what she thinks, as I just told her I'd make something and send it to her--she has no idea it's coming or what it is. It should be fun. :-)

3 comments:

Miriam said...

YAY! congrats on finishing and getting the gold! Despite the trials of late start, etc... YAY!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hey look at me! I found your blog! And my DH says I just wander aimlessly out here in cyberspace. Occasionally, I do find my way to a destination I meant to find...LOL

Love the glove. Look forward to seeing the pair at Sit n Stitch next week!

Kat said...

Thanks for all the compliments!!

Yeah, now if I can just keep from bouncing around to all my projects and just concentrate on the second glove, it might actually be done by Tuesday....

-Kat