Sunday, August 31, 2008

august rush

Such a month, this August was!! First of all we had the Olympics....our Canadian athletes seemed doomed to be wallflowers until almost half the games were over...but they soon quieted the nay-sayers who called us the "Ugly Betty" of the Olympics.....what does that even mean? Leave it to Fox News...Oh and Boo to the people that felt the need to replace the little singing girl from the opening ceremonies with the other "prettier" little singing girl....talk about giving a kid a complex....Booo!!!! Hisss!!! Boo!!!

My pretty sister and her handsome fiance of--oh let's just say a few years--decided to make it legal and had a beautiful very small ceremony on the 8th in Calgary. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't currently live in Calgary even though that's my hometown, so sadly we weren't in attendance in body, only in spirit. Tee, you looked gawjus! I was probably casting on my Ravelympic projects right around the time they were saying their "I do's", but I was thinking of them the whole time.


A Major Prize, A Major Prize!!!!!

I won!! I won awesome stuff from an awesome contest given by Sharon (she of the awesome Stitch Jones yarn) I was looking forward to some of her gorgeous yarn, but the angelic Sharon also threw in some other fun goodies, including a pretty card, beautiful stitch marker (matches the yarn, so sweet!) and a chocolate bar with a pictoral scene of Portland, Oregon, which is her home base. My goodness, Portland is a breath-taking city!! Seeing Mt. Hood made me homesick for the Rockies. Sharon, I've said it before, but you really are the best!



Look at the lusciousness!!!!! From her Super Socks line.



The colour is Orchid and I am in love with it...I'm thinking of making it into the Knotty or Knice socks from Fall Interweave Knits.


I Came, I Saw, I Ravelled.....

Speaking of Ravelympics....well, I had a fair result. I finished the Leaf & Lace baby cardigan from the vintage pattern about a week into the olympics:


Extreme closeup, like anyone cares...



But fell a little bit short on the Pomotomus socks.....I finished them, but this morning....only a week late!!



I had fun, but kind of knew about a week and a half in that I really had bitten off more than I could chew, so I just tried my best. By the last few days I didn't even feel like knitting, so I didn't push it....Heaven forbid I lose the urge to knit, Mystery Stole 4 is starting soon!!! Last chance to sign up!

Monday, August 04, 2008

biting off more than i can chew

As usual. I decided to take part in all the fun of the Ravelympics. I'm a sheep, and like to be in on the action, and not be left out of the fun, because that brings up all kinds of painful childhood 'issues'...not really, but sort of...whatever.

So of course I entered not one, but two events, because I really am out of my mind (on a good day, anyway). The first project I wanted to do was from this pattern booklet:


Which is really old...I'm not sure how old, but definitely old enough to be considered vintage. The price on the book is .75 cents. I got it from Cee's mum. It was in a box of other patterns/magazines, etc. When I first started knitting, I tried to cypher out the pattern (it has lots of weird abbreviations that aren't explained like Wl.fwd---wtf??---and w.r.n. and w.o.n.) I couldn't figure them out and put the pattern down.

Then recently I saw someone had made this little sweater on Ravelry. It really is gorgeous.



And I decided to try it again...but still couldn't decode those weird abbreviations, except I kind of figured that w.r.n. meant 'wind round needle' and w.o.n. meant 'wind over needle' but the Wl.fwd...no clue. From what I can figure out, I'm hoping all of them simply mean yarn over...what the heck. I just had a weird thought....the babies in those pictures are probably in their late 40's or early 50's by now.

My second project will be the Pomatomus socks from Knitty...I have wanted to do them for a while, too...I have no idea if I will be able to get even one of those project done.....let the madness begin.

P.S.--the writing you see on the second picture is not mine...I wouldn't ever write on a pattern, it goes against my Canadian upbringing...Cee's mum says it's not hers either...what a mystery. I don't suppose they had post-its back then...