Yee haw!
I decided which country I’m going to represent: Texas. Yee haw!!
So of course I needed the essential Knitting Olympic gear: a button! If you’re a Texan — or an honorary Texan — and want it, right-click and save as. Don’t hotlink, please.
So which country can I pick?
I signed up for the Knitting Olympics! Yay me and every other knitter in the known world. :) Here’s the idea:
Concept: You must cast on a project during the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics (Feb 10)- and finish before the Olympic flame goes out (Feb 26). That’s 16 days.
You’re also supposed to pick something that’s a challenge. Because I love cables and because I love babies and because I love my friend Allessandria, I’m going to knit her new baby boy some variation of this Celtic Knot Afghan.
Do I think I’ll finish? No!
Do I think I’ll try? Yes!
Do I think I’ll complain a lot? But of course!
So can I pick another country to knit for instead of Team USA? I pretty much root for Sweden and Canada during the Winter Olympics. Can I be on Team Canada and drink beer while I cable? Team Sweden and drink vodka? (Or Team Russia or Team Finland, I guess … ) Team France and drink wine? Team UK and drink tea? Team Netherlands and drink … anything, while I eat my cheese?
I can guarantee one thing: there will be as much swearing and bad behavior in this Winter Olympics event as there will be in the mens’ ice hockey competition. Just saying.
Eris Collar — Continued!
Thanks for your encouragement on the cables … I decided to keep plugging at it and see how it turned out. I also looked around on Flickr and the Eris knitalong Yahoo Group to see pictures of other people’s cables at this point. Turns out that they ALL look this way. What do I know? I don’t cable, I don’t knit with wool, and the only thing I’ve ever blocked was a lacy wrap!
So I’ve kept going and have finished the right half of the collar and started on the left half. Now, if anything, this project will teach me to read ALL instructions in a step. You start the left half of the collar by going back to the beginning of the right half and picking up stitches. So what did I do? I immediately went and picked up stitches, only I couldn’t get it to work properly. Then I read the rest of the instructions, which tells you to not use the cast-on edge, but instead pick up through the middle of the actual stitches. Where do you think I was trying to pick up?
So then, after a frantic search through the KAL group again and a couple of “What the HECK?” IMs to Adelle, I figured it out and did just fine. And doesn’t it look pretty?
Frogs & Luna Lovegood-style
I think that the picture makes my cabling look better than it really is. Still, as I put to Adelle today in IM:
“I’M CABLING! I’M DOING SHORT ROWS! I’M READING A CHART!”
I was almost finished with the first chart of Eris’s collar when I decided that I really hated how my cables were turning out. I haven’t really done cables before, and I think I have unreasonably high expectations for how mine should be turning out. Whatever. I thought they were messy and uneven, so I frogged everything I’d done and started over.
This is the result as of 9:00, and I’m much happier. That’s Chart B right there, for those of you playing along at home. I’m seriously quite impressed with myself for sticking with it and mostly understanding what I’m doing. The thing I figured out with my cabling is this: I suck at knitting from the cable needle. The cable needle, in this case, is one of my short Brittany size 3s. It’s perfect for this, really. When it’s not holding stitches it’s tucked behind my ear, Luna Lovegood-style. I just can’t knit/purl the stitches off the cable needle. If I want my tension to be any kind of consistent, I have to move the stitches back on to the left needle after doing the twisty magic in the background (or foreground, as the case may be). I don’t know what the “right” way of cabling is (this is what comes from only learning from books/websites), but this works for me right now.
I even remembered to put in the row marker at the correct place. (Both times I reached that point.) Go, me!
P.S. I hate knitting with straight needles. Just wanted to share.
Eris Collar
I’m not sure why I’m doing this to myself. I don’t tolerate wool very well, I’m hopeless at following diagrams, and I have the attention span of a gnat. So it sounds like a really good idea to start on an adult-size cardigan with cables and charts and knit in wool, right?!
Whoever said that knitting is not a form of masochism was dead wrong.
I have to say, this is fascinating stuff. The pattern is Eris, and it’s … well, intimidating. The pattern is 40 pages long because of charts and two variations of the sweater (pullover and cardigan). The charts are like a foreign language and I feel stupid. I took this picture because I was just proud of getting through six rows of the collar!
As for the wool … I don’t know what’s possessed me. This sweater just needs to be knit in wool, and I would love to have it as another jacket to wear during what passes for winter in Houston. (It would also be handy for springtime jaunts to colder climes, I’m thinking.) We’ll see how I deal with the wool as the project progresses, though. I’m already itching on the hands and neck. I am determined to get over this wool thing, though. I’m hoping it’s not fully an allergy (although that doesn’t explain the nose/throat closure in yarn shops) and that it’s just a skin sensitivity.
Hope springs eternal, and knitters are ever delusional.
