Olympics, Ravelympics, Knitting Olympics!

I love the Winter Olympics.  I'll be watching more TV in the next 2+ weeks than I've watched in the last 2+ months!   When I watch TV, I knit or crochet.  Helps keep down the desire to snack!  To keep my fingers busy as I watch the athletes of the world compete for winter game fame and glory, I've joined a couple of Olympic events in the fiber world.

First, Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics!

 

I began my knitting career during Stephanie's inaugural Knitting Olympics in 2006.  This event is near and dear to my heart.  Over the past 4 years, I have amassed a stash of yarn and needles and books and patterns and other essential doodads, like stitch markers and measuring tapes and beads, that could take over my walk-in closet if I didn't have it spread all over the room!   I have learned so much and created so many things and improved as I have gone along!  I am ready to stretch myself a bit farther and win the coveted Gold Medal -- being designed by Franklin!

For this event, I plan to try a new (to me) technique - Toe Up Socks.  I think I've settled on a Wendy D. Johnson pattern - Sunrise Socks (ravelry.com link).  I plan to use new (to me) Socks That Rock medium weight yarn in a Rare Gems colorway that I picked up during their fairly recent sale.  I may be one of the few people in the fiber world that has never knit with STR!

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Second, I joined TWO teams for Ravelympics 2010 on Ravelry.com.  

I'm a member of Team Ooh, Shiny - centered in the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Group Group.  I shall be competing in the Events WIPs Dancing and Aerial Unwind.

In the WIPs Dancing event, I plan to finish my Knotty Gloves.  I have less than half a glove to go to complete the pair.  I just have to figure out where I left off.  In preparation for this event, I will be tinking back a few rows to try and find an amicable starting place to carry on to completion.

In the Aerial Unwind event, I will be frogging my Monkey Socks.  I have one completed and one commenced.  Having learned quite a lot about knitting -- in particular, sock knitting -- since I started these, I realize they just don't work.  I will be sad to unwind them.  However, this yarn should have been knit at a tighter gauge.  As knit, these will be loosy-goosy on me and will not wear well.  More importantly, because they will be loose, I will not wear them.  I haven't figured out a new purpose for this yarn, one of my first attempts at dyeing yarn.  That decision will have to wait, so that I can accomplish the other tasks I have set before me.

For my second team, Team HAP, I will be crocheting together at least two afghan sets to be sent to our Wounded Warriors.  I'm hoping to do three, but have set two as my goal.  Given the other things I want to accomplish, three may be pushing it!  The third will be done before the March Put-Together Event but, most likely, not by the end of the Olympics.  They will be sent off to be washed, packaged and mailed to wounded soldiers, along with the afghans of others in the group.

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Starting tomorrow, cooking and cleaning will be taking a back seat to Olympics Watching, Knitting and Crocheting, as athletes from around the world - in the sports world and the fiber world - strive to do their best and gain the coveted medals of glory!