Gold medal

Is this not cool? It's from the Yarn Harlot's blog. She started this whole Knitting Olympics thing.

Mmmm... more yarn!

In today's mail:
The pattern & yarn for a felted Fair Isle bag. Yarn is Cascade 220 #9467 delphinium, and Noro Kureyon 156.













Jamieson & Smith cobweb in peach, for the Sampler Stole in A Gathering of Lace. There's a knitalong for this project.











Taking a break from my Jaywalkers, and overcome by curiosity, I started the Mystery Shawl 3. The yarn is JaggerSpun Zephyr, in Peacock. US 6 needles. The Major (otherwise known as husband) came home & said, "NOW what are you knitting? You were making socks yesterday." I said, "Sometimes we need a little variety in our knitting." He just doesn't understand.

Here she is!

The princess & her Rogue:




















Now I can go back to the Jaywalkers I abandoned 2 weeks ago. I'm almost done with the legs. They're fraternal twins, as I forgot to make sure there was the same amount of yellow in the beginning of each ball of yarn. And since so many people have had trouble with the fit of this sock, I figured I might have to rip them out, anyway, so I didn't go back & make them match. The yarn is Opal Rodeo #1153.

Finally fixed my issues with getting pictures from the camera to the computer. It was such a pain to plug in the cable & power cord (to save camera batteries), turn on the camera, and hope the wizard would work to download the pics. I was only having guaranteed success when I restarted my computer in Selective Startup, without the Startup Group items. What a pain. Well, for about $20 I got a card reader at Wal-Mart. It's about the size of a jump drive. I put my camera's card in it, plug it into the USB port, and move the pictures off the card and onto the computer. Worth every penny.
So, here's the hood and a partial sleeve. I'm actually almost done with the second sleeve, which means the end is in sight! Whew ~ this may be the most concentrated effort I've ever made on a knitting project. It's good to know I can make a sweater in about 2 weeks, that I can work on a single project from start to finish without being distracted by others. But it hasn't been easy! I think I've gone a little crazy the last few days, ordering yarn (not that there isn't a huge stash here already...). I have joined Eunny Jang's Sampler Stole KAL and ordered yarn for it. Then I decided to take a leap and try the Fair Isle Sampler hat (Interweave Knits Winter 2004), so I had to order the yarn for that. And I joined the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock Club, and this morning I ordered a mitten kit and the yarn for the Fair Isle bag in Interweave Knits Summer 2004, from Nordic Fiber Arts.
Somebody stop me! Oh, that would be me. I have to stop myself. I think I'll have to live to 100 to knit all the yarn I've accumulated.

All Rogue, all the time

Progress on the Rogue:
I started the hood last night, finished the 6th skein of yarn and started the 7th. That means I'm more than 50% finished. Actually, because of modifications (no pocket, 2" shorter in the body) I should have more yarn than I really needed.

I corralled the kid long enough to try it on her and snap a picture or two. Unfortunately, the other one was blurry.

Knitting Olympics Day 6

Well, I got off to a good start on my daughter's Rogue. I have 12 sk. of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, so I figured I'd be ahead of the game if I could knit at least one skein per day. That worked for a few days, but I have not yet finished skein #5, and I should be on skein 6 today!
This picture shows the first day's progress, at the end of the 1st skein of yarn. The blue is the provisional cast-on, followed by the hem facing (I did straight stockinette, rather than twisted stockinette or k1p1 rib), the turning row, and the beginning of one of the side cables.

This next one was taken at the end of the 2nd skein. I removed the provisional cast-on, put those stitches on a needle, turned up the hem and knit a body stitch together with a hem stitch all the way around on round 12 of the body (there were actually 8 more stitches in the body than in the hem at this point, so I just knit 4 stitches in each of the side cables without attaching hem stitches to them).

Swatching

Ready for the Knitting Olympics to start tomorrow. Here's my swatch for Rogue -- Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Fern. I'll be putting aside my Jaywalkers (almost done with the legs, doing both at once on a long circular), the Pink Ladder socks (finished one, haven't started the 2nd -- these socks involve 2 colors of yarn, and I think I'd wind up completely tangled if I tried doing both at once). I was also going to try to finish another long-languishing project, which I would have occasion to wear approximately once a year; this year's occasion falls on Feb. 25th, so if the thing had a chance of being finished, that chance ends at about 2 p.m. local time tomorrow (cast-on time for Olympic knitting).