Hatlympics Gold!

Sadly, the Olympics are now over, and with them, Knitlympics also comes to an end. I earned a gold medal this year: in addition to the Opening Ceremonies hat, I knit 16 chemo caps — a hat for every day of the Olympic games! Furthermore, I knit them all between the time the torch was first lit and when it was extinguished. I had a lot of odds-and-ends fuzzy yarn in my stash, which made some excellent caps. The stash is actually starting to look a little smaller.

After the Olympics ended, I was a little at a loss both with what to do with my time and with what to knit. I ended up watching a show about “Killer Lakes” (which was totally horrible and fascinating; you can look up “lake inversion” to learn the gruesome details) and, of course, knitting another chemo cap (not pictured). When I turned in the chemo caps at the Special Yarn Store near me, I ended up buying a skein of yarn — but an acrylic/nylon sock yarn of all things! What was I thinking? I came home and dragged out all of my sock yarn and counted enough to knit 21 pairs of socks!  Since I was a bit tired of knitting only hats (and yet still finding myself casting them on when I wasn’t paying attention), I decided to pick out a sock pattern for every skein, to make my own version of a “sock of the month club”. Long story short, I’m in the middle of one totally sweet pair of socks! Other than a few basic socks I knit at first, my recent socks have all been on a deadline. I’ve picked out a variety of difficult and easy patterns for the skeins I have on hand, and I’m looking forward to taking my time and really enjoying the process for a while. At least they’re not hats!

Snow Knitting

It’s a blizzard here in the mid-Atlantic region! It’s great weather for sitting home knitting. I ventured out to get a snow “action shot”. It’s really coming down! The snow drift in our front yard (which I laid the knitting on) is over 2 feet high. In the minute it took me to lay out the hats and neck warmer then fumble for my camera, you can see how much snow collected on top of them. Our street has been plowed several times, but you can’t tell it. We shovelled a little earlier today, but that too seems to be moot compared to all the snow that’s on the ground now. And it’s still falling. Good thing I’ve got a lot of yarn and cocoa…

Speaking of yarn, I don’t know that it’s really worth mentioning, but it’s pretty clear that I’m not going to make my goal of knitting my entire stash this year. That was pretty clear in February. This year, however, unlike previous years, my stash did not increase. I knit a lot of good things that I probably wouldn’t have if I were just buying new yarn and knitting it. I finished several projects and got a lot further on a few more. All the knitting early in the year meant that my December wasn’t quite so hectic trying to finish up Christmas presents. (Some of my readers may see the above items again in the next week. The mystery for you, dear reader, is: will you get one of these? Will you get something else? The most beautiful things I’ve been knitting are not pictured above!)

Finally: the hats and neck warmer are each knit from a single ball of Noro Kureyon, using patterns from the 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders book that is my go-to guide for gifts. I adore the “New Directions Hat” pattern, and I modified the “Garter Stitch Loop Through Scarf” to account for a worsted-weight yarn (22 stitches at its widest instead of 32). I did go to the special yarn store three times lately, buying Noro yarn on two of the trips (and I wish I had bought another 2 balls) and finally turning in the bunch of chemo caps that I knitted throughout the year.

I hope we eventually get to leave our house! I hope to post again in the new year! And I hope that you, dear reader, have a happy holiday!

New Needles

I needed a new pair of size 2 needles for all these socks I’m doing. So I went to the Special Yarn Store and bought some needles:

I may have picked up a few other odds and ends while I was there, too. After all, if they’re having a sale on laceweight yarn, then it only makes sense to buy it while it’s on sale. And that dark grey sock yarn is an investment in my future. The “Sugar Rush” yarn was both on sale and very intriguing. It’s made of sugar cane! It’s super-shiny. And let’s just say that even on sale, I’m not willing to buy enough of it for a sweater!

LGM Complete!

The Lovely Green Masterpiece is finished! Here’s a photo of it, pre-blocking. It’ll take a few days to block it. (I’ll wet the shawl, pin it out larger, and let it dry for a few days.) Blocking makes the lace really show up better, but even now it’s lovely! I admit, Janella’s renewed determination to finish her shawl inspired me to keep knitting mine. Then the rounds got faster and faster, and then I was sewing up the hole in the middle!

Today was a great day for another reason: my best friend took me to buy yarn at a very special yarn store near us. It was my first time shopping there, but I was really impressed by the great selection. Plus, they were having a sale! It’s my new LYS (Local Yarn Shop)!

She bought me some extra-special birthday yarn, which is totally gorgeous and wonderful! Let’s just say, I’ll have another shawl, socks, and hats coming up. (But since it’s gift yarn, it doesn’t count as this year’s stash!) She’s too good to me.

Slow Going

This is the state of my “Frost Flowers Stole”. After two days, I’m on row 5. I had to modify the pattern so that I’m joining in the round after row 5 instead of row 4 because my needles have a funky join on one side that made my yarn not slide along well in one direction (which would have been the only direction I was knitting if I joined at row 4).

Speaking of needles, I have to give serious thanks to my Dear Husband for making a trip to the Special Yarn Store for me this weekend to get these! They are super-awesome. I was unsure at first, because they’re square instead of round (which is really weird to get used to), but I really like them. The cables are so nice and un-kinked. The funky join on the one side is probably only noticeable because I’m working with a laceweight yarn; it’s probably more to their credit that the other direction is so smooth. I’ve decided to buy all my needles from the Special Yarn Store from now on. Every set of needles I’ve gotten there has been worth the extra distance and price!

I also have special thanks for the departing co-worker who left me a set of beautiful shiny purple size 17 needles today. (But I am not at all thankful for the ball of blue acrylic yarn she also left me.)