Preparing for the Knitting Olympics

Ravelry is amazing.

I knew I'd done a few mods for the Tangled Yoke Cardigan (Ravelry link) when I made it the first time. I remember that I needn't have elongated the sleeves, however, I didn't remember the other mods I made on the sweater. So I looked the project up on Ravelry.



The plethora of information and its importance is amazing. :) In order to complete this project, I think the important thing is to avoid the snags. The pattern is pretty well written, but I remember making notes as to which rows I needed to increase or decrease on, and I think that prep work will make the whole sweater kind of of fly - which is exactly what it's going to need to do in order to get done by the end of the olympics. It seems like the only major mod is adding a full inch to the ribbing at the bottom, which will be fine and simple.

The yarn comes in balls, which is awesome because it means I don't have to wind up all the balls before I start on Friday. I also bought some buttons for some Hoots (Ravelry Link) I made last year that don't fit the hoots. I'm contemplating using them for the sweater. They're simple white abalone buttons. I might head over to M&J on Wednesday to see if they have another button I'd like to use. I'm thinking of using a kahki version of the buttons I used for the last TYC might be nice (I really liked those buttons).

So, I'm feeling pretty well prepared. Everything's all ready to go after I copy the pattern and make notations.

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So I'm viewing this weekend as the trials.

I've got a bit more than half a sock left to go in these Spiral Sparkly Boot Socks from Interweave's Summer 2007 issue. I found that the chart for the instep is written totally backwards and makes the spiral go in the opposite direction. No one had noted this in their notes, which I was pretty surprised about. So I made a comment on the main pattern page on Ravelry and noted it down on my project page. Those kinds of things are so frustrating. There wasn't any errata or anything! I had to rip back 3"! Other than that, the pattern is fun and flies pretty quickly, even though they're knee socks! I can't wait to wear them! It's been pretty cold here. I'm hoping that I can get them done this weekend - and with time at the accountant and the Superbowl, I think I'll be able to get that done.

Maybe then I'll have time to knit a new hat for winter before the Olympics...

Jasmine Frustration and Pause

I'm at the point where I'm breaking for the armholes. I've been kind of stuck for a bit. Not that I don't want to keep knitting it, just that I have a vision of how I want to knit it, and I'm having trouble translating that to English. :)

I wanted to knit it all in the round. Because let's face it, seaming sucks, and the more seaming that's involved, the less I really want to complete this project. So I started looking at ways to get it to work that way. The sleeves in the pattern, however, decrease at a different rate than the front and back. Also, there's that whole thing in the front with the eyelet trim of the button hole band. It just came to a lot of different instructions to process at the same time. So, I decided, I'm just going to knit it front and back from here on out. I've got a flight to Vegas tonight, and then one from Vegas back to JFK on Tuesday night. I'm hoping that with those 10 hours in the air that I might be able to finish it altogether.

I found some nice mother of pearl shell buttons at M&J this week when I was with Illana. Illana has already finished hers. I blame that on the fact that she knits at the speed of light and she was knitting a smaller size than me. I do kind of feel like this size of shirt is going to be massive, but we'll see. Oftentimes I think these things are too big and when I try them on they're either just right or a bit small.

So that's that. I took about a week to figure out if I wanted to knit it in the round or flat from the pits up. And now that I've decided, I just have to actually knit it.

Buttons!

So, I found the buttons I bought for the Tangled Yoke Cardigan!! They were in a pocket inside a zippered pocket of the new Jordana Paige bag my friend Victoria gave me! They were just hiding out there the whole time! I was so excited I think I yelled rather loudly and disruptively at The Point. Used to be I could yell like that when I got excited and Burhan or Rebecca or Sande would get excited and happy. I think Illana was happy, but that was about it. Here's what they look like:



So here's a happy little badge I created on Flickr that'll show you what's happened so far in April. Lots of new yarns added to the stash, lots of traveling, and even more knitting. For any of the photos that you like, click on them to check them out closer. I've added most of these to Ravelry (the yarn related ones anyway).

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing public items from happyskrappy tagged with APRIL08. Make your own badge here.

ETA: I can't get that damn badge to show up...so just click on the damn buttons above it. GRR! Why won't the flash work with blogger! I have another one of these things on the sidebar! It should work!!

So tonight I met up with Illana (She's Illana on Ravelry) at The Point. It was exactly what I needed after a whole day of running around answering crazy emails and getting ready for Comic-Con.

I finished the tangled part of the Tangled Yoke Cardigan and I only have a few more inches of stockinette to do with some short rows for the back of the neck and then another inch or so of garter rib and then I can start on the button band!