Meh

I am not happy.

I can't sleep because my left eye hurts. It feels as if a tiny little needle was scratching it. Not pleasant.

So I'm leaving in a week and I still don't know what I'm going to knit during the trip. I had decided on the Montego Bay scarf. I even wound the yarn tonight. But now I can't find the damn magazine. All my magazines are in my closet, but the one I need isn't there and I have no idea where it could be.

Maybe I'll just bring sock yarn.

I did it!

I managed to knit two pairs of socks during the Olympics! Scroll down to my last post for the first pair.

For the second pair, I had first planned on making the Lace cuffed socks, by Veronik Avery. But I ended up disliking it in the purple yarn so I changed patterns.

I chose another pattern from the Steppin' Out booklet, the Lace and Diamond Socks, by Mona Schmidt. I finished them this morning.



I love them! I used some Regia yarn that I had in my stash. I shortened the cuff a little (I did 4 lace repeats instead of 6).

I have knit 4 pairs of socks this summer, which means I only have one more pair to knit before I can buy more sock yarn. I don't feel like knitting socks right now though. I'm feeling the urge to work on some old projects. I've picked my woven cables scarf back up this afternoon and I've been working on it. I want to finish it before winter comes, you know...

According to my widget, I'll be in a plane in exactly 9 days 22 hours 6 minutes and 23 seconds. I can't wait!

Olympic update!

As expected, Canada has waited until the second week of the Olympics to win medals (I'm watching the men sing the Canadian national anthem after winning the goal in rowing as I type this). And as expected, I'm going to have to do a knitting sprint to reach my Olympic goal.

The good news is that I finished the first pair.



Pattern:Twist and Cable socks by Veronik Avery
Yarn: Basic Regia sock yarn
Needles: 2.25 mm dpns
Modifications: I made the cuffs a bit shorter

I love love love the socks!

I cast on for the second pair this morning. I'm making another Veronik Avery pattern, the Lace cuffed socks, and I'm once again using Regia. It's going pretty quickly so far, and since the foot is all stockinette, it should go faster than the Twist and Cable. Maybe I'll make it...

Olympic report - Day 2

It is now day 2 of the Olympics! Last Thursday, I finished the sorta-SOS08 socks:



Pattern: Summer 2008 socks by Wendy Johnson.
Yarn: Fleece Artist Sea Wool
Needles: 2.25 bamboo dpns
Modifications: The pattern is toe-up and I wanted to make them cuff-down so I pretty much only used the stitch pattern with my regular sock pattern. The lace part is very stretchy so I had to reduce the number of stitches (from 66 to 50) or it would have been huge!

On Friday morning, as I watched the Canadian athletes enter the stadium in Beijing, I cast on for my first Olympic sock. I'm using Veronik Avery's Twist and Cables socks pattern. The yarn is your basic Regia sock yarn. Here's where I am today:



I'm hoping to turn the heel tonight and to finish the first sock tomorrow. We'll see how it goes...

Olympian in training

I finally finished the first SOS08 sock:



The pattern is Wendy's Summer of Socks 08 pattern... heavily modified. I wanted to make it cuff down instead of toe-up so I did. I also had to play with the number of stitches because the stitch pattern is very stretchy and the sock was way too big at first. Basically, the only thing I took from the pattern was the stitch pattern. I made the heel and toe my way too. I love the result.

I'm using sock #2 to train for the Ravelympics. Yeah, I couldn't resist joining, even though I don't have much hope of reaching my goal. I actually want to try to knit two pairs of socks during the Olympics, which is doable for many, but it will be difficult for me.

I cast on for sock #2 last night and my goal is to finish it before the opening ceremony. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, the whole knitting community is going crazy for the Twist Collective, and with reason. So that's where all the Montreal designers have gone!!! I think it's a brilliant idea for a magazine/catalogue. It's good for the designers because they get paid for their work and it's good for knitters because we get quality patterns in each issue AND we only have to pay for the ones we want to make. Perfect. I haven't bought anything from the premiere issue because I have too much on my plate but I'm sure I will in the future. I just need to be disciplined and only buy when I'm ready to knit the pattern.

Ok, back to Ravelympic training. Good luck to everyone who joined!