Thank you, Secret Pal!

What an awesome package! Check out the catwoman card - meow! Then there's the latest Knit It magazine, which I stayed up late last night oggling over. (Don't tell my Knitting Olympics project, but I cast on for the hat on p. 90. I know, I know. I was weak.) And what about the chocolate! CHOCOLATE! Yay! I love the dark green rectangular plate and little soy sauce bowl. Sushi, anyone? It's taking all the discipline I can muster to keep from diving into the fair isle hat kit on the right. I did do a meet and greet with the yarns though. They're Norwegian and very pleasant. I hope they don't mind waiting for me to cross the finish line with the ribbed sweater. So thank you Thank You THANK YOU to my lovely secret pal!

The Olympic sweater is progressing, though at 361 stitches across currently (it's knit in one piece, so that's from sleeve cuff to sleeve cuff), you can see why progress is slow. I am only at the halfway point now, with just five days left. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to finish in time *sigh* but I will finish - eventually...

Olympics: Days 1 and 2

Here are my constant companions for the duration of the games:


Project: Ribbed Sweater
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton
Color: 201
Needles: Addi Turbo 40" circular
Sizes: 0/2.0mm (edges) and 1/2.5mm (body) (It sucks being a loose knitter!)

Progress:


The olympic sweater is at 5.5 inches so far. I've used up just about one ball of yarn. We got about 8 inches of snow last night, so here's the sweater admiring the scenery.

Oh oh oh look at this!!!

A Valentine prezzie from Bethiee! I've eaten almost all of it...you know, to keep my strength up for endurance knitting...and if you buy that, I've got a bridge to sell you - cheap!

Baby Steps

The blue baby sweater has a collar and buttons:


It just needs to be blocked. The pattern was a little vague on the neck/button band. It went something like "pick up approx. 120 stitches, knit, make button holes and bind off." Does that mean garter stitch?? Do the holes go right up to the cast off edge?? I wasn't really sure, but the photo looked like the band was in rib, so I guessed rib and sort of improvised. I really should have picked up more stitches, since 1x1 rib makes such a compact fabric. Oh well..it's a little sloppy-looking, but good enough.

Still no head on the rabbit, but I've started the brim for the Kersti Hat. And I've also started another baby pullover, only this time one size larger (3-6 months) and with crazy bright yarn. I've got the front and back going at the same time:


I found some matching sparkly buttons at Michaels, which I can't wait to sew on. Yay, sparkles!

And now, to prove my decent into lunacy, I've joined the Knitting Olympics. I will try to make a ribbed sweater in 16 days. I've never made an adult-sized sweater before, let alone with any time pressure, hence the Olympic-nature of this feat, at least for me. I've decided to knit for the beleaguered (and imaginary) nation of Petoria. I would have knit for the Grand Duchy of Robonia, in honor of the spunky fembot Coilette:

but sadly they only take machine knitters :)