Ravelympics Day 1: Where's My Porridge?

I feel like frickin' Goldilocks!!!



My bag was packed, I was ready to knit...and knit I did! I only looked up from my work during dramatic moments in the opening ceremony...kd Lang's glorious version of "Hallelujah" and the mechanical malfunction. Couldn't they have crushed up a few of those little blue pills and poured them in the mechanism to get that thing to...rise...??? I knit about 11" of my scarf with the old, old yarn. Then I put it down and went to bed for the night.

I got up this morning all excited to photograph my amazing progress...until I picked up my knitting. Ugh...it all came back to me...why this yarn had been frogged from a sweater I made with it and hated, tossed into a grocery bag with nothing more than a label with the needles recommended for gauge (#8) and crammed into the bottom of one of my stash bins.

The yarn looks lovely and blue in the ball...kind of like faded denim once knit. The colorful, shiny slubs help somewhat, but it just doesn't look as good once knit. Worse...if you knit with the recommended needles, size 8, the knitting is heavy and hard as a rock, with no drape. This is a scarf...I NEED drape!!! It was also so tight that the yarnovers were pretty much invisible.

I photographed my work, made coffee and headed off to read the paper and stew about this a while.



After much stewing, breakfast, and a shower, I got out bigger needles, size 13, grabbed another ball from the knitting bag and started knitting. This was much better, nice drape, but the yarnovers were too big, so I frogged again. I got a pair of 11s and tried again...SUCCESS!!! As Goldilocks would say, "It was just right!" Nice drape, visible but not honkin' big yarnovers...even the color looks nicer. I reknit about 6" of the scarf before having to head off to other things, and I'll be a much happier knitter for my troubles. Granted, it will probably be the world's widest scarf, but a scarf with nice drape it will be. It won't weigh my shoulders down to wear it. YAY!!!!

If any folks from Columbus, Ohio, are reading and looking for something fun to do tonight between 8pm and midnight...come on out to the India Oak and catch my husband's band, The Subterraneans. Great obscure and not-so-obscure rock covers, and a lot of fun at a neighborhood bar with fabulous subs and chili. No...I won't be doing any knitting tonight...but if I remember my camera, I will post pictures.

No, I haven't been buried in the snow...not quite, at least

Color me embarrassed for letting my brand new blog sit idle for an entire week. It's not that I've been swamped with other activities. Ok...Tuesday...I went to the grocery at 6:30am to buy stuff to make vegetable beef soup (my husband's Hungarian grandmother's recipe), came home, cleaned the house, including vacuuming and mopping, did 7 loads of laundry, made the soup (one hour just chopping vegetables!), and shoveled the front porch, driveway and sidewalk and cleaned off the car after the five MORE inches of snow we got on top of the ten inches that fell a week ago. Yeah...not much time for blogging that day, though I did finish the Knit Picks Sideways Hat and wore it outside for the snow shoveling - it kept me toasty warm!!!

Saturday morning, my husband and I went out to dig out from that first ten inches. Here are a few fun pics of me, sweet Wilbur, and my bodacious snow angel.







Also on Saturday, I finished the Pretty Thing. It ended up being both too long and too wide to be a true neckwarmer thingie, but it folded over nicely into a cute little collar. Good thing, too, because I hated knitting this thing. Don't know why...it wasn't difficult, I liked the yarn I was working with...it just didn't click for me. The very cool thing is it perfectly matches three cotton sweaters that I never wear. It's like they've been hanging out in the closet just crying out for that little knitted lace collar to go with them. Gotta love it!!!

Since I'm new to this blogging thing and haven't figured out all the ins and outs and etiquettes, I want to thank Jo Ann from JoKnitWits Funky Life for stopping by to comment. Hope you and that gorgeous Sawyer boy are doing great!!!

And...since I know he pops in here to read about what I'm doing now that I don't talk yarn with him as much anymore, here's a shoutout to my beloved hubby, Pete. His birthday was Monday, and we celebrated very low-key this year, but that doesn't mean that he isn't the light of my life, the parmesan on my spaghetti and the catalyst for every good and wonderful thing that has happened to me since the day we met. Happy birthday, sweetie, I loves ya!!!!

Tonight I will be casting on for my first ever Ravelympics. I'll be competing with Team Knitgang in the Scarf Super G and the Stash Compulsory Dance, making a lovely lace scarf using yarn that has been in my stash since about 1985 (really!!!!).

So...what's on YOUR needles?????