Olympic progress

Olympic Sock Put Event
Once I got the correct size needles I moved forward fairly quickly. I'm not totally happy with the heel. I've changed the pattern for the second sock. I used Priscilla Gibson-Roberts short row heel. the way i read it, the knit stitch decreases were worked through the back loop. I don't like the look of that. It doesn't match the purl decreases. I may have that backwards. I fix it when I get to the second heel.

I have shown a close up of the lace pattern. The color repeats are very short. I was looking for something interesting, but easy. I love the feel of the Panda Cotton yarn.

Vest Vault Event
The Shy Sheep Vest event in the Vest Vault keeps growing. The picture shows the left front and the back to the edge of the right armhole. That means 13 sheep finished out of 20. I'm now up to 15 finished sheep. The edges will be tamed by green I-cord. I'm thinking about white buttons, because I have some I could use.

I will finish both events before the end of the Olympics. I will not be entering any events as a late substitute. I have been asked to redesign and write patterns for a local yarn company. I'm taking something designed by someone else which is selling yarn for the company and reworking them because the other designer changed her business plan to be unrealistic for the yarn company. I'll rework them to something similar, but different.

Still in the Race

I'm still in the Olympics race, but stumbling on the Sock Put. The first try was too wide. I needed the stitch count for the pattern to work. Now the width is right, but I've goofed up the pattern twice. Maybe now I can go forward without mistakes.

The Shy Sheep Vest is up to almost nine sheep out of 19(?). It's such fun to knit, but not as portable as socks.

My quilter daughter is thrilled. Her quilt is on the first page of the Benartex web site. www.benartex.com
Her name is Julie Pieri and the flower quilt is hers. They link to her website.

O is for...

I wasn't thinking about Olympic knitting, which also fits. I was thinking about old sweaters. The black sweater is at least 35 years old. I remember where I bought the yarn. Would you be surprised to hear that it is knit of wool? The pattern is a gansey type sweater published in Woman's Day magazine. They used to show a collection of sweaters with pattern available by mail. The sweater has always been a little big on me, but also fit my DH. It's like the favorite boyfriend sweater, its big, but still gets worn a lot.

The green sweater is a little younger, but I don't remember when I knit it. It's a simple raglan, also of wool. Its actual color is a light olive.

Pre-Olympic knitting grumble
Last week I picked up a hibernating Christmas present. The pattern is Harvest Cable socks from the Sock Guy. I finally finished the 2" of ribbing and started the pattern. It didn't fit the number of stitches given. The numbers appear correct for the woman's version. A Ravelry check showed only female socks. A 14 stitch repeat does not fit in 80 stitches. Rrriiippp!! Start again with 84 stitches, which is 6 repeats of the pattern. At the start of the Olympics, I was 1/2 way down the foot and running out of yarn. Retreat! I'll find some comparable yarn for the heels and toes and pick it up again after closing ceremonies.

Olympic knitting
After frogging CB's sock, I started my Shy Sheep Vest. We have sheep!

We also have socks. The swatch was knit in Aussi Sock Spanish Fiesta color. The color length is similar, as are the colors. I have lots of Aussi Sock. The Panda Cotton I'm using for the real sock is short yardage. Cotton weighs more than wool. The sock toe in the picture no longer exists. The stitch count was right for the pattern, but came out too wide. I've restarted with smaller needles. 2.5mm was too big, now the sock is on 2.25mm. It's an easy lace pattern, where the colors don't fight the pattern. I'm calling it "The Road to the Olympics" because it's not smooth and straight, but zigzags, both the stitch pattern and the colors.

It's county fair time

This morning, I judged needlework for the Cuyahoga County Fair. This is one of the larger fairs in Ohio. I judged crochet, knitting, rug hooking, and afghans, both crochet and knit.

Now that the Tour de Sox is finished, I was free to finish the July Mystery socks. The first sock was finished twice. If all fails, read the instructions. I had worked the ribbing, without the little band at the top. It looks better as the designer intended. The yarn is Opal, needles size US#0/2.0mm, worked at 10 st/in, so there was a lot of knitting. The heel is a little different, but I like it and will probably use it again.

I've been swatching for my Olympic socks. I'm in OlympicSocks 2008 and Ravelympics. I'm using Panda Cotton in the Fruit salad color. I'll be working toe up, so gauge isn't a issue at this point. I needed a pattern that would work with this color repeat, also I needed it to be simple because I'm also knitting a vest during the Olympics, the Shy Sheep Vest by Mabel Corbett. I have a kit. A gauge swatch will be knit before Friday morning. I really want this to fit.

Tour de Sox finish

I finished my 2nd Tour de Sox sock pair. I named them red jersey. This was a legal color according to to moderator, as it used to be a jersey color. I was a little short on jersey colors in my stash. The pattern is a 2x2 rib with a twist and the pattern is offset every 18 rows. I was happy to finish a full repeat of the pattern when I reached the length for the toe.

My brown ribbon sweater was worn to work earlier in the week. I had been told that it might grow, but didn't see any evidence by the end of the day.

Today was our knitting guild picnic. One member has a very nice home with lots of room and a swimming pool. She's a little way out in the country, but not hard to get to. Here's part of the group knitting on the deck.

We're slowly getting rid of bedroom furniture moved to the garage prior to remodeling. Three beds have gone to be slept on by grandchildren. Two dressers are claimed. The walls are finished and new electrical outlets and lights are installed, but woodwork still needs to be replaced and we have a little list of minor problems to be fixed. DH has notes he will place on each area we're unhappy with. We finally have mini-blinds in out bedroom. I refused to buy them until the window trim got painted. I didn't like the bedroom fishbowl look, but the blinds weren't going to be put up until the painting was done. I've become a fan of just in time purchases after so many things bought ahead were never installed. We took down traverse rods from the windows and are throwing away 2 unopened boxes of new traverse rods. His mom may have given them to us.

Some finished knitting and a birthday

The brown ribbon sweater is complete. The beading was done over 3 days, but it's finished now. You can't see it in the small picture, but there are beads around the neck and sleeves. The Yarn is Lion Brand Incredible, the pattern is Tiffany's Night Out.

I've also finished my Tour de Sox project. Yarn: Opal, needles US #1/2.25mm, design my own. I have explained the symbolism on previous posts.

I started a new Tour de Sox jersey, red this time. It will be much simpler, so it can be finished by the end of the week. It looked like this earlier today, but has 4" of leg now. The yarn is Aussi Sock from Oasis yarns.

The July mystery socks are finished through clue 3. The next and final clue comes out tomorrow.
These socks are also Opal, knit on US #0/2.0mm. The July challenge was microgauge, 10 st/inchin stockinette. These socks achieve this. I'm thinking that I'll finish the red socks before doing the legs on these. The deadline for July socks is August 31. They must be cast on before the end of July. The deadline, as I see it, for the Tour de Sox is Sunday, the end of the tour.

Our youngest grandson has turned one year old! A party was held! Our daughter's DH has done a lot of work to their back yard since we were there last. They're on a cul-de-sac, so they have a small front yard and a large back yard. A playground is the newest addition. Some of the buildings were in the family for a long time, but the swing set is new. Resident children are 1, 3, & 5.

I made WB a fleece hoodie. It's huge now, but he'll grow fast. It has little monkeys on it. His siblings loved the ones I made for them and his mom said it was a good gift. DD the quilter made him a fish quilt. The scales on the quilt are 3 dimensional. She did not design this one.

We were told that DS would come to the party as a zombie. It seems he crashed on his bike Saturday morning.He doesn't look too bad, but much of the damage is covered by clothing. This time it was equipment failure. He wasn't even racing, just riding with friends. His riding shoes clip into his pedals and the pedal part of the set up failed. The foot didn't stay put, affecting balance, and man meets road! Many scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious. He'll need a new helmet, but better that than a new head. He'll also be getting new pedals on this bike. A gift certificate to a bike store will help. He has other bikes. I don't know if he has another helmet.

One Yellow Jersey Sock is Finished

Knitting Progress

One Tour de Sox sock is finished. The second sock has 3 links of chain. Yes, I ran 2 of the patterns up into the ribbing area.

The brown sweater has one sleeve installed and part of the beading done. I took a couple of pictures of the neck beads, but they were blurry. I do have a picture of the bottom fringe.

I'll be working on the lavender mystery sock, so that I'll be ready for the next clue, due out tomorrow.

Flowers

We have some of the less common day lilies in flower now. It has rained so much, that the weeds have taken over. I worked on some of them today, clearing a space for my Mother's Day rose bush. Luckily, it was delivered in a nice pot. It took a while to decide where I wanted to put it. I'll see how clear I got the area in a couple of days. It may need more work before putting the rose in. The bush seems to be happy with all the rain. It has a couple of new blooms on it.

Nothing else exciting. Thursdays are my day off, so I ran errands most of the day, ending with the baseball game I wrote about. Today was sort of lazy. It rained again this morning, which made weed pulling easier. Housework, bike race watching (it was on TV), spending time with dog and DH made for a relaxing day.