yarntherapy

closing ceremonies!

Well, there were no flying snowboarders or torch-bearing brides or Avril Lavigne, but we had a darn fine time anyway!

Here we are - Team Wicked, knitting division:

L-R: Me, in my Grecian Plait, Gayle with her adorable self-designed child's sweater, and Megan in her Lace Leaf pullover.  Don't you love how we all have the same crazy eyes and insane smile? Knitting under pressure will do that to a girl!

Gayle:

She designed this herself, people! The original plan was to do the flower in intarsia, but we all agree that the applique version is much cuter. The flower has a real sense of motion and life! It was made for her 6 year old niece, and the yarn is the prettiest raspberry sherbet color of Lamb's Pride.

The lovely Megan:

Could she be any cuter? Megan zipped through her sweater - though she found a mistake in the pattern, which tells you to bind off both top and bottom even though they get grafted together. (Why isn't this listed as an error on the Loop D Loop site?) She had to undo the bind off and then graft - and man, the grafting she did is amazing - totally invisible. I definitely want to make this sweater too, I hope my kitchener skills are up to the challenge!

We had an auxiliary member in the crochet division - here's Michael with the HUGE afghan he whipped out in a mere 16 days!

Sorry about the crap photo - I didn't have my camera that day, so this was taken with my PDA. The colors are actually really rich - browns, maroons, navy. It's really cushy and warm, and seems to have found a home in the Derrick's dressing room, though I want to steal it for my guys since the colors match their room better. Derrick would probably kill me, though.

I have to say again that one of the funnest parts of this has been the reaction and support of everyone at work! I'm not sure they quite understood that there were actually 4000+ knitters out there doing the same challenge, but everyone was really into what we were doing and were really happy that we all finished on time! Yesterday was fun, I did manage to find a camisole so I wore the sweater to work and fielded many compliments. It's very soft and fuzzy, very 50's pinup. The yarn (GGH Soft Kid) is wearing well so far -  no pilling or stretching at all. I didn't bother blocking, so I don't know how it will react to water yet.

After work we headed over for drinks and herb fried calamari (yum!) and impressed the heck out of the waitress with our knitting skills.

All in all, a really fun, challenging, satisfying experience! The most important thing I think I learned is how to milk every spare moment for knitting. I did a LOT of knitting on the train. I get a nice undisturbed 30 minutes each way, and since I don't usually travel at rush hour, it's never too crowded to pull out the knitting. I also learned the importance of not putting off finishing - I had a deadline so I wasn't tempted to put the pieces aside after knitting them. Seaming really isn't that bad, and it's so much more satisfying to just DO it and have a finished sweater!

See you in Vancouver? Or maybe Beijing? :-)

and... she sticks the landing!

Look! I did it! One sweater in 15 days!

I did some of my seaming on the train this morning (people look at you really funny when you have the sewing needle out) and the rest during the matinee and at dinner. I wasn't sure what to do for the trim at the underbust, then I saw the cute variegated yarn that Gayle is using to trim her sweater with - Tahki Spumoni -

and hey! it just happened to work beautifully with my sweater. So being a good teammate, she gave me a couple of yards which I braided with two strands of my mohair (the braiding was possibly the most annoying part of this whole process - mohair sticking to everything). It looks really cute, just a nice subtle accent.

Unfortunately there won't be any pictures of me actually in the sweater until I find a camisole that I can wear underneath since it's totally see-thru. Oops.

Team Wicked has done splendidly! Michael finished his (gigantic!) afghan today and it's oh so cozy and warm - he's already had two people commission him to make them one. Megan finished grafting her Lace Leaf sweater and will be putting the sleeves on tonight. Gayle's sweater for her niece is the cutest thing ever - wait 'til you see it! She's still weaving ends and appliqueing and figuring out a neckline.

So - we all finished! Gold medals all around! It was very cute at work today - as Gayle put it, we were really feeling the support from the fans - everyone kept checking up on us and asking us how we were doing and cheering us as we progressed (well, then there were the few that think we're just nuts. But we love them anyway.) There will be many pictures tomorrow, and our own closing ceremonies after work that will probably involve several glasses of red wine and some calamari. Yum!

A couple of Olympic observations -

Clara Hughes is quite possibly the most adorable gold medalist ever - I thought her face would break from smiling on the podium!

Joey Cheek freaking rocks - good for Team USA for electing him to carry the flag.

And - couldn't be happier to see Apolo Ohno win tonight. Nice job, classy guy!

I think I can I think I can I think I can

I bound off the second sleeve yesterday - here's my very last stitch:

I seamed one sleeve last night so I need to really get my act together today to get this thing done! I've never set in a sleeve in a knitted garment and I'm not looking forward to it.  Seaming mohair is a pain in the ass but thankfully the fuzziness makes it pretty forgiving.

I was pretty much on schedule, but I had planned to get much more knitting done yesterday than I did - I wound up working when I usually have Friday afternoons off so I didn't have the nice long stretch of knitting time I thought I would have.

I should say that my "schedule" consisted of the fleeting thought "Hmm, I should probably have the front and back done by Monday, the sleeves done by Friday so I can finish over the weekend". Some people actually made spreadsheets! I bow down to the awesomeness of that obsessive nature!

One thing that I've been slightly disappointed about with this project is that all the knitting has seriously cut into my blog reading time! I haven't been able to keep up with everyone elses's progress - I look forward to surfing around on Monday to see how people did!

knitting and skating...

I really really hate Monday holidays. While the rest of the world gets a three-day weekend, Monday is always my day off (my only day off) so when I need to do things like, oh, go to the bank.....it's a problem. It also means that when I can't do any of my errands downtown because of the stupid holiday and I decide to have a little fun shopping at Target, I get there to discover that every. single. person. in. the. world is there. And their kids. What a mess. Why were they all there yesterday? They had all weekend to shop! Did that many people feel the need to buy an $80 TV? That was the only thing I could see that seemed to be a special sale. Gah.

On the bright side, they did have the whole Luella Bartley collection, pretty much untouched. I'm so psyched about the Go International collections - TopShop in Britain has been doing it for years - they have top designers do limited edition collections which are sold at high street prices. I like the Luella stuff, though it's a bit 80's as a whole. Some cute individual pieces - I didn't try anything on since it was such a madhouse, but I'll try to get over there next week. I can't wait to see who the next designer is!

I'm doing OK with the Olympic knitting - front & back are done and seamed at the shoulders. I have about an inch of the sleeves done (I'm doing both at once). I should have gotten more knitting done yesterday, but it's actually really hard to knit while watching the Olympics - the yarn is too fine for me to knit by touch so I have to look at what I'm doing, and there was way too much drama with the ice dancing not to watch (the falls! the icy stares! the hideous costumes!)

I did enjoy the men's long, and I'm pleased with the results. Cute little Jeffrey Buttle looked so pleased on the podium, and Evan Lysacek was really amazing. I love both of his programs so much - I hope he medals at Worlds. I still love me some Johnny Weir - he's getting a lot of bad press for supposedly blaming his missing the bus for his poor skate, but that's not how I read it at all. I think he's really self-aware and knows that he let the situation get to him. Hopefully he'll kick some ass at Worlds as well.

I'm really enjoying Olympic Ice on the USA Network - when it first popped up on my Tivo list I rolled my eyes - did we really need more coverage of ice skating? But it's really fun and informative - Mary Carillo, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier talk about what's going on in the figure skating competitions, what to expect and what has already happened. They can be quite critical and objective, which is very intersting to see. They're also having an absolute ball, you can tell. David in particular is hilarious. Who knew?

thank god for the knitting...

...because I had a crapalicious day yesterday.

The snow is melting so it's really wet everywhere and you get ice cold water down your neck when you walk under fire escapes.

I'm fighting a cold *and* I'm PMSy.

Jewelry class was really frustrating - I like my teacher, I really do, but she's so disorganized and she's always late and she gives a lot of conflicting information. Yesterday was particularly bad when she spent half an hour with the two people who had missed last week's class, leaving the rest of us to sit on our hands until she would allow us to use the torches......my crappy mood didn't help at all.

The weird smell at work is still there.

My skater boys Matt Savoie, Evan Lysacek, and Jeffrey Buttle all fell :-(

And it was freaking Valentine's Day. I wanted to take an Addi Turbo and pop every freaking heart shaped Mylar balloon I saw.

I just got an obscene phone call. Nice.

Ugh.

On the brighter side (there must be one!), the sky is blue and pretty, Evgeny Plushenko and Johnny Weir both kicked ass (god, how I love Johnny Weir), I managed to stay totally unspoiled about the Olympic results until I got home to watch last night (Ted Ligety! Woo!), and of course, there's always the knitting.

Which is going OK. I'm nearly done with the back, I hope to start the front today. I think I'm on schedule. I'm terrible at estimating how much time I need to finish a project.

More Knitting Olympic sightings: Time Magazine, and Apartment Therapy!

snow day!

Here's what it looked like in the park today -

"Snow Angels in the Outfield":

It's pretty, I'll admit. But there's just so. much. snow. It's going to melt and be so ugly around here - wet and messy.  I need to get some better boots -  I was reduced to wearing plastic bags on my feet inside my  leaky rainboots! I felt like the little match girl....

I'm really enjoying the Olympics, both here and in Torino. I was completely charmed by Shaun White, the gold medalist in snowboard halfpipe - he's totally the missing Weasley!

Tonight's pairs figure skating was really captivating as well, more so than I expected.  No big shock for the Russians to win, they're so flawless; but all three Chinese pairs really  made an impact (no pun intended!) - even Pang & Tong were really fun to watch after their shaky start.

Ooh, I can't wait for the men's competition to start!

Knitting Olympic progress report:

I'm well into the back of my entry:

So far, so good. I had a slight bobble on the last row of the pattern stitch - I lost a stitch somewhere, but I couldn't find it - I think I may have accidentally knit two together. I just did a make one at the point where the stitch went missing and it doesn't show at all.

I am surprised to say that I am quite enjoying knitting with this yarn! It definitely likes to stick to itself, but so far I haven't had to rip out more than a few stitches, so that hasn't bothered me. It's actually a plus when you get to the end of a ball of yarn - the yarn stays neatly wrapped instead of falling apart and getting all tangled up and knotty (I'm looking at you, Austermann Mayfair. Grr.) It's also nice that it's so lightweight and easy to tote around with me.

Megan is cranking on her Lace Leaf sweater (which I still haven't seen!) but she's a little annoyed by the fact that you have to knit the sleeves separately since they're both different - she's a two-sleeves-on-a-needle kind of gal. I usually do them separately since I hate having two balls of yarn that could get tangled, but I'll probably do mine at the same time for my Olympic sweater. Anything to make it go faster!

Gayle may be in a bit of a Michelle Kwan situation, having re-injured her sore shoulder. She's having to take the knitting slowly, but in true Olympic spirit she will do her very best, whatever that may be!

I blame the groundhog.

Let the Games begin!

So here I am watching my Tivo'd opening ceremonies from Torino. I think I've mentioned what a sucker I am for this stuff. I love the goofy entertainment, the solemn moments, the cute child singing the national anthem. I particularly adore the Parade of Nations - the wee little countries, the big huge ones, the silly outfits, the girls wearing the alpine evening gowns.

However.

Can we please talk about the music accompanying the athletes? WTF is up with the disco hits of the 70s and 80s? What on earth does Chic's "Le Freak" have to do with Italy, or winter, or any kind of sport?

Dear God, it's the Buggles. "Video Killed the Radio Star". And the Mongolian team. I am so confused.

My brother was thoroughly sick of Greek folk music by the end of Athens, but I think he'd probably have gouged his eyes out if he had to listen to this stuff for any length of time.

Anyway, knitting! Gayle came over and while we spent most of the time talking and eating Chinese food, there was some casting on and knitting that took place!

This is the big moment -

My mohair, Gayle with her needles, and Megan on the phone!

We then setteled down on my couch and knit while listening to Cast-on - Gayle's first podcast! Here's Gayle boogying to Brenda's awesome music selection -

She's knitting for her niece - the yarn is Lamb's Pride in the prettiest shade of pink.

Start of my cast on:

Love the Denise needles for mohair. They're also great for this project since the pattern stitch needs two different sizes (I'm using 7 & 11) and since I am a circular needle kind of girl, Denise was the only way to go.

Got to work and checked on the rest of Team Wicked - Michael is crocheting an afghan:

Speedy fingers!

I didn't get to see Megan's Lace Leaf prgress but I am assured that she is knitting like a fiend.

And here's where I am - about three inches of the back done. So far so good, but I definitely need to pay attention. The mohair can be tricky, and the stitches that were purled on the big needle want to slide right off the smaller one!

Later, everyone! Hope you're all having fun!

so. excited.

Woo! I can't wait until 2:00!

I have my yarn all nicely lined up, my Denise case sitting there patiently, and my fingers are very antsy to begin!

I was hoping to have Tubey finished so I could wear it for the big cast-on, but I got a little bogged down last week deciding on stripe placement. I'm just winging it, holding it up to my body every once in a while to see if it makes me look fat :-)

I don't think I have any handknits to wear - I have a pile of handwashing to do and my kitchen sink is broken! Wait, maybe I have my old Retroprep sweater  - I'll have to check.

Gayle is coming over for casting on and Chinese food, with Megan joining us on the speakerphone. We have an auxiliary member to Team Wicked on the crochet side - Michael, who will be attempting an afghan. He is an amazing craftsperson - he quilts, he crochets, and he bakes amazing cakes and cookies! yay Michael!

many many pictures to follow.....

Training update

Training is well underway here at Team Wicked. My swatching went well, but I suffered a slight cross-training injury yesterday when I sliced my left index finger with a jeweler's saw in class (note to self - keep your damn fingers behind the blade!) It bled like crazy but didn't hurt too much, and considering how much my hands get banged up at work, this is nothing. I would like to take a moment here, though, to plug the best bandaids (er......"adhesive bandages") on the planet - 3M Nexcare Waterproof Bandages - they stick like crazy without getting all gummy, and they do. not. budge. They're great for those blisters you get from new shoes, and they are seriously waterproof - I once had  a pedicure complete with foot soaking and scrubbing and the bandage on my heel stayed put until I took it off a few hours later!

Anyway, I think I'll be fine. Gayle has also been on the injured list with some shoulder pain, but she's back in training with a vengeance - she's designing her own pattern! She does awesome color work - I can't wait to see what she's come up with - it's a child's sweater for her nephew (or niece? I'm not sure!) And Megan returned from her vacation raring to go, having scored a bargain on yarn for her Lace Leaf Pullover.  Woo!

Go Team Wicked!

(I had fantasies of designing a cute logo for us but.....that didn't happen. Just make one up in your head!)