The Closing Ceremonies...

The Ravelympics are officially over...well, they ended about 6 hours ago...lol I just now got the chance to put up the last picture:

Yes, I finished the Dark Mark Illusion Scarf! Yay! :) I decided to not put fringe on it, as it's for my brother, who is not a fringe-y person. LOL I have yet to figure out, though, why the marks aren't lined up....I followed the pattern, recounted the rows, and all things pointed to having done it correctly....Maybe one side is stitched looser than the other....*sigh* Oh well. Too late now! LOL It still looks decent. :) Now I can prepare and practice knitting for the sock kit swap! :D

Ravelympics update (Days 12-13)

I'm in a last minute scramble to get as many projects done in the Ravelympics as humanly possible! I don't really see the entries I have over halfway to go as getting done in time (before the Olympics' closing ceremonies on the 24th), especially since we're having a birthday "party" for C tomorrow afternoon. ("Party" is used very loosely here....just having a couple friends with kids come over and eating cake...that's it....lol) But in order to have that "party," I have to make up for all the cleaning I've not been doing to further my fiber racing.....the house is presently not a pretty picture....lol So I entered a few last-minute, quick and easy projects to get them done to say I did a higher number of things. I need that sense of accomplishment. LOL (I'm not driven.....) Anyway, here are the latest additions from my projects to cross the ravelry finish line:

Potholders:



Spider/web bookmark:

Speedy the Turtle:



I've never done amigurumi before, so I'm actually quite pleased with the end result of Speedy, even if I did accidentally make him a little front-heavy by my lack of planning on the head and leg placement....but I'm not too worried about it....judging from my boys' reactions, I'll be getting plenty of amigurumi practice in soon! Now my sole goal in the Ravelympics is to finish the Dark Mark Illusion scarf....if I can do that, I will be happy....

Ravelympics update (Days 6-11)

Well, it seemed to me that my progress had slowed significantly, but maybe that's not the case.....I still haven't gotten my hands on the colors I need to finish the WIP Wrestling entry for the afghan, which is very frustrating because I am so close to finishing it...but as Ravelry changed the rules of entering projects, I am now able to add whatever projects I want....so I've done a few more hats and made great progress on the dark Mark Illusion Scarf. :) (I'm also writing out the pattern for it based on the charts for the people that want to make it that either have issues with charts or would just rather use the written pattern.) So here's what I've finished since my last Ravelympics post:

A's "wizard" hat:

C's "wizard" hat:

The hat that swallowed my head:

A hat that actually FITS:



A kerchief for a Green Bay Packer fan friend:

And this is how far I've gotten on the Dark Mark Illusion Scarf:

I like doing the hats....they're quick and easy. In a way, though, it's kind of "cheating" for counting all the FO's (finished objects) for the Ravelympics because of how many more hats I'll be turning out than anything. I mean, they take a couple hours to make one, whereas it can take a couple of days to make an afghan. And I've been crocheting over knitting (I think the scarf is my only knit entry) because it goes faster. Nothing like playing the system, right? ;) I really want to finish this scarf soon.....today, if I can swing it....which means no gaming....oh well. I can wait another day to make level 51. Knitting and crocheting has jumped back into the front seat. :) Off to press toward the finish line with my scarf!

The Ravelympics!

So, for those of you that don't know, I'm also a part of a social networking site for knitters and crocheters. They're putting on this "competition" (it's really all more for fun....no prizes or anything...) in the spirit of the Olympics....we're allowed to start our projects when the opening ceremonies begin and are trying to see how many we can finish by the time the 17 days are up! I just signed up for something like 9 projects.....Yikes! I didn't realize it was that many until I counted them! LOL I'm pretty excited about it....I'll be posting them here as I complete them....this is going to be so fun!

In other news, since my last posting, I've finished not only the do-si-do lapghan for my mother-in-law and the snowflake scarf for a good friend, but started and completed the mentioned prayer blanket for a friend that lost her brother in a car accident, a prayer blanket for a son of a friend who is Jewish and in Iraq for the Army, a set of 6 book thongs, and a set of 4 daisy squares for charity! I've also started another 6-point-star for the wife of said Jewish soldier (who also happens to be stationed in Iraq for the Army) and a baby blanket for a fellow Cafemommer. Those two blankets and another granny square blanket are 3 of the projects on my Ravelympics, so I have to find something else to occupy me for the next 4 days....lol The blankets are in the WIPs wrestling category, seeing as how I started them a while ago, but I'm not supposed to continue work on them until the opening ceremonies, per Ravelympics rules. :) I guess I'd better go search my stash for the needed colors to do all the projects for the games! :)

Here I go again...

I decided to do another prayer blanket, but to use the colors I want, I have to finish my snowflake scarf and my MIL's lapghan....Well, I got to the point in the snowflake scarf where I'm on the last of 7 sections. I laid it out to take a picture for ravelry and noticed that it didn't line up! My perfectionist nature has kicked in again and I stopped because I'm actually debating on taking it apart to the point of error, which is 30 rows ago!!!! Ugh! I can't make my mind as to whether or not I'm going to let it be and just finish it (since I'm only 32 rows away)...Ha! Who am I kidding? Of course I'm going to take it apart! LOL But I don't think I'm going to do that today. I think, since I moved on to the next shade of blue and am done with the shade I need for my MIL's lapghan, that I'll finish that off first. I can't wait to be done with them! I'm so close!!!

Knitting Away

I have a disease. I learned how to knit, and now I’m going overboard! I’m not sure what it could be called….Knit-ersia? No, wait! I do know! It’s called “Addiction”! I am a yarn addict. I learned how to knit less than a week ago, and I’ve already got two knitting works in progress and have two small projects (three, if you count my first knitting attempt, which was nothing more than a little square) done! I did have three of the four projects going at once…oh yeah, plus the new crocheted one I started, so a maximum of four projects going simultaneously…

I started this scarf that I really love the colors to, but started it all super tight and have gradually relaxed my stitches a little bit so that it looks more natural, but now I can’t use it as a gift, because I’m anal like that. It’s not perfect. That means I have to either scrap it (which would majorly suck) or keep it to wear myself….wait a second….make something to keep?! For ME?! I’ve never done that before….

Anyhow, I got close to halfway done with it and then realized I wanted something else to work on when I got bored with that one; enter the Ravenclaw Round Ripple. And if I’m going to make something based on the colors and patterns of the scarves in Harry Potter, well then, why not make a scarf, too? (Yes, I’m a Harry Potter fan, thank you very much…lol) Those scarves were the main reason I wanted to learn how to knit, anyhow. My best friend wanted one, but I couldn’t knit, so I made my own pattern for crocheting her one, but it wasn’t good enough for me. The ones in the movies were knit. The one I made wasn’t. (Yeah, yeah, I know…obsessive compulsive…) Now, as to the reason why I chose to do Ravenclaw as opposed to one of the other houses…mainly comes down to I like those colors best! LOL I’ve done, like 50 gagillion of those online generators that tell you which house you’ll be in, and 50% of the time I’m sorted to Griffyndor, 49% of the time I’m sorted into Ravenclaw, and I’ve been sorted once into Hufflepuff. (I personally think there was just something wrong with that particular generator, though…LOL) And I’ve made so many Griffyndor-themed things, I felt it was time for a change.

Then, I started writing actual “snail mail” letters, as I don’t have Internet at home just now (which drives me bonkers, actually) and needed communication with those back home. Torie and I always send each other sticker covered letters, and as what part of what I was sending her required a large manila envelope, I had to fill the envelope as much as I could…and as we send each other completely random things, I thought I’d make her “proof” that I could knit, (like she would disbelieve me and need proof to begin with…lol) so I made the mini Italian flag. Well, now I’m nearly out of dark navy for the Ravenclaw projects, (almost out of grey too, for that matter, and I still need to get more black so I can finally finish my pink explosion project…) so I “needed” to begin yet another project, right?

The day my friend taught me how to knit, my husband said that he didn’t see what was so cool about it because all you could do was knit stripes. Ha! I tried to explain his crafting ignorance, but I don’t think he got it…so I decided to do something that I’ve been wanting desperately to try, just to show him what cool things can be done with knitting: I made the illusion Hedwig. I wanted to use black and white for the full contrast effect, but, as aforementioned, I’m out of black. So I used grey instead. (Which is part of why I’m now nearly out! LOL) But it looks so cool! I can’t wait to show it to him!

And all this has what I’ve gotten into in this past month. I really want to finish my pink and black round ripple, but need the black, and would have long ago continued on my granny square lapghan, but don’t remember what size hook I was using (and haven’t been able to check, as my Internet time has been severely limited….as in I’m actually typing this up in a Word document right now to copy and paste later…) and I’ve gone a bit more with my static stitch granny square blanket, but I’m using black to border all those, and, well, I’m out of black. But since we’re finally all moved and settled in and I’m back with my stash (it was terrible being separated from it!) I’ve also been reunited with about 50 other incomplete projects to pick back up! LOL Okay, so not really that many. Just seems that way. But now that I’ve posted this blog and have something to connect to all the bunch of new projects that’ll be popping up on Ravelry, I’m off to craft some more!