gimping across the finish line

okay..so i know now that i won't finish weaving in the ends by the closing ceremonies...but i am finishing the collar and casting off in moments....proof:

my hands are really sore..and i've been soaking my wrists and wearing braces to bed each night.
i forgot friday night and woke up with numb hands..not easy to hold a 20+pound baby when you have no feeling in your arms.
so..in the spirit of buttons...hubby made this:

that's me....

hoping i recover...

limping across the finish line..i can see the end in sight

well...so much for all my plans.
dh has worked every saturday for a month..i decided that today was MY day...
and it almost worked.
i was happily going to knit, drink tea and watch way too much TV.
didn't happen.
the snow needed blowing, the baby didn't sleep, dd was "off" and hubby ended up going out to eat and having a friend in for a movie...no problem..knit around all that stuff.
8:30pm--i can see the end in sight.....if only the children would sleep....
2:30am--i'm almost done if only the baby would sleep.....
too much Ecuadorian coffee and a few hours later and i'm DONE!
okay, so I still have to sew it together....
but i'm done..and i have to get up in a few hours so i need to go to bed....
how did it get to be 4:40am??
i was watching cindy klassen skate the 5,000m today..and the commentators were saying they could tell she was fatigued..her shoulders drooping and her head hanging down...
that's me right now....head hanging down to touch the pillow....must sleep....
no more knit.....

it's down to the wire..

the timer clock says 23hours...yikes....
was it really 2 days ago that it said 2 days and i thought 'no problem"
so today...there is a ton of snow outside...the birthday party we were to go to is cancelled, my hubby will be home tonight...the baby has just "settled down for a long winter's nap" and i am taking a break to stretch my fingers...
"This segment brought to you by our sponsor":

the countdown is on

okay...the kids are in bed (not sleeping, but happy)..hubby is out at work...
i have the house to myself and my knitting....
wohoo!
so far i have finished the front two panels, the back up to the shoulder shaping and half of the sleeves.
now all i have left is frog the mistake in the sleeves ( a few hours of work...eeek), finish the sleeves, make the collar and put this bad boy together.....
the gold medal in men's curling....woohoo
cindy klassen getting ANOTHER medal yesterday and becoming the most decorated Canadian female Olympic athlete ever??? woohoo

why am i blogging?? i must knit, knit, knit.....

have i actually shown you what i am making???

i actually posted this on the team canada blog:
i had ordered the pattern from e-bay, from england and figured it would NEVER get her. it only took a week from purchase date to get the pattern...hello??? from england??
so this is it:
think purple...lovely boucle (silly to knit with but fuzzy to wear)....
i have now completed the front tow panels, half of the sleeves (see previous post about my silly needle change) and 1/4 of the back.
wait...why am i blogging, when i could be knitting.
i LOVE what knit and tonic wendy had to say yesterday, about learning to knit while sleeping...i could do that.

an actual olympic update...

blah blah blah..i'm a slacker...enough said.
okay so i did cast on during the opening ceremonies...proof:

but then i abandoned my tricot project (the two yarns were not acting as team-mates and decided to part ways)...they were both pretty colours...and looked nice all washed and hanging (pardon the fuzzy picture and horrible pink hangers)
picture 2 and 3:


so then i needed some lionbrand cotton..do you think i could find it anywhere?? not at LYS', not at Michaels (note to Michaels, do you really need and entire row full of fun furry yarn??? c'mon, people, to have something resembling normal yarn would be nice) not at Walmart (again, with the fun furry yarn...like is there is some chunky-scarf shortage this year that i'm not aware of?). So, alas no tricot for me.

So I went back to my old purple sirdar yo-yo and began to knit. Keep in mind I didn't actually cast on for this project until last Tuesday.
So, by Saturday night I had this:

Not too bad unless you look at the sleeves. I started on metal needles and then my hands were getting sore.....so I switched to plastic...in the middle of the sleeve. Yes, that's right I switched needles in the middle of the sleeves. Silly, inexperienced me figured "It's the same size, it'll be the same". Yeah..let's not talk about that any more.
Do you see the ridge?? it's kinda hard to see..but if you look at the fuzzy picture you can see a line:

So I started the fronts...figuring if I had something to show for my efforts it would motivate me...
Last night I finished both front panels....not bad...of course I looked at the side bar and have 5 days left....to do the whole back, finish the sleeves and make the collar.
Can I do it???
We'll see....

the start of it all

I have been thinking lately about my start in knitting. My earliest knitting memory is my Grandmother teaching me to knit a scarf. I was about 5 or 6 and I remember the yarn being a light yellow (and probably horrible acrylic).
I think I tinkered around with various scarves and Barbie things (what else would a little child make?).
I found this book the other day:


This book is from 1959 and I believe it may have been a Coats and Clark's book.
I remember my Mom giving it to me to teach myself some things. I remember trying to learn to crochet (I still haven't mastered that).
I also had a crafts book that was given to me at about age 10, which had some more knitting info in it. I used a pattern from that book to teach myself how to knit socks. I made a couple of pair of slipper socks as a young teen.
I also taught myself intarsia and knit a small sample with a picture of a horse on it. I only remember that b/c my Mom commented that she had never learned how to knit with more than one colour, successfully. She was proud and encouraged me to make it into something, rather than rip it out, as I was inclined to do. I wish I still had that little horrible-blue-and-white "pillow" to show for my efforts.
I had a book that suggested that left handed knitters needed to put the book in front of a mirror in order to make sense of the directions... what a strange idea.
Anyways...this brings me back to an idea for a UFO. It was actually my Moms' UFO. When I was about 6 and my sister about 8 she decided to make sweaters for us. She got started with my sisters but didn't know how to to the colour work--so ended up mailing it to my Grandmother in BC to finish. It was a cute sweater.
My sweater was coloured stripes--gray, pink, blue and what else I can't remember.
When Mom died in 2001 my sister and I went through the "crafts closet" and found the sweater.
I don't think it would fit me!!! I think I might rip it out (if I can find it in my "crafts closet--must be a genetic thing)--and make something for my little girl. Unless the yarn is so acrylic that she'd be a walking fire hazard while wearing it...
But now, I need to get going more on my Olympic knitting...it's really slow going with this boucle and 4.5mm needles...sigh.

Happy valentines to me...

I have the greatest husband!!
I found him google-ing knitting related products and sites a few days ago...He was doing research to buy me this:

a ball winder!! wohoo!!
I have tried to wind stuff by hand and have ended up with tangles and more tangles.
he may actually make me a swift as well!
yeah...I've already tried it out a bit...for my sockapaloooza pal's socks.
I haven't started them yet...But having centre pull balls will make things so much easier...
yeah!
still no update for the Olympics..pathetic I know.
everyone is falling these days...I am falling also....
I was going to go shopping today to get more yarn, but I ended up watching my friends kids for a few hours so they could have some valentines time.....
they needed it.
so, I shall have more to report tomorrow...My slow pathetic progress...

hello...is there anybody out there??

so, i've added a site counter...because i saw one on someone else' blog...and wondered: Does anyone read this??
I have had some hits, and got excited. Then realized that they weren't real hits..or so I thought.
With some modifications..I have now realized there are people out there!
Hello! Are you there?
I know that some have found me through the Olympics KAL or the Sockapaloooza KAL.
Just wanted you to know that I know you're there, and you know you're here, so why don't you leave a footprint:



Let me know that you are here!!
I would welcome any comments at all....
thanks
p.s. I actually hope to have some real knitting progress reports soon...

more knitting ADD

okay...my medal event hasn't started yet.
okay...maybe i'm just a slacker.
i really have tried to get some knitting done. the baby even went to bed last night at 5pm for a nap and woke up at 7am this morning!! (for those jealous mothers out there he's NEVER done such a thing before).
i did get some knitting done, but not for the olympics. maybe i'm still in training?
we had a birthday party to go to for a cute little girl today so, silly me decided to whip up a homemade gift last night.
it went really fast and within 3hrs i had this:

which is half of a cute little poncho!
the finished product looks like this:

pretty cute i think....now of course dear daughter wants one for herself....
i hope to have some of my olypic knitting to show soon.
i'm realy impressed with how fast everyone is knitting...i'll never be fast...and i hope i finish....

Oh Canada

it's here..the knitting olympics (see link on the sidebar).
i have changed my mind again about a project.
the other day i decided that i didn't want to make the purple sweater and not love it.
so i decided on something new for me.
i was going to drive to chapters to get "Last Minute Knitted Gifts" and then to a yarn store to get yarn, but dragging two small children around for 1/2 a day didn't really appeal to me.
i decided to challenge myself and to this:
Tricot by Alison Hansel featured in the Warm 04 Issue of Magknits

My challenge consists of:
Frogging two sweaters
Learning short rows in a sweater (I just recently learned short row shaping for sock knitting)
Putting in a zipper??
Making a sweater in 16 days.

Can you feel the burn..actually I can. I can feel my wrists and arms throbbing already. I have been having some trouble with my carpal tunnel...so I need to be very careful. I have been waking up not being able to feel my hands or wrists---and wearing the wrist support has only helped a little bit. So I will take it slow...pace myself--as I'm sure Olympians do also.

Swatch watch and the Olympic Spirit.

Children of the 80's do you remember Swatch Watches?? I had one...I think I still have it somewhere. Sad, but I figure if you're going to spend that much $$ on a watch it better last...
Hmm...
More about knitting.

Okay, so I've picked my yarn for sockapalooza and I've chosen yarn for the Olympics.
Problem--I don't like the pattern on the label. I thought I was to get a free pattern of my choosing, but apparently you just pick a pattern you like off the label. I had about 5 minutes in the store, the yarn was covered by a big ladder and I had to do some type of crazy Cirque du Soleil move to even get this ball of yarn!

So, I will make the sweater for me. I will make a swatch. I will like it (??) and I will wear it.
I've made 2 sweaters for myself in the past and neither of them actually fit. I think I just wanted to make the sweater and wasn't really thinking measurements, gauge etc.
I have made my swatch

I shall be casting on no earlier than Friday at 2pm.....
I've never really been excited by the Olympics, especially the Winter Olympics.
I get more into the Summer Olympics now b/c my sister-in-law is an Olympic athlete.
Yes...you should visit her site. Yes you should buy her book. Right now she is #1 IN THE WORLD!!!
Yes you should watch her in the 2008 Olympics.

Yes, I should stop ranting and get back to actually finishing a project...

Sockapaloooza

Hello
Yes, I've joined another KAL. Hubby is amazed that there are 606 people all over the world that would knit socks for eachother!
I went to a LYS in November (Christmas shopping for me..ha ha) and bought some handpainted merino in lovely blues.
I shall be jumping on the Jaywalker bandwagon and making something purdy for my sista.
The picture doesn't do it justice..the light colours of the yarn are really more of a teal colour.
She said she likes blues, so I hope this works out well.
I might be just knitting this one night a week for a while, I have other projects on the go (Finish the vest, make the Koigu for me, Sweater for the Olympics...baby gifts..and on and on)
Wohoo!
I'm excited.