The Games Have Begun

A few weeks back I signed up for the Ravelympics. Through Ravelry, this is where knitters and crocheters sign up to start and finish a project while the Olympics play out in Beijing. The rules are, you have to cast-on your project during the opening ceremonies and finish before or during the closing ceremonies.

I don't normally sign up for this sort of thing, but it sounded like fun when I was surfing through Ravelry late one night, and so up I signed. There are lots of different events; there's the sweater sprint, the shawl relay and the baby dressage just to name a few. I wanted to make the Lotus Blossom Tank from Interweave Knits and the closest category was vest vault, so I signed on for that (though I did e-mail them and suggested tankoline, like trampoline, as an event, but they never got back to me). Then after thinking it over, I decided that I could easily finish a tank top in 17 days, so I signed up for the sock put too. I'll be making the Bellatrix socks (which I can't link to, because they exist in the Ravelry library, to which you have to be a member).

And so...

I crawled out of bed at six this morning and plonked myself in front of the tv and started to knit.

It wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done: casting on 230 stitches of slippery bamboo yarn, joining on a circular needle without any twisting while watching a distractingly good opening ceremony, but I did it.



(At least I'm fairly sure there aren't any twists in that cast on.)

I also started the socks, finishing the cuff and 4 rounds of pattern.



Now comes the challenge - how on earth do I finish all this in seventeen days?

Nigel and Ian have very kindly skipped town for this week-end, so at least I've got two fewer distractions. They've gone to Minneapolis to see this. Maybe they'll bring me back a droid to do all the housework while I knit.