Proud Ravlete

I am so proud...I finished my scarf for the Ravelympics and received my medal:

I finished the scarf on Friday evening, well within the parameters of the Ravelympics, which stated that the item could not be started prior to the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics and had to be completed prior to the end of the Closing Ceremonies. I still have to block the scarf, but it turned out very nice:


Within Team MotherhoodLater, I did not place for a medal but received an honorable mention for taking on a new technique and tackling a lace project. While I will certainly make more projects using lace weight yarn, I will only do so without time constraints!

Participating in the Ravelympics was great fun, and now I have a Christmas present (almost) ready for gifting.

My eyes! My eyes!

My new favorite web site (and source for online friends), Ravelry, is holding the Ravelympics. To put it as simply as possible, you join a team(s), choose an item(s) to knit or crochet, enter that item(s) in the appropriate event(s), cast on during the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics (or sometime thereafter), knit or crochet like a fiend, then finish the item(s) before the end of the Closing Ceremonies. Whew. Just explaining it is tiring.

I decided to play and joined Team Motherhood Later than Sooner. I adore this group, which is made up of women who had children at 35 or older. We like to think of ourselves as “moms with more life experience than baby experience!” I entered the Scarf Stroke and chose a pattern called the Party Lace scarf. It is knit with Rowan Kidsilk Night, which is a lace weight mohair/silk blend shot through with a metallic thread. The scarf begins and ends with little Swarovski crystals knitted into the edge.

The pattern is very simple but knitting with this yarn is not! It's as though I went through the house collecting cobwebs (not that there are any in MY house) and knit with them. After only a few rows, my eyes start to burn and blur, and I risk dropping stitches. I have learned to knit in short, four row sessions and to run a lifeline after each set of four, so if I have to frog to fix a problem, I lose four rows at the most.

Whether or not I finish by Sunday is definitely in question, but that is okay...I will be done soon enough, and I will have a lovely little scarf to set aside to give to my hair stylist for Christmas. I adore the look of the scarf, but it will be a long time before I work with a yarn like that again. Besides, I need to get going on the scarves for the Special Olympics World Games!