Knitting Olympics Fever

When I heard about The Knitting Olympics my first thought was that it's not for me. I'm not much of a joiner and knowing how long it takes me to complete a project with my crazy buzy life I figured the chance that I could complete anything before the Olympic flame was extinguished was slim to none. However, the more I read and hear about Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's reasoning behind starting this, the more it appeals to me. I know I'm too late to join on, but I'm declaring myself an unofficial alternate for team USA. An "alter-knit" if you will. My only challenge is this, I will stay true blue to my Debbie Bliss ribbed sweater and cast on no further projects until the end of the winter games. This is tougher than you might expect since I found this today and immediately wanted to give it a try. I will not be distracted. I am committed and I'm stating it here so you can all hold me accountable if I suddenly pop in a few days from now with a new scarf or ipod cozy, etc. Let the games (belatedly) begin. 

At Loose Ends: A Cautionary Tale

My knitting bag has become the Bermuda Triangle of fiber arts. It is a cute bag though, isn't it? I finally made use of one of those Jo-Ann's 50% off coupons that end up in my e-mail box all year long and picked up the circles bag from ArtBin pretty darn cheap.

I have cast on in the past few days two projects that have come out just so-so, and that's being generous. I'm not going to tell you what projects those were because I don't want to cast aspersions on innocent knitwear designers. It's not them, it's me. I've gotten cocky and I've gotten lazy. I completed a lovely tank top, except that it was perfect for someone about three sizes larger than me. I confess, I didn't swatch. Not only that, but I ignored the little voice inside. The little voice that watched this project grow larger and larger and kept whispering in my ear, "Psst! Hey, don't you think you should grab a ruler and check that gauge before you go any further?"

Earlier on in my knitting days I would have looked at this finished object and resolved to find someway to rehabilitate it. Now older & wiser , I frogged it. I frogged the whole thing (rip it rip it.) I will knit it again. I WILL knit a gauge swatch this time, but I'm not ready to tackle it yet.

The lesson in all of this is, I'm a fickle knitter. I had this lovely Debbie Bliss sweater I was working on. I loved the pattern, I loved the yarn, I was clicking along at a merry pace and then.... I heard the siren song of all these quick, funky little knits and now I have nothing to show for it. If I had just stuck with my original sweater I'd probably have it done by now and I'd be enjoying a lovely alpaca sweater in this New England Winter weather. Instead, I'm trying to muster the courage to face it again with my tail between my legs and trying to forget days and days of really bad karma knitting.