knitting

Sunday Snapshot: Progress

Sarah Heffern1 Comment

Just as the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics were about to get underway on Friday, I decided I did want to participate in the 2012 Ravellenic Games, which I wrote about on Thursday, so I went online, registered the sweater I got frustrated with in January on Ravelry, and then proceeded to not do another thing about it until late this afternoon, when I finally accepted that the thing wasn’t going to knit itself.

I settled down to tackle the issue that caused me to throw in the towel over the winter – a lost stitch. Now, that doesn’t seem like much (and it isn’t), but similar problems had already required significant ripping back nine previous times, and I had gotten frustrated. With fresh eyes, however, ripping out a few rows and getting it back on the needles ended up not being too big a deal, but then I encountered a new problem – remembering where I was in the pattern. Solving that mystery required a bit of trial and error. (Read: more ripping.)

After a while I finally was making a bit of forward progress, and added three or four more pattern repeats. My eyes started getting tired, but I decided to do just one more repeat. Needless to say, I dropped a stitch again – and rather than being sensible and waiting until tomorrow when my eyes were fresher, I tried to fix it right away.

So, yeah. I’ll be starting tomorrow where I started today: fixing my mistakes.

To Compete, or Not to Compete?

Sarah Heffern7 Comments

Four years ago, as the Beijing Olympics got underway, I started knitting a skirt as part of what was then known as the Ravelympics* – a skirt I finally finished more than 1,100 days later, after the Olympics had come and gone. And come and gone again. Despite what can only be described as the abject failure of that knit-along attempt, I find myself tempted to give it another try this year. (I think sprite’s blog post about her project inspired me.)

Of course, I’ve given myself less than a day to a) decide, b) select a project, and c) sign up, which is not really sufficient. Or wouldn’t be, if Ravelry didn’t have a sense that disorganized knitters such as myself exist, and thereby create “events” where less planning is required, such as WIPs Wrangling (WIPs being works in progress) or Frogging Trampoline (frogging being tearing something back to the beginning and starting over). The sweater I started knitting at Christmas, Liesl, would likely qualify for one of these categories, considering that the reason it isn’t done is that it needs serious ripping back, and possibly a re-start altogether.

So, what do you think? Should I give an Olympic knit-along another try? Or just watch the games stress-free?

* The Ravelympics are now called the Ravellenic Games, by the way. The Yarn Harlot has a good explanation as to why.