Olympic Project

If you’re not a knitter, you might not know that during the Olympics every year (and for the first time…last year?) knitters around the world take part in the Ravelympics. The basic idea is to start a project when the Olympic flame is lit and have it finished by the time the closing ceremonies are officially over. I didn’t take part last time because I didn’t really know about it. But this year, Alex and some other local knitters started organizing early and we actually have a team - and even in Dutch, there is no I in team. There was some discussion about a name for our team and the team name that was chosen is Pootje Over. It’s pronounced pote-je oh-fer. Fred just explained to me that it’s a skating term. Poot is literally a leg of an animal. They’re using to mean (a human) foot. It’s when you go around a turn and you put one foot over the other. (It had been explained to me before, but I needed a refresher.) The logo is above. Those are Alex’s socks and Nancy did the graphics. I don’t particularly like that there’s the word ‘poot’ in our name, but the ten-year-old in me giggles at it occasionally.

In preparation for this big event, I decided to test knit a couple of things. I’d already decided on a shawl. The event I’m participating in is called Short Track Shawl. I’ve decided that what I’m missing in my knitting knowledge is lace. I haven’t done a lot of lace - and only one shawl. Granted, there’s not a lot of opportunity for me to wear lace, but it’s something I feel like I should know how to knit, so I think this year will be the year for me to do a lot of lace. It probably makes a good gift, and it’s supposed to be fun. We’ll see.

The first thing I test knit was a Bone Yard Shawl - shown here. I had some Noro Kureyon Sock yarn left over from the Clapotis (does not count as lace) that I did for my mother. She liked it, by the way. I decided I would just knit until I rant out of yarn, because that’s the kind of pattern it is. I finished it with less than a foot left over and I blocked it. It’s a tiny bit smaller than it’s supposed to be, but it’s a decent size and will be sent off to the recipient very soon.

I like the Bone Yard, but as you can see by the photos (if you can read knitting at all), it’s basically stockinette with the occassional purl ridge. It’s sort of a snoozer. It would be no challenge and the only lace elements are the yarn overs that I threw in (not my idea, but not in the original pattern either.)

I’ve decided on a pattern called Ishbel. There are almost 5500 of them on Ravelry. There’s about to be one more. I thought I could get one made before this whole Olympics thing started, but I wasn’t able to get it done because I knit past the smaller size and then I got busy and didn’t have time to finish the big one. It’ll save until I’m done with this one.

There was a hat for Fred on the needles that he guilted me into finishing last night right before the start of this. I would count it but (in the WIPS-dancing category) but it was really just about two hours of knitting, so it wasn’t any challenge at all. It was the crown of the second side. The hat looks nice. It needs to be washed and blocked, but Fred is going to wear it because it’s really cold here. (Darn you and your global warming, Al Gore!) My own fabulous hat is slightly flawed, but I’m enjoying it during these cold days here. I’ll have to put up a picture of that.

That was really tangential. Did I have a point here? Thanks to Fred for the photos and for putting up with me trying one more thing all afternoon last week.

Anyway, I need to cast on. I’m a few hours behind my team.