Back In Good Standing

I've redeemed myself with the Ravelympics Committee after my Ishbel disqualification, by finishing Traveling Woman last night.

Miss Molly models:











Check out this crazy, giant snowman at the organic dairy!

Yay For Ravelympics!

Here are my medals thus far!









Making good progress on Traveling Woman...

Back to the arena!

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ETA: Disgrace! Disgrace!

I awoke in the middle of the night vaguely remembering something about the WIPS Dancing event… Just looked it up, and that nagging thought in the back of my mind was TRUE: no other events can be listed in combination with WIPS Dancing!

I cheated! I must give back three of my four medals for my Ishbel! [Hangs head in shame. Goes to stand with disqualified female Chinese speed skater.]

I have let down my team. I’m so sorry. :(

I will work hard to finish Traveling Woman and redeem myself!

One Down...

My first Ravelympics project is finished - here is Emma modeling Ishbel:





Pattern: Ishbel (I must be the last knitter on the planet to have done this!)
Yarn: Malabrigo Laceweight, "Ravelry Red," from The Loopy Ewe
Modifications: did size L stockinette portion, and size S lace repeates (ABACDE). Had to fudge some stitch counts but it all worked out in the end.

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I scored an hibiscus plant at the grocery store yesterday, and awoke to a bloom this morning:



That'll certainly help see me through to Spring!

The roosters are already feeling the change in daylight hours - one lured a hen up to the goat barn last night. The others are sizing each other up in the coop, raising their "manes" until they look like umbrella-heads in order to intimidate one another and impress the females. Our three largest - Golden Laced Wyandottes - are big babies and stay on their roosting perches and out of the fray... which is unfortunate, as they're the ones we want to win over the girls!

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Off to knit on Ravelympics project two, Traveling Woman... Have a wonderful day!

Ravelympics 2010 and Famous Rooster

Still unpacking, ordering and hanging curtains and hooks, and trying to remember where I put everything, but I've had a few moments to knit and enjoy the Olympics.

My Traveling Woman shawl(ette) for Ravelympics 2010 (Team Wrap Around Ewe, lace luge and short track shawls events) has been easy thus far... but now it's time to begin the lace part! I love the "Persia" colorway of this Malabrigo Sock yarn:



I'm trying to finish up Ishbel before going to the charts on Traveling Woman; this is done in Malabrigo Lace in the "Ravelry Red" colorway:



I did the size L stockinette part, and the size S lace repeats (ABAC - just starting C in the pic above). I was worried about having enough yarn but I would guess there'd have been enough to do a complete size L. Really messed up my stitch count going into chart C, though... I just fudged it as I'll never be able to find what went wrong if I tink it.

My favorite competitors as the Games have been Shaun White, Lindsey Vonn, Evan Lysacek and Yevgeny Plushenko. So inspiring! (Helping me stick to my diet for sure!)

My favorite ad is, without a doubt... "I'm on a horse!" Brilliant! Not. To. Be. Missed.

What are you liking about the Olympics this year?

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Our Silver Spangled Hamburg(er) rooster, Keach, was incuded in the latest Hobby Farms magazine:



He's named for a very dear friend, and is a wonderful guy!

In Training

Ravelympics 2010

If anyone is inclined to participate, Michelle and I have joined the Ravelry Small Shawl Lovers group's "TeamWrapAroundEwe" for the Ravelympics next month.

Since we are making small shawl wraps/"shawlettes," our events will be LaceLuge and ShortRunShawl (unless they add more which would also apply).

I never understood the Ravelympics before, but apparently what happens is that you...

1) Join a team; you can join many teams and do many projects, but a completed project will only count as a "win" for ONE team. Your project, entered for one team, CAN count for multiple "event" categories (i.e., lace, shawls, etc.);

2) Enter your project info on a new Ravelry Project Page; using Team, Ravelympic, and Event tags so that Ravelry can magically "see" your project and apply it to the proper Team. These tags will be made available by Casey automatically when the games begin, on your Project Page, triggered by tagging "ravelympics2010" there;

3) Don't cast on until the opening ceremony;

4) Knit/crochet/spin furiously while watching the Olympics on TV;

5) Complete your project and mark finished on its Ravelry project page;

7) Get a "medal" to put on your blog!

It's all "calculated" automatically at Ravelry by the tags you assign to your project when starting it. The tags are what are most important - they "register" your project as participating in the games.

Hope that makes sense. Took me forever to figure it out!

Here is a Ravelry link, if you'd like to join our particular group and team:

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/small-shawl-lovers/858069/1-25

And here are the official Ravelympics 2010 rules:

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/ravelympics-2010/914393/1-25#2

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In Training


I'm warming up my needles by working on this Ishbel in Malabrigo Laceweight ("Ravelry Red" colorway - how appropriate!) I'm doing the size large stockinette section and the size small lace section; I've read on Ravelry that I ought to be able to complete this with a single skein of yarn. Luckily, I have a second skein, just in case.



Good thing I'm in training as I made a big, fat mistake on this project while visiting with Michelle last week. See how the centerline veers by the needles there? Oops. And it's not even difficult at this point! We were having too much fun chatting, methinks... But she was doing the lace border on Aestlight - I can't even imagine doing that in a silent room, much less while having coffee at Mickey D's!

Terri just finished her Ishbel - isn't it lovely? Be sure to take a peek at Sabrina and Apollo, her beautiful dogs!

To cross-train, I'm crocheting a hexagon afghan in Blue Sky Alpaca's dyed cotton - SO soft (and thick, which is great for instant gratification-minded crafters like myself...)

The inspiration is from Lucy at the Attic24 blog - I love love love her color sense! I hope to have my craft loft looking like her home one day. Color is so inspiring and healing... and I don't get enough of it here in the winter hinterlands. Check her out and I bet you'll say, "I love Lucy!" too.

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The dogs are so pleased to have their new giant run. Some days, when it warms above 30° or so, they refuse to come in when called. I've stopped calling them, as I don't want to train them to ignore me when I can't "enforce" a command (and believe me, I'm not about to go chasing them over an acre of snowy, rutted pasture!) So I just wait patiently until they've gotten all the "piss and vinegar" out of their systems, and then reward them with a treat and a cheerful "Come!" when they finally scratch on the door to collapse on their poofs.



Somehow, I think I'm the one being trained...

After tackling the last-minute packing (in a house with no heat, and then no electricity), moving stuff to the new house, missing the holidays completely, not having the dog run installed pre-move, dealing with winter chores while Chef Jeff spent a week in New Orleans for work, and tearing something in my knee slipping on the post-firefighting-hose-water ice, I'm a tiny bit worn out. Getting the new seed catalogs in the mail isn't helping my cabin fever! So here's hoping for a colorful, early Spring! I have my eye on a "Bubblegum Plum" tree to order...



"Mama, can I go outside to play again?"


Sigh.