Knitting as an Olympic Event

Knitting as an Olympic Event

2/7/2006

At the very last minute, under the wire, I found out about The Knitting Olympics over at yarnharlot. Of course I had to sign up.

The premise is that knitting (for you) is an Olympic Event. And so, as such, to get your medal, you will complete an entire knit work, as complicated or not as is challenging to you. Something that will stretch you.

And you will complete it, start to finish, between the moment the Olympic Flame is lit on February 10th, and when it's finally extinguished 16 days later.

When I was over at my local yarn shop on Sunday, during their Superbowl Sunday Super Sale (15% OFF to members), I snagged a BUNCH of stuff for my stash. And to justify it, while it was ringing up, I mentioned that I had to have something to choose from for the Knitting Olympics.

Oh my goodness! I didn't realize how widespread this phenomenon was. The women behind the counter practically squealed, as they talked about YarnHarlot, and how funny she was, and how great the knitting olympics were going to be, and what was I going to knit.

And that's when I realized that I didn't exactly KNOW.

So when I signed up, I said I was knitting a baby blanket. The yarn I've bought to use is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. It's a machine washable cashmere blend. And I got this rainbow of fantastic muted baby colours. It'd be grand.

But it knits up at 24-26 stitches to the 4-inch. That's pretty teeny. It'd be, um, 220-250 stitches on a SINGLE row. I might go cross-eyed.

On the other hand, I've got this lovely bunch of 2-ply brown heather wool from Briggs+Little mills. It'd make a fantastic Fisher Guernsey sweater for Ken.

Once again, though, 240 stitches to the row... well, if the front and back are put together as a 'row'. It's almost the same number of stitches. And this'd be fiddly. All texture patterns, and a bit of cabling.

But it'd be more fun... er... well, it'd be a bit more variety, anyways.

In the end, I caved, and just said "baby blanket". Ick. Sounds like I'm using 9mm needles, and knitting it up in Red Heart, or something. If I get cold feet on the cashmerino, I do have some nice soft baby worsted-weight superwash wool that I can whip up in a jiffy.

So this evening, after choir (and missing House, AGAIN!) I'm going to swatch up the 2-ply, and see how close to the gauge it'd be, if I tweak the needle size a bit. It's been 17 years since I knit Ken a sweater. It's about time I made him another one.