Knitting Olympics FAQs

I hope these FAQs from the Yarn Harlot's page will answer some of the questions that people may have - starting time is addressed in the 4th question (If we're going on Torino Time, Alaskans should be able to start at 10 a.m. but then, we'd have to finish early, too!). I'll do another post later today, with some info about what people are planning to knit.

Olympic Regulations.

Elizabeth D. asks "But -- aren't we supposed to have four years of
training before we enter these events?"

No. Next question?

Carol asks "How dare you challenge me to a feat of this magnitude? Do
you know what you are doing to me?

I have a pretty good idea what I'm doing to you, but you're the lady
who picked entrelac. Truthfully Carol, I thought less of you guys were
going to go for it. It turns out that when the men with the huggy
coats cart me off, I'll have lots and lots of friends to play with.

B. Asks "Will there be drug testing?"

No. Although you should be careful to make sure you are consuming
enough drugs. (Namely chocolate, red wine and coffee and toward the
end...hard liquor.) As for the stronger stuff, I figure that if you
can knit a challenge while using any other drugs, good luck to you.
It's like that Canadian Snowboarder who won gold while he was high as
a kite. Most peoples major feat after going the way of the BC
Skunkweed is to successfully locate a bag of cookies. The way I see
it, if you can do that while you are stoned, you should get two gold
medals. I wouldn't be able to find the snow.

Kat with a K asks "if I remember correctly, the flame is not actually
lit until partway through the opening ceremonies (?). Does this mean
that we need to knit something else while watching the beginning part
of the TV coverage and then switch when they lit the flame? Or can we
cast on when the opening ceremonies start?

Here's the executive decision. The Opening Ceremonies start at 8pm
Torino time. Torino is six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, which
would mean starting at 2pm in the afternoon.
How about we agree on 2pm February 10th, no matter where you are?
(Does that help those of you without a tv?)

From Katie, who's going to do a shawl "Does it have to be blocked by
the time the flame goes out?"

Yes. Does a marathon runner need to cross the finish line? I suggest
steam. Less drying time than full immersion.

Many of you asked if Wendy was banned from the games.

Of course not. I went to her site and did some math though. Looks like
she knit one of those fabulous bohus sweaters in 3 weeks. I thought
two things.
1. Has anyone screened her for steroids?
2. It gives me the heebie jeebies to wonder what she would need to do
to challenge herself. Really.

Several of you asked if you had to do a sweater, or if you could do
more than one thing.

You can do anything that is a knitting project as long as it
represents a personal challenge for you. If that's 20 hats...go ahead.
The idea is to set a difficult and inspiring goal.

Finally, The list of Knitting Olympic Athletes can be found here:

The Knitting Olympics Page.

I know I said that I would list you all in the sidebar, but when you
see how many there are of you, I think you will understand why it's
got it's own page now. (Not everybody is up there yet, and not all of
the code on the bottom of the page works. Html vexes me. I'm working
on it. Give me a day or two before you register complaints. It's a lot
of work.) That's probably the page you should link to if you took a
button too.
There is now a link to the whole Knitting Olympic shebang on the
sidebar, should you wish to (and I hope you will) check in on the
athletes.

I'm off now. I've got a full day of work, a whole lot of spinning and
a sweater to hack up.

(PS - for those of you who wanted to know about the wee blue gansey
sweater from the other day It's Design "E" from Sirdar Book 241)