Thursday, August 14, 2008

Moving Along in the Mitten Medley

There are sure some lovely things being knit for these Olympics! Socks, sweaters, mittens…

To catch up on my progress: I got up rather early Friday morning, frogged my previous work on my mittens while the athletes were walking into the Bird’s Nest, and then cast on again as the flame was being lit. What an amazing ceremony! Although I was disappointed to hear about the graphics “enhancement” of the fireworks, and the substitution of the young lip-syncher, it really couldn’t spoil the overall effect. The fireworks really made me think about how the Chinese were the ones who invented them!

Here’s what the mittens looked like prior to frogging:


Cait and I spent the weekend immersed in folk music from around the world, so didn’t watch much of the early Olympic athletic competitions, but we definitely got our dose of global diversity. Performers at the Edmonton Folk festival came from Africa, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, the UK, Denmark, the USA, and of course, Canada. And the Sparrow Quartet, with Bela Fleck, left for China immediately after the festival was over.

As we listened to this feast of music from all over the world, we worked on our own Olympic challenges. By the time I left Edmonton on Monday, I had finished the gauntlet cuffs of my mittens. Because I’m using a slightly thicker yarn, and larger needles than the original pattern calls for, I had to make some adjustments to the pattern, both in number of stitches and rows, and the graphics of the pattern design. I worked on this for the hand portion of the mittens while flying from Edmonton to Seattle. While waiting in Seattle for my next plane, I had an encouraging conversation with Cathy (so glad to hear that you’re a fellow adventurer into the realm of “personalizing” your knitted items!), so was ready to tackle the first part of the hands as I traveled to Anchorage.

I watched NBC’s Olympic coverage Tuesday night, both on TV (swimming), and on the internet (judo, and rowing), and managed to finish the thumb gussets and start the main part of the hands. So, as of early Wednesday morning, this is what they look like (back side left, palm side right):


I'm very happy about how my "mitten medley" is going, and will knit some more tonight while watching NBC again.

1 comment:

Jeanie Farley said...
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