Olympics Day 3

I've been glued to my TV today watching the Olympics.  :)  My favorites from today so far have been the rookie beach volleyball girls.  They did fantastic!  I also watched my first ever water polo match (okay, watch is giving me waaaay too much credit; it was on and I flicked my eyes in its general direction a few times).  Synchronized swimming was awesome, a few swimming trials and of course, gymnastics.

I joked to my husband that knitting intarsia during the Olympics makes it difficult to always watch when I want to.  So I have to plan my breaks a bit and be cognizant of what is coming up to catch the good stuff.  But I've been making do, take a peek!

It even fits!  :)

There are a few spots of tighter knitting but overall it is turning out better than I hoped!

Summer Olympics

I love the Olympics.  Growing up I remember being glued to the TV with my mom watching gymnasts bend, twist and flip in complete awe, gasping with her as divers plummeted from the high dive into the pool with barely a hint of a splash.  Four years ago when I started learning to knit, I spent almost the entire 2 weeks at a girlfriend's house working on my first toddler sweater (in sticky Red Heart acrylic yarn on metal needles; the thought still makes me shudder :D ) and holding my breath while Michael Phelps swam.  Or two years ago during the Winter Olympics my SIL came over and we watched the opening ceremonies and casted on our respective knitting projects.

This year is no different.  As I sit here watching the men's gymnastic trials, I am pushing myself again with a new project.  I love the theory of colorwork and my first attempt at it was the Paper Dolls sweater.  With that experience behind me I feel confident going into these socks!  My progress so far....

Front flower pattern

Back leg shaping

 

So far the colorwork isn't pulling/puffing too bad, so that makes me pretty happy!  Until next time, happy knitting and go Team USA!

Weekend Wrap

Another weekend wedding out of town!  :)  Even though I brought the camera it didn't come out during the wedding (we were late) or the reception (I forgot).  Good thing technology has graced our phones with cameras, albeit crappy ones.

We had some time before meeting a friend for lunch so we took the kids to this super cool park.  I admit that whenever we go to MN I'm always green with envy at how awesome their parks are.  I wish we lived there so I could take the kids there all the time.

I was wrongfully under the impression that I would be able to sit for the 20 minutes we were there and so I didn't change my shoes.   Sure broke in my nice Betsey Johnson's though.  :D

Hanging out at the Arboretum for the reception.  This is the anthill sculpture out front.  You can't see it very well but there is a queen ant on top and a couple inside.

 

Brother and sister hug in front of the flowers

 

I did more driving on this trip because I didn't have any knitting!  Shame on me.  But I felt better knowing that by Monday shiny new yarn would be waiting for me in my mailbox.

I'll be making socks out of the top two

And this is becoming....

 

...this!

yes, it doesn't look like much now, but it will one day grow into a real shawl.  :D  I originally bought the yarn for a Jared Flood shawl, but then when I looked at the yarn and at the pattern, I realized I needed worsted weight and I have sport (which is half the weight).  After much perusing and lots of queuing I picked The Crow Waltz Shawl.  The cool thing about this shawl is that you knit the border first and then pick up the stitches to fill it in.

Until next time!  :)

Beekeeper's Quilt

So I decided that I am crazy enough to try my hand at the Beekeeper's Quilt.  I hemmed and I hawed and I drooled over all the other finished projects and their beautiful various combinations.  What got me in the end is that while it's a big endeavor, it's also one that can be done in small chunks and then piece by piece put together without ever having to sit down for one giant pain in the butt seaming session.  (I could never do a quilt I think; I could put all the small parts together, but I'd lose it once it came to sewing the whole queen sized thing together)

I have about 10 hexipuffs done and today I put together a little cluster.  I'm lucky that I have enough odd bits of yarn to create color clusters that go together.  My first happen to be a pink/purply combo with a taupe middle.

Right now my second cluster are blues but I might be a little more hardpressed to find the right weight yarn to make a lot.  I have enough for the three 'main colors' but the off ones be  need some help.  I know that these are supposed to be made out of scraps of yarn, but I'm a little tempted to order lots of sock yarn from KnitPicks and just go to town.  :D

Also, outfit of the day!

Oh I suppose last last thing.  :D  While out shopping with a girlfriend yesterday I realized that sometimes no amount of sucking it in will ever make a super cute clingy leopard print jersey dress ever look good on this post-baby body.  I think the only time I could have pulled it off was in highschool.  :D  I'm officially too old for the junior's section :D  The plus side is that my skirt collection increased by 2 :)

Echo Flowers shawl WIP

I'm actually surprised at how quickly and easily this pattern is going for me.  The sssk's are a pain in the butt, but luckily those are few and far between.  If this sucker is going to be as big as I think it's going to be, I'm definitely going to need some lace wires to adequately block it.  :D  So far I have the set up chart done and 2/13 repeats done of the flower chart.  Yay!  :)