Off to a slow start

Well my exit from the starting blocks was more of a crawl than a sprint, but I have picked up a bit of speed now.

Here is my progress as of Tuesday lunchtime:

and here where I am up to now:
It is coming along, but there is still quite a long way to go, at the current rate I am not sure I am going to be a medal contender.

I also seem to be having trouble with my neck, back and shoulders which isn't helping, although the knitting doesn't seem to be particularly agravating it. At least I haven't had to be airlifted to hospital, another advantage of the Knitting Olympics over the ones in Torino!

Anyway, back to the grind stone, I shall try and update progress a bit more frequently.

Another scarf

8mm needles and chunky yarn certainly makes for a quick knit!

I finished the scarf for my Dad last night while catching up on things on the TV I had taped but not got round to watching.


In real life the colour is more navy blue and less purple than the photograph.

It is a nice change to sometimes have projects which don't take forever to do.

Anyway, I had better go and measure my swatch for my Olympic project, the festivities start on BBC2 in only an hour and a quarter ...

A couple of scarves

In preparation for my Olympic project I have been busy finishing off a few things which have been languishing on the needles for a long time (OK I haven't actually got to the jumper which I have been knitting for about a year, or the dress I have been knitting for about 6 years yet, but you have to start somewhere).

Those of you with a long memory may remember that I cast on for a moebius scarf back in November. It is very convenient in that it fits into my handbag, and I can just knit a few stitches on it whenever I have to wait around anywhere. Unfortunately this method doesn't make for a quick finish. However waiting for the car to be serviced gave me a nice long stretch of time on it and it is finally done.

It is rather longer than I had predicted, and because I just knitted until I ran out of yarn it is narrower than I had thought too. It is still perfectly wearable though and I shall incorporate these improvements into the next one. The cast on is along the spine and is very clever and from Cat Bordhi's Treasury of Magical Knitting. However having had another look at the table in the book telling you how many stitches to cast on for different tensions and different lengths of scarf, the numbers just don't add up, in future I think I shall rely on my own calculations.

The scarf was knitted using Peruvian Collection Baby Silk (80% Baby Alpaca, 20% Silk) from Elann, and I used a 3.5mm needle. The yarn feels absolutely gorgeous, which is handy as I bought two other colours too!

On the theme of scarves (and it being the appropriate weather for them) I have also finished another curly whirly:

and another view:
The yarn and pattern both came from Get Knitted, the yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, and the colour is Get Knitted. It is fantastic and bright and has had a lot of wear already despite having only been finished last Tuesday.

Despite all this finishing I'm afraid I have cast-on two new projects too, so I am not really making overall progress in the minimising of the pile of works-in-progress. We went up to see my parents for the weekend and part of last week, and my Dad announced on seeing my finished Moebius scarf that he would like one too. I found some nice King Cole chunky wool and acrylic yarn in french navy in Boyes and he managed to stand still long enough for me to measure his neck, so I cast-on for this scarf yesterday and it is going well. It is rather odd to be knitting on 8mm needles and thick yarn - quite a change from my other project I cast-on while staying with my parents, which is a pair of socks (2.5mm dpns and 4ply weight sock yarn).

On the Olympic project front, after the wash the swatch got a bit smaller which was slightly worrying, so I have knit another swatch with another couple of rows and stitches on it and it is drying now. I am hoping to measure it either this afternoon or tomorrow morning depending on how long it takes to dry.

Anyway, back to the scarf - not sure I can get it done before tomorrow but I shall give it a good shot! I still have 1100 emails from various knitting emails lists to catch up on after being away too!