Olympic Challenge Project Finished!

I am not sure who is more pleased that my gloves are finished, my husband or I. I was so intent on finishing them in time that I was impossible to live with. But they are done, and I feel free! I think I did a pretty good job on them, but there are some, well, let's call them design elements. Like a few fingers without a column of plain white stitches on one edge on the palm side. However, there is a genuine design element on each thumb--a pretty band of alternating green and white stitches that carries up a similar design from the thumb gussets.

So what am I knitting now? A plain beret, all in stockinette stitch, made out of bulky yarn. It is for a class I hope to teach at The Spinning Room the weekend after Labor Day. At first there were no sign-ups, but now that two people are enrolled, I'd better have the hat ready. This is something of a trial balloon--a series of classes, all knitting hats, to teach a variety of skills. The first is to teach knitting in the round and decreases (it is the Rollin' Beret on the linked page), the second teaches cables (I love making this hat), and the third stranded knitting . I hope the classes all get enough sign-ups to run!

Knitting Olympics

My LYS, The Spinning Room, has a Knitting Olympics challenge on. Start during the opening ceremony, finish by the end of the Olympics. I like challenges. So I thought I would give it a try. The first project I picked was a cardigan. That's a challenge, yes? To get done during the time allotted. So I ran it by a friend (you know who you are!). She was dismissive. Very dismissive. Said the cardigan was rather small. And the yarn was big. Who was I trying to kid? Ok, back to the drawing board, a bit sad, because I'd really like to knit this cardigan, and having a deadline hanging over my head would be perfect. Well, how about stranded mittens? I've done a couple of pairs, but with worsted weight yarn. And one of the pairs was really simple. How about if I challenged myself by using fingering weight yarn and a complex pattern. I hate using tiny needles. This would be a challenge, indeed. Friend with high standards thought perhaps, but making stranded gloves with tiny yarn would be a better challenge. So guess what I am making?!?! And pulling my hair out over? Yup, you got it, gloves with fingering weight yarn and tiny needles. Here's the first one. This is Annemor #8 from the Selbuvotter book. The second one only has half of the pinkie done. It probably wasn't a bright idea to leave most of the fingers and both thumbs to the end, but on Saturday I needed something less challenging to knit than fingers, for some knitting with friends, and succumbed to starting the second hand.

Actually, I shouldn't be blogging, I have to get back to knitting fingers! There is less than a week before the Olympics end, and I am not sure if the fingers are going to drive me insane before then. There is a pretty good chance they will.

But before I go--you may want to know what my friend with high standards is knitting for the Olympic challenge. Or can you guess? NOTHING!!! (But I'm not really mad--she keeps me on my toes.)