Saturday, February 13, 2010

Proving My Insanitly, One Stitch at a Time

Today I decided to participate in the Knitting Olympics and Ravelympics. I've committed to knitting a pair of socks between the lighting of the Olympic flame and finishing before the flame is extinguished in 17 days. For those who don't realize how insane this is for me, consider that I have 2 kids who demand attention and occasional feeding. I've been working on a sweater for Boy Monkey for more than a year and it still needs a sleeve and a half. The last time I made socks it took me 5 months. So, yeah, I'm crazy.

The socks I am knitting are Skew (Rav link) from Knitty, Winter 2009. The pattern was just released this week. Never before have I knit a project so soon after it was published. And this one is going to be a viral knit for sure. The construction is unique. I can't wait to see how it actually works.

I chose my yarn after the kids went to bed tonight, no earlier than 9pm. Already I am so far behind. There was no swatching and I've never used this yarn (Unwind Yarns (a Canadian company, how appropriate) Shiraz in Wicked Raspberry) before; a recipe for disaster, as most knitters know. I only had to cast on twice before I got it right and have been happily knitting along for a couple of hours when I realize that I totally screwed up. I missed the instruction to repeat two rows 8 more times, increasing the toe to 48 stitches. I only had 16 stitches when I moved to the next section. So now I have to rip it back and start all over again. Here's what it looked like before frogging. Notice it's just about an inch high, but it represents a couple hours of knitting.









Here it is post frogging. What a sad little pile of yarn.


And now I start again. I'm having a hard time imagining I'll be able to finish these socks in little more than 2 weeks, but I'm going to do my best, even if that means SweetiePetitie cries in the Jumperoo for hours on end and BoyMonkey spends all day in front of the TV. (Just kidding, honey! Really!)

3 comments:

IrishGirlieKnits said...

You can do it!!

Michaela said...

You're not alone in your insanity! I picked this pattern for the Knitting Olympics, too, without ever having knit a sock toe-up before. I think I started and frogged it at least five times between Saturday and Sunday before figuring out a. how to start a toe-up sock and b. that there was an error in Row 3 in the pattern I'd printed out on Friday (that has since been corrected). Now I'm on a roll...until the next issue, that is. :)

Good luck with your socks and hooray for knitting insanity!

Beth said...

Go for it!