February 23, 2006

No gold medals for me

I'm sad to say that I been thrown out of the olympics.I was doing so good, I was on fire, by friday afternoon I had the body of the sweater just before attaching the sleeves complete and was thinking of casting the said sleeves after I came home that night, sadly that never happened. My night finished on the ER room and I was down for appendectomy, I hardly had any pain but I was on somewhat critical condition(Im fine now btw, just bedbound). I had to endure 4 days in the hospital with no knitting at all, yes I was in bed and not in enough pain or drugs to not want to knit, but there was a 1 inch needle lodged in my wrist and attateched to my hand feeding me and giving me medicines all the time, I tryed to knit but it just plain hurt, and when the nurse saw me trying to knit she told me to rest my hand.

So that's it for my olympic carrer, I can't gain 4 precious days back, I have half a sleeve done but Im not really motivated anymore, not even to post my advanced body or the photo of my appendix that my doctor e-mailed me (and it's too gross anyway hehe).

February 10, 2006

Deep breath before the plunge

Pattern: "Jesse's Flames" from Stitch n' Bitch Nation
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran; MC blac and CC cream; 11 balls MC and 1 ball CC.
Needles: Addi Turbo US 8 and US 7
Cast On: October
Cast Off: February 7
Mods: Very few. Didn't do the flames. I added a garter edge to the bottom of the sweater. Didn' add color to the collar. That's it.
Comments:Exactly three days ago I managed to weave in all ends of the sweater for Raz that I finished on december. It is my first sweater and I'm quite happy how it came out, well the fitting at least is excellent but although I was on gauge the stitches with this yarn stretch a lot and the fabric tends to open a bit, so I should have used smaller needles, but well, Raz loved it and he even agreed to model! hehe.

I haven't knitted anything since I finished Odessa, Im resting my hands a bit for the olympics, catching up with my reading and re-learning hiragana. In a few hours I'll be casting on for my sweater, I can't wait.

February 09, 2006

Training for the olympics

The olympics start tomorrow and I have everything ready: pattern (check), yarn(check), needles(check), swatch(check), chocolate(check). Im doing a Weasley sweater following my fixation with the Harry Potter books. The pattern-recipe I'm using is the seamless raglan sweater by Elizabeth Zimmenman in Knitting without tears, I prefer this to the drop shoulder sweater of the movies because it's more flattering and will be easier to finish, as there are no seams. The large front R will be made with duplicate stitch, because I can't do intarasia in the round, fair isle will be much time consuming and I do not have the nerve to carry the yarn all around the body. The yarn I'm using is, alas, wool-ease, I recently bought too much holiday yarn to allow myself to buy good yarn. MC will be a dark dark pink and CC a dark grey.

The challenge for me: This is only my second sweater (so I'm not experienced), knitting a sweater in 16 days (the last one, for Raz, took me nearly 4 months to finish), doing an EZ seamles sweater (also a first), weave in all ends immediately afther I finish (I never, ever do that).

So remember our motto olympic knitters: Citius, Altius, Fortius. Do your best.

February 06, 2006

I have been to Odessa

Pattern: "Odessa" from Magknits
Yarn: Gedifra Fashion Trend Fino, Colorway 5569, 1 ball.
Needles: Addi Turbo US 5
Cast On: February 2
Cast Off: February 5
Mods: I knitted the body and the rib with the same needles because i wanted a more fitted hat.
Comments: I just loved the pattern, it is very cleverly constructed with the perfect decreases to achive the tornado look. The only thing I'd change on this pattern is on the last beaded round: here you have to put the beads on the YO stitch, and I'd rather put it in the stitch before, so that the bead don't move and slide thru the YO.

I finished this during the superbowl last night and wore it inmediatly, luckly for me it's a bit cold right now so I can wear the hat without many people staring at me.

February 04, 2006

Under construction

The blog is undergoing a massive make over so please bear with my for a few days. Today I successfully installed a great solution for comment spam: Scode is a MT hack which generates random numbers that you have to input when you make a comment, I first saw it on Fig and plum and is very easy to install even to a html-pearl challenged person like me. I highly recomend it.

In knitting news I'm almost at the decreasing part of Odessa, pics tomorrow.

February 02, 2006

Odessa started

I have been waiting anxiously for this pattern. I even went to buy the beads and yarn the day I saw the cute hat on Gumperina's blog with the happy news that she'll be posting the pattern soon. I almost couldn't refrain myself to check the site every few hours to see if it was up yet and yay! today it came up on the new Magknits. I cast-on inmediatly with lime green Gedrifa and glass square beads. I cant wait to finish it and I hope the weather gets worse so I can wear it soon, so far I've had short-sleeve temperatures for 3 straight weeks.