Sleeveless

The main body of the ribby cardi is now complete--on to the sleeves! Here's a quick shot of the two front panels in progress:

I have a lot of yarn left over--like nearly 2 full skeins of the main color! I'm hoping this doesn't mean that I'm going to run short of the sleeve color. I guess if I'm close, I'll just knit the collar from the main color instead of the contrast color.

In other news, I got my Knitting Olympics pattern in the mail yesterday, and spent the whole subway ride to bell choir trying to decipher it. If part of the point of the K.O. is to challenge myself, I think I've succeeded in that regard, but more on that tomorrow.

Knitting on Screen

So the other night we were watching this movie (one of my top five of all time, btw) and I got all excited when Debra Winger's character was knitting on screen--during a key dramatic moment, nonetheless. It was like I had some deep seated connection with the film--here I am knitting, watching Debra knitting . . . we've got a really profoud connection, right?

I checked out this list of movies, TV shows, etc. that reference knitting, and my movie wasn't on it, so I submitted the film for their database this morning. And I got to thinking--my mom and her librarian friends once had a slumber party where they stayed up late watching movies featuring librarians. How fun would it be to do the same thing for knitting?

. . . And Knitting Too!

“Although they only give gold medals in the field of athletics, I encourage everyone to look into themselves and find their own personal dream, whatever that may be--sports, medicine, whatever. The same principles apply.” -- John Naber, 4 time Olympic gold medalist in swimming

Sports, medicine, knitting, whatever.

Here, I hope, is my own personal dream, the project I'll be making for the Knitting Olympics. Theresa came to Knitsmiths on Sunday wearing her absolutely gorgeous version of this sweater, and I knew I had to make it. Now, with the Yarn Harlot's challenge, I have the perfect motivation to tackle it.

I have the yarn already (I think), although I'll need to reevaluate once the pattern gets here. I just ordered it yesterday, so here's hoping it gets here in time for me to swatch and master the cable pattern before the Opening Ceremonies on February 10. Methinks the Ribby Cardi may be on hold for, oh, sixteen days or so.

March of the Penguin

Well, as promised, I have pictures of my latest finished object, named "March" by P.



And here he is in his natural environment:



Pattern: Pasha from Knitty Winter 2004

Yarn: Patons Canadiana (I think); it's some kind of acrylic yarn that I got with my gift certificate to Mary Lue's.

Started: 1/19/06 (while watching this)

Finished: 1/25/06

And, since I had the camera out anyway, I took a photo of the back of my Ribby Cardi-in-progress.

I have about two rows to go before decreasing for the armholes. I'm making this quite a bit longer than the pattern calls for; usually I love being tall, except when it comes to adapting knitting patterns to my long torso!

Spinning Out of Control (and no, that's not a fiber-related reference)

OK, so much (most?) of what you'll see on this blog is about knitting. But, since I haven't finished a project lately--this may change tomorrow--I figured I'll take this opportunity to whine about my writing (or lack thereof).

One of my goals for this year was to work more conscientiously and systematically on getting more work published. Well, yesterday I got the inevitable result of that effort--a rejection letter (or, in this case, e-mail). I shouldn't be too upset--it was, after all, the weakest piece I sent out. But you never quite get used to that disappointment. My biggest problem is that receiving a rejection always sends me into a writers block tailspin--I convince myself that my stuff is no good, that there's no point in still doing this, etc., etc. Anyway, I should probably force myself to snap out of it and do some quasi-creative writing today.

In other news, I've been assigned what's probably my highest profile book review to date--it's a review for Publishers Weekly of the new novel by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. I'm finding this incredibly intimidating, for some reason--I almost wish I didn't know the author's name so that I could just judge the book on its own merits. But it's a little late for that.

Also, I signed on to edit/write a book for this series of textbooks published by Greenhaven Press. My topic will be abortion. It looks like a challenge, something totally different than what I've done before. It also is likely to cut into my knitting/enjoyable but not exactly profitable writing time. But that's OK, since they're paying me quite nicely.

I realized today, after signing up for the Knitting Olympics, that I will be heading to NYC on a roadtrip during that sixteen-day period. Woohoo--eight hours of guilt-free knitting time. It's a good thing, too--if I end up doing the project I intend to, I'll need all the help I can get.

Third (or Fourth?) Time's the Charm

Here we go again. After hearing Ariel wax poetic about her blog at Knitsmiths yesterday, and having the added incentives of Alison's Sockapaloooza and Stephanie's Knitting Olympics, I figure I actually have a chance of sticking with this for a while. We'll see how things go. Sorry this is sort of bare-bones for now--I swear I'll figure out all the button thingies and photos, etc. here shortly.