The cast-on Friday night was exciting and a bit grueling. The knitting has been fierce. After knitting fast and furiously on Sunday, my Hourglass sweater grew to 5 inches. I had a plan as far as how much I could achieve each day. As I measured the length of my sweater, something told me to measure my gauge. As I did so, my gauge had changed from 5 spi to 5.5 spi. I had another friend verify it last night. That means my Olympic progress went from this:
to this:
Not an Olympian feat or much progress to show. My friend Susan told me that I should try to go up a needle size, as well as redo the hem as it looked very warped and that I would need to do a provisional cast-on, which I could do with waste yarn and not require a crocheted cast-on, so I decided to give it a whirl. Cast on more stitches and used bigger needles. After joining in the ball of regular yarn after 3 rounds of scrap yarn, it dawned on me that if I was using bigger needles, I wouldn't need to accomodate for the smaller gauge by using more stitces, so once again I was screwed. At that point, I threw down the Olympic knitting and began knitting on M's sweater for about 1/2 hour. I figured if I had problems with that sweater too, I just needed to put down knitting for a little while or else it would go like butter. It went like butter.
Now, or last night at this time, I'm thinking the Olympics is 16 days long. As of Monday night, that was 4 days in or 1/4 of the time allotted. That leaves me with 12 days to get re-cast on, rework the hem, (which is a bit fiddly and time-consuming to me, although well worth the efforts, so I won't have to worry with sewing down the hem afterwards) and then attempt to zoom through the body. I can knit at a good clip, but I don't want to feel pressured, especially since I lost so much knitting time and I really don't want to start over while I'm stressed about the whole thing, so I'm putting the Olympic gauntlet down and backing away. I've decided that I'll stay on Team Colorado and just attempt to get some projects finished and then I will restart the Hourglass sweater. But it's just not working out right now and if I'm committed to Olympic knitting, then I expect that I will finish and I know right now that that is not likely.
I was hugely bummed last night, but then thought, what am I really knitting for, the glory of an Olympic finish (probably!), but yet am I a failure because I don't finish. Not at all. So I give up my Olympic dreams and go back to my regular life of Wanda, a knitter and go back to a simpler life. My competitive streak isn't all that deep anyway. I was really cranking away on the knitting, but that's isn't always the best to go.
This way it will give me time to give M's sweater a little love. I'm still on Team Colorado and I will just be focusing on two projects, M's sweater and my i-cord gloves. If I could finish the gloves that would be nice, but if I don't, oh well. I figure progress will be made no matter what.
Oh and because I owe Kim a meme reply, here goes:
Tagged, yet again. This one comes from Strange Little Mama.
Instructions: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot.
Knitorious
Woman Obsessed
strange little mama
Chef Messy
What were you doing 10 years ago?
Not really sure. At this time, I was in a training class starting at my new job (where I worked at for over 9.5 years). I was still pretty new to Denver, having moved there the September prior.
What were you doing 1 year ago?
Meeting new friends via the Internet and blogs.
What were you doing 1 hour ago?
Waking up to type up a blog entry.
List five creative things you want to achieve this year:
1. Cook more.
2. Knit more.
3. Learn more knitting techniques.
4. That's it.
List five snacks you enjoy:
1. Too many to list
List five things you would do if money were no object:
1.Pay all of my bills, M's bills, my mom's and my sister's.
2. Buy all of my family new houses and cars.
3. Travel around the world, visiting different cultures, studying different ways of life and learning the languages.
4. Be happy and enjoy a restful life.
5. Pay for my nephew's college.
List five bad habits:
1. I don't put clothes away after folding them.
2. Not cleaning up behind myself.
3. Being lazy.
4. Attempting to do too many things at once.
5. Not taking good care of my car.
List five things you like doing:
1. Taking walks when the weather is nice
2. Hanging out with my boy
3. Knitting
4. Reading
5. Hanging out with friends
List five favorite gadgets:
1. George Foreman grill
2. Digital camera
3. computer
4. PalmPilot
5. M2's iPod
Name one thing you like about yourself:
I like being the friend that my friends call when they need someone to talk to.
Tagged:
Anyone who wants it.
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