Sister Sweaters

Here at long last are the sister sweaters.  On the left is my original Rhinebeck, hand-dyed orange superwash, knit as "Miss December" in my 2009 12 sweaters dodecathon.  It's been one of my very favorite sweaters of all time ever since.  And sister Beth liked it so much, recreating it for her became my challenge for this year's Tour de Fleece and the the Ravelympics.  I put it aside to buy buttons for it and then the school year began and I just finished sewing the buttons on the first night of her short visit... but it fits and it went back to Scotland with her!  Secundus snapped this photo before she had to leave.  It may be a bit blurry but it works.  Great pattern, happy yarn (homespun is the best!) and I still love orange.  I would knit another orange sweater.

It has been weeks since I did a proper update on my stash report.  I finally have some movement in knitting and quilting to report.

Fabric used this week: .5 yards for binding log cabin, and I'm counting 16 yards as donated (or at least on long loan!)
Fabric used year to date: 74.5 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 28 yards
Net used for 2012: 46.5 yards

Yarn used this week: 600 yards for camping shawl
Yarn used year to date: 6744 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 3503 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 3241 yards

I'm hoping to get back into both quilting and knitting now that the highest stress week of the school year is past and it's back to just ordinary stress!

Sweater Triathlon - finish line!

It was a squeaker... but it's done, just in time for closing ceremonies if I had watched them live.  Which I didn't.  I have several hours of Olympics still tivo'd to watch and really, no time to do it in.

See, it really is done.  Except for the buttons, the reinforcing tape on the button band, and washing and blocking.  I love it.  Orange is the best color ever.  It's not my size, or I'd be tempted to keep it even though I own its twin.  Because you can never have enough orange.  It's a bit heavy to wear in August though.  I'll calculate tomorrow exactly how much yarn it used.  I spent a total of about 13 days knitting it, with not much else getting done on those days other than necessary stuff like cooking 3 meals a day and blogging.

Rhinebeck goes Ravellenic on Ravelry.

Randomday - Only the Collar Left

That's right, friends, only the collar is left of my orange Rhinebeck.  And the collar is negligible.  I can knit that up tonight and make the photo finish line before closing ceremonies.  No pictures because, well, I've been knitting all day!

I started this morning at 6:00 (9:00 EST), with some nice energetic knitting to the accompaniment of the political coverage.  I knit faster when the promise of a solid Republican victory is in the air.  And isn't it nice that Paul Ryan is considered young by all the commentators?  He's just two years younger than me, so that makes me... not old.  I finished the second sleeve midmorning, about the time I finished watching the Olympic coverage from last night.  I took a break midway through the buttonband to go pick as many plums as I could from our tree. 

There was also a break to go pick up the car from the shop in the early afternoon, and a trip to the library in mid-afternoon.  And then I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie and a blueberry-plum pie.  I also took a break for dinner and two breaks to do my two Latinstudy assignments (Caesar and Bede... Bede is in one of those dreadful papal letters, from Honorius.  The popes would have done so much better if they had stuck to the simple Latin of the Vulgate from which they all-too-seldom quote, and just dropped the pretentious efforts to impress the yokels with their erudition).

Daniel is working his way through Deep Space Nine, which he considers the quintessential Star Trek.  I finished the buttonhole band and cast on the collar through two key episodes dealing with the beginning of the Dominion war.  It's all clear sailing from here.  Yay!  I have fulfilled the Olympic code: Knit Faster, Aim Higher, Compete Stronger, and Stay Up Later watching television until you finish your sweater!  Unfortunately I have not finished my ironing, or made plum jam, or helped Daniel pack for college, or cleaned the house.  But there may be time for those things next week.

More of the random: at the Fair last week Steve and I saw a baby Barbary Lion, a species which is extinct in the wild.  It was asleep the first time we went by, but then awake right before we left the fair, and frisky.  I've never seen anything more adorable than a frisky kitten-lion trying to gnaw the head off its stuffed penguin toy.  And it was posing in people's laps, for photographs!

Recently I had an occasion where I contemplated the changes that twelve years of immersion in ancient language have made in my brain.  I was trying to explain the difference between a mystery gourd, which I think is a pumpkin, growing in our compost pile, and the watermelon which Daniel was hoping it was.  "Pumpkins have different leaves than ...." and there I paused.  Because I had to be sure the correct plural was "watermelons" and not "watermela."

In it to Win it

Forget all that "It's just an honor to be here" nonsense.  I want that Ravellenic medal!  I've worked hard and overcome a lot of setbacks, and I'm determined.  So.  After watching the Ravellenic Games live while furiously knitting on the right sleeve of Rhinebeck, I've come to some realizations about myself.  1. I'm stubborn.  2. I'm more competitive when I set myself a personal challenge than you'd think (see #1).  3. I take pride in my work and I want to see others appreciate it. 4. I honor the efforts of all participants in these games, but if baby sweaters, hexipuffs and water-bottle cozies can medal, I'm going to make darn sure my adult size sweater, knit with at least 1400 yards of my own handspun, is going to get a medal.  I will just have to be strategic.

So, like Aly Raisman making the shrewd call to drop a certain element from her floor program in the team final, I'm going to change the terms on which I will claim a medal, if necessary, after a last-minute evaluation.  From the beginning I knew that I would consider the sweater "done" even without buttons sewn on or blocking.  Now, I'm going to say that as long as I finish both sleeves, I will claim victory.  Buttonbands and collar, while they will certainly be added to the sweater before it finds its recipient this fall, are not strictly necessary elements of an adult garment.  I can claim victory without them, and I will, if necessary.  I'll be finished with the first sleeve in a few hours, and starting on the second sometime this evening.  I can DO this!  Anybody want to cook dinner for me?

Yarn-along Wednesday - Olympic Hopes

For every Olympic athlete who seizes the limelight with inspiring stories of pre-dawn practices and impossible comebacks, there are several who don't ever get a medal.  And that's okay.  You can tell the story of a person's character by how they react to -- not disaster, but a less than perfect performance.  I'm so proud of the ones who say "I'm just so happy to be here" instead of crying when they get a silver or pouting when they get a bronze (Russian gymnasts, I'm looking at you!)  Even when the announcer intones, "his Olympics are over" ... and they are, as far as NBC is concerned.  But I have to say those are the stories I enjoy the most.  I'm just sorry I don't have enough time in my life to watch more than the pre-packaged primetime coverage, taped for the next morning.

Here's where I stand on my Ravelympic Rhinebeck.  I lost almost two entire days of knitting, Saturday when I went blueberry picking, and Monday when I had a migraine.  But yesterday was quite productive.  Both right and left front yoke were completed yesterday, and I picked up stitches for the right sleeve.  Still, I'm seriously doubting that I'll be able to finish the whole thing by closing ceremonies.  That's basically three days for two sleeves and a day and a half for the collar and buttonbands.  I've never knit sleeves that fast.  But it's an honor just to be here.

I'm reading the latest #1 Ladies' Detective Agency novel - The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection.  I'm not reading it very fast because I keep trying to finish Olympic knitting, but it's just as delightful as all the others.  I'm linking up to Ginny's yarn-along today.

Blueberries have been a bit of a distraction this week also; first they had to be cleaned and picked over, then they had to be processed.  There have been many gallons -- 8? -- frozen for future use, and with the ones in the container I've made jam and syrup.  I'm trying to get to another batch of jam and a much-requested blueberry pie.  And then, just when we were preparing to drive away from church Sunday, friends come running up and saying, "Wait!  You can't go home without a zucchini!  Take two!"  They measure 11" and 12".  I like zucchini, but these are almost the size of kayaks.  I'll need to get creative to use them before people give me more! 

Steve and I are going on a date to the fair this evening; I'll be able to see the knitting and quilts without kids pulling several different directions, so it'll be fun.

Feathered Star: Evaluation

August UFO dating from 1999 - Feathered Star.  I was pregnant with Tertia when my quilt group in Denver, Hearts and Hands, began this project.  In theory, we would piece the central medallion and then challenge ourselves to add multiple borders to make it a showstopping quilt.  I spent a fair amount of money, for me and at that time, on beautiful fabrics in "my" colors for what I thought would be a wall quilt that could be the centerpiece of my living room.  "These fabrics would be stunning with lots of elaborate applique!" was one of the comments I received. And it's true, they would.  But they probably aren't going to be.

But before I could get to the applique, I had to do the piecing.  And whether it was the morning sickness, or the disruption from moving -- twice -- or just my own lack of piecing skills, I've never been happy with the medallion.  The points don't really match, it's not precisely 24" square, and I put it away, thinking maybe I'd piece another feathered star sometime, or maybe 3 more for a bed-sized quilt.  Now, I'm no longer in my applique phase.  I still love the fabrics, but I'm not willing to spend that much time with them, especially when the central medallion is less than perfect.  So, it is what it is.  I'll come up with 3 or 4 borders to add to it and aim for a table topper or wall quilt that I can enjoy now rather than in 13 more years.  I think it would be great for Christmas, but those are my favorite colors any time of year.  And it would still look good in my living room!

That was supposed to be my Design Wall Monday post... but I ended up having a horrible migraine/ sick headache yesterday and didn't get anything done.  Well, I made blueberry jam and went clothes shopping with Daniel.  But no blogging, and no knitting.  I'm trying to recuperate today.  I'm finished with the back and right front of my orange Ravelympics sweater and hope to do a lot of knitting this afternoon and evening and maybe finish the left front.  I'm still running into crunch time to finish it up before closing ceremony August 12.  With a lot of couch potato knitting time, I still could make it.

Stash Report:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 53.5 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 28 yards
Net used for 2012: 25.5 yards

Yarn used this week: 904 yards so far on Rhinebeck (up through skein 225)
Yarn used year to date: 5310 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 3503 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 1807 yards

Division Day

I've made lots of progress knitting over the last few days: Wednesday I spent 2 hours in the Vancouver DMV and Thursday it was about 2 hours altogether with Daniel driving to the Kelso DMV, and waiting for him to take his drive test and get his license (whoo hoo!) and driving back.  The Kelso DMV is totally the way to go.  Only about 5 minutes wait time from the time you take your number.  And Daniel is a licensed driver now!

Daniel drove the girls and me to the fair this morning... we got in with our free admission tickets for the pancake breakfast, but we'd already eaten at home.  We parked way out in the far G section and were already tired after looking at the animal exhibit (baby lion who slept in people's arms, a wallaby that hopped obligingly the lenthg of his cage, giganto pythons, a wise old tortoise) and some of the animal barns (Tertia is still terrified of cows, or any animal significantly larger than herself.  She probably doesn't remember the close encounter she had with an unruly bull as a toddler at the fair, but her subconscious sure does!)

Quarta's quilt had a blue ribbon, and my 2 quilts had red.  My 2 knitted items had blues and my yarn had a red.  Of course, it does seem that just about everything gets a ribbon.  Everyone's a winner at the fair!  Not a bad way to celebrate the summer, really.

Olympic knitting continues.  I celebrated Division Day today.  That means I completed the 15 inches of the "lower body pattern," which I affectionately think of as the waffle stitch, and divided the right front, back, and left front.  The left and right fronts are hanging out on holders or scrap yarn while I continue in plain stockinette stitch on the back.  Yay for no more ribbing, it's going to go a lot faster from here on, even though it's bulkier and harder to maneuver.

From the cast-on at the bottom edge, here are the skeins/colorways I've used so far:

145 (copper/bronze/embers) - 96 yds.
345 (flame/bronze/embers) - 98 yds.
135 (copper/flame/embers) - 118 yds.
134 (copper/flame/bronze) - 96 yds.
113 (double copper/flame) - 106 yds.  This was a little finer than the gauge I wanted so I started alternating every other row with
553 (double embers/flame) - 82 yds, and finished the waffle stitch section to divide for the 3 sections; the back started with 553 and continues with
235 (caution/flame/embers) - 108 yds., about 2 inches so far this evening.

Still to blend in on the yoke are 123, 225, 125, and 115, plus any others I might need.  I've caught up with where I wanted to be if I hadn't had to frog my first 2 days' work.  It would be nice to speed through some of these stockinette sections and actually pull ahead of my goal.  So I suppose I better sign off and actually knit, right?

WIP Wednesday - County Fair entries!

Yesterday Quarta and I headed up to the Clark Co. Fairgrounds to drop off some exhibits for this year's fair.  We've never done anything like this before, and we're so excited!  From the archives of the blog they are...

Quarta's "Tea Time" quilt... her first quilt!  She designed and appliqued and embellished most of the pictures...

My "Framed In" quilt...

Jack's Chain, Jr. edition...

Nautilina Shawl...

Rose Lace Stole (a.k.a. Lady MacBeth, but she's out on parole now!).  Note the difference between a "shawl" and a "stole."  If I had taken before pictures of the thrift store sweater the yarn came from I could have entered it into a whole different category for recycled or upcycled items...

and finally, handspun Navajo-plied Targhee wool yarn from the Tour de Fleece.  I hadn't even washed and thwacked this yet, but it was fun to contribute these and I look forward to seeing them at the fair Friday.  Get your free admission tickets for the Fred Meyer pancake breakfast at your neighborhood store; most of us skip the long line for free pancakes and head straight to the other fun.  I'm going to try to convince the girls to let me spend some quality time in the sheep barn this year.  But it will be fun to see some of our family's things on exhibit!

As far as real Works in Progress are concerned, I'm mainly all about the Ravelympics right now.

Today's picture, Rhinebeck goes Ravellenic is laid on top of my 2009 Rhinebeck by Proxy so you can see they are really 2 different sweaters!  You can also see this one is slightly larger (but not too much larger like the one I frogged Sunday) and has a slightly different blend of colors.  I like it! I'm 10 inches in, thanks to a 2-hour wait at the DMV this morning.  That's just about where I should have been at 2 inches per day if I hadn't frogged my first attempt, so it removed some of the frustration associated with long waits at the DMV.  Everybody, wish Daniel success on his driving test tomorrow... in Kelso!  (I think I'll have him drive there, and knit some more on the way... the earliest local exam time was going to conflict with his departure for college). 

I'm also linking to Ginny's Yarn-Along, but unfortunately I don't have a book.  That's because my reading has really slowed down to a crawl... does Facebook count?  (NOT!)  Online news articles? How about the Veritas Press catalog?  Variety Sudoku puzzles?  I'm blaming late nights watching the Olympics and the general busy-ness and lazyness of summer.  I read Family Circle for the recipes and celebrity gossip magazines for the inside scoop on the Cruise/Holmes divorce when I was at the eye doctor's waiting room.  Seriously, I need to mend my ways and do a book review soon!



Randomday: Olympic Cast-On

The Ravelympic, er, RAVELLENIC Games are on!  It's a total coincidence that the mass cast-on was at the same time as the Olympic Games opening ceremonies.  And that our goal is to finish whatever project we cast on by the closing ceremonies.  And that most of us are watching the Olympics at all... are we even allowed to say we watch the Olympics?

The challenge: complete Rhinebeck Goes Ravellenic before the end of closing ceremonies.  By complete: all knitting and seaming finished; buttons and blocking optional.  The materials: 22 skeins of orange superwash yarn, handspun during the Tour de Fleece, in 5 colorways: Classical Copper, Trademark Infringement Caution, Olympic Torch Flame, Bronze Age with Mycaenaean Patina, Ancient Embers.  I have about 1800 yards total of a worsted weight 3-ply.  The needles: size 6 KnitPicks Harmony tips on a 40" cable.  I went down a size because I'm generally a loose knitter and I'm trying to achieve an accurate 5 stitches/inch gauge to get the right amount of positive ease and not bagginess.

I managed about 2 inches of knitting and one skein of orange yarn (96 yards, colorway 145-copper/bronze/embers) before going to bed last night.  I'm on my second skein midway through the day (98 yards, colorway 345-flame/bronze/embers) and may finish about a skein a day.  It could happen!  When I did my 12 sweaters in 2009 challenge I used to aim for one inch of body knitting per day, which is roughly equivalent to 4 inches of sleeve knitting.  That can be hard to achieve with fingering or sport weight, but this is worsted and I think I can, I think I can.  Keep up the 2 inches per day pace, I mean.

Citius, Altius, Fortius!

Random observations: The Vatican did not field an Olympic team this year.  I don't know if they ever did, but it would make an interesting story.

My daughters had never watched Chariots of Fire, but now that they've seen Mr. Bean's version they may think it is the authentic one.

QEII as a Bond girl.  Now I've seen everything!

Olympic Preparations

The Ravelympics have been renamed the Ravellenic Games in response to claims of trademark infringement... but I'm still calling them the Ravelympics.  Or just plain Olympics, during which I'll be knitting.  I'm almost but not quite ready.  I have the yarn wound into center-pull balls, and I have a basic color progression planned for the sweater:

(The chicken sandwich on top left is Tertia's -- I was hurrying to put the yarn away before lunch!)

The sweater is Rhinebeck, from A Fine Fleece, by Lisa Lloyd.  If I had world enough and time I would knit just about every sweater in this book.  This will be the second time through for Rhinebeck, because I already have a version of this sweater for myself.  This one's for Beth, who wanted one just like it.  So, starting tomorrow, there will be lots more of the orange... of course, you've already seen the orange being spun during the Tour de Fleece.  Can I knit a sweater, start to finish, in 17 days?  Um, maybe.  Depends on how much I get distracted.

I still haven't done a swatch or selected a needle size or cleaned out my knitting bag.

WIP Wednesday - Vision Appointments

I'm still processing the astounding non-coincidence (because there is no such thing as coincidence) that I know Petra Anderson, the young woman in the Aurora shooting whose brain had a benign "defect" that channelled the bullet through without causing major damage.  I remember her as a little girl, as shown in the picture with her mother at the end of this post.  When I saw the first pictures of her as an adult, I was struck with the resemblance to her mother as I remember her; the same heart-shaped face, the same creative spark even in a still photo.  Her mother is now fighting terminal cancer, just as my late mother did.  I know the story has gone viral now, and the care fund started for their benefit is doing well.  I'm glad something positive and uplifting can come from this, but of course I'm so sorry to see the Anderson family having to go through such terrible stress.  And I just came across another blog written by a little girl I used to know.  And I wonder how is it that she became so grown up in the 13 years since I knew her?  All these kids from the old days, now serving the Lord in their own unexpected ways.

Here in the Northwest, I'm taking kids to eye doctor appointments.  Tertia got to go all the way down to Lake Oswego with me yesterday to the ophthalmologist.  Then this morning I took her along with Daniel to the vision center... Daniel to get contacts and Tertia to pick out frames.  Speaking of kids growing up... I'm old enough to have a kid wearing contacts!

Okay, works in progress... 5/8 of the way through seaming this Log Cabin top together.  Ignore the offset blocks... I moved the finished part to the right to make room for the light switch.  These blocks were so fun to make with scraps that I bought back when I lived in Denver and Quilter's Newsletter Magazine used to have a brick-and-mortar store at their HQ.  I remember stuffing a bag with selvedge scraps for a dollar, or something like that.  I noticed a few green scraps from my very first quilt ever, finished in 1988.  There are also scraps from several other Denver-vintage quilts.  I guess that's what happens when you trot out an 8-year old UFO.  Wow, I'm nostalgic today!

I'm working on more purple Anita's Arrowhead blocks as leaders-and-enders while I seam the log cabin blocks together.  I have 40-something now.  I should really come up with a plan for the finished top.

So this may not be the best picture. But for the yarn-along I am working on Lady MacBeth, the Black Roses stole, and I'm trying to catch up on back issues of World.  I'm more than halfway through the final border... so there's hope for finishing it before the end of the month and staying on track with my 12 shawls in 2012 challenge.  You can't see it in the picture, but there are tiny seed beads in there.  I've been working on this one since March, and I'm ready for it to be done!  I also need to wind 22 skeins of handspun orange superwash into balls before the Olympics opening ceremonies Friday!  Yay for orange!

Monday: Time Trials

On the design wall, nothing has changed since last week.  I've been almost exclusively focusing on spinning, with a little knitting during swim lessons.  No quilting, not even a stitch on the arrowheads blocks.  But the parts for the Grace Frame have arrived and I am trying to get them uncurled.  Once they are a little more relaxed (and I am too), and I have some heavy-lifting help from Steve or Daniel, I'll try to put them on, reassemble the Megaquilter, and get some machine quilting done.  I'll probably also need to buy thread.  I have big ambitions to get Jack's Chain, Orca Bay, and Farmer's Wife all quilted this summer.  But you know, summer is always too short!

The Tour de Fleece is speeding by, and I have spun up about half of the orange superwash for my second Rhinebeck sweater.  I'm washing the 10 skeins I have today and hanging them out on the line to dry.  After plying the yarn and measuring it off, you are supposed to "set" the twist by soaking or washing it gently, then giving the skein a few good thwacks against something hard, like the edge of the sink.  This seems to shock the wool fibers into good behavior for some reason, and any extra twist in the yarn from over-spinning or over-plying goes away.

I noticed that in the Tour de France, they present the winner of the Maillot Jaune with a bouquet of yellow roses and a stuffed lion.  It just so happens that this little stuffed lion was in the bag of things from the girls' room that were supposed to go to Goodwill.  So I appropriated him as my mascot.  Now I don't know if he'll end up at Goodwill or not!

Of the 10 skeins so far, each one a different permutation of 3 different plies (there are 5 dyelots total, so I marked the skeins "123, 124, 125, 134, 135, 145, 234, 235, 245, 345".  Now, in my attempt to make every skein different, I'm going to ply 2 strands of the same dyelot with 1 strand of a second; I won't have enough to try every possible combination, but that's probably just as well.  I really like dyelot 1 on the left of Aslan: it's a rich reddish copper that I'd be happy with if I had reproduced every time.  But I also like dyelot 3 on his right -- a very saturated orange with red mixed in.  The other dyelots have pluses and minuses; 2 can be a little too tangerine, 4 a little too brown or incompletely saturated, and 5 has a definite black/gray cast.  But combined in various ways they definitely make a yarn with continuous interest.  I'm looking forward to making the sweater during the Ravelympics!

Book review: Lord Brocktree by Brian Jacques

The Great Redwall Race of 2012 -- The short story: earlier this spring Daniel challenged Quarta to a chronological read-through of all the Redwall books that she hadn't yet read or had read to her.  He was supposed to read them all, not skipping any.  Well, he's backed out in favor of re-reading the Belgariad, but Quarta has finally caught on that these books are a great thing.  She whined a lot at first, but patience and good children's literature won the day and she's working on The Long Patrol now.  Here's the chronological list we're going from.

If you haven't yet experienced the Redwall books, what in the world are you waiting for? If there's a child in your life, that child needs a bedtime story like these.  You can start with Redwall itself or with Mossflower, but why not join us with Lord Brocktree and experience from the very beginning the panoramic sweep of the grand tale of the goodbeasts who must fight for freedom against vermin hordes?  Join Dorothea Duckfontein Dillworthy, Dotti for short, that young haremaid of Fatal Beauty, along with Lord Brocktree the badger, questing for Salamandastron, the fabled mountain ruled by an ancient line of noble badgers.  Other beasts, moles, shrews, mice, otters, and squirrels help them along their way.  There is always good food, gentle humor, positive character development, and a clear delineation between good and evil.  In this book, the evil role is taken by Ungatt Trunn, a wildcat with an unnatural liking for spiders and world domination.  He conquers Salamandastron and Our Heroes must raise an army to win it back.  Thanks to teamwork and self-sacrifice, and helped a bit by the tendency of the evil hordes to turn on each other, they will ultimately be victorious and provide a stirring tale for young creatures to hear after the feast.

If it sounds familiar, it is basically the same plot in every novel.  And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Tune in for more book reviews in the Redwall race as the summer progresses.

Design Wall Monday and Stash Report

So, now for something completely different on the design wall.  I'm making Arrowhead blocks using the technique for Anita's Arrowheads described in Rotary Cutting Revolution.  It's a fascinating technique that requires two 8" squares of fabric, starched together and stitched in a particular way.  Then you cut them in a particular way, press, rearrange, and sew again.  Advantages: these blocks make up fairly fast, and it's fun.  Disadvantages: you end up with bias edges on the blocks, and the starch builds up on the bottom of your iron.  Looking at some of the other patterns in the book, I think this is one of the easier patterns; the others looked like too much work and fuss for me, and I would go with traditional piecing for them.  But this one is great!  I started out just making one test block, and here I am almost 30 blocks later, making a purple bed quilt.  And purple isn't even my favorite color or anything, but I really like these.  I'm just trying to use up some stash.  It's kind of cool how colors that don't go at all with purple can go with purple in a quilt.

Thinking of a name for this quilt: maybe Olympic Mountains Majesty?  Inspired by this and other photos of the lovely Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula in my home state of Washington?  (And not, of course, meaning any denigration to the U.S. athletes competing in a sporting event to be held soon, but meaning a great deal of denigration to the corporation devoted to marketing and commercializing their efforts.)

Source: google.com via Katherine on Pinterest

I have a stash report as well:
Fabric used this week: 1 yard for backing for Jack's Chain baby quilt
Fabric used year to date: 49 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 27 yards
Net used for 2012: 22 yards
Yarn used this week: 900 yards for a finished Color Affection
Yarn used year to date: 3406 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 1308 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 2098 yards

Gearing up for the Tour de Fleece starting soon... I'll be adding a lot more yarn yardage then.  And then hopefully knitting it all up in the competition formerly known as the Ravelympics.

Ravelympics: Who Wins?

The Ravelympics will have to undergo a name change: Ravelry members can vote here on a shortlist of contenders, none of which have quite the same significance or resonance as the original.  I haven't even officially chosen or signed up with a team for the Event Which Must Not Be Named, but I'll be knitting.  And I'll be calling it "Ravelympics" here on my blog even if I can't on Ravelry.  And I will be taking every opportunity between now and then to put the words "Olympics" and "Olympian" in their proper context, which I do not believe is as the exclusively trademarked property of an American corporation.  Expect to see reviews of books featuring Olympic deities, references to Mt. Olympus in classical times, and maybe some talk about the Olympic Peninsula right here in Washington State.  I think I will be okay, because this is a small blog, and because it's not making a profit.  But you never know.  Just in case, I want to be buried in my orange Rhinebeck sweater.

I despise a bully, and although I understand why Ravelry feels it must comply with the U.S. Olympic Committee's "cease and desist" letter, I think there are far deeper issues involved than copyright infringement.  Ravelry itself is a for-profit corporation, yes... but it's also a social networking platform, and its 2 million members should be viewed as private individuals with the rights to free speech and free association that all Americans enjoy.  The Ravelympics is an all-volunteer effort, run by ordinary members of Ravelry and not by its employees.  So for the USOC to dictate what private citizens can call their own hobbies and groups really does ring a lot of free speech bells for me.  And if you're not a knitter, consider what might happen if you invited a lot of friends to come to your house for a party to watch the Olympics... and you used the Facebook platform to do it.  Or your email program.  Or your cell phone.  Would the USOC go after these corporations because you used them to infringe on their copyright?  And if not, is it just because those are big corporations, and Ravelry is small (in profit, not membership)?  Then shame on the USOC, because that's the very definition of a bully.

The internet is still in its Wild West phase, and the rules are unclear.  But I don't think the legal department of a for-profit corporation that is turning a tidy profit exploiting the efforts of amateur athletes (well, they used to be anyway) to market them to TV viewers should be the one to set the rules.  This is what the term "crony capitalism" means, and it's not pretty.  Now, I know better than most that knitters are all over the map politically.  I myself am a proud conservative Republican, and I like free enterprise, and I like businesses to be able to turn a profit as long as they do it honestly (which I think they do, most of the time).  Where there's real copyright and trademark infringement, I'd like those things to be sensibly protected.  But I utterly fail to see the business sense in alienating a large group of potential customers, some of whom have been eagerly looking forward to the games.  It's like winning the trademark battle and losing the fan base that made the trademark worth something.

The ironic thing, of course, is that 5 days ago most knitters didn't think one way or the other about the USOC.  They were generally positive about the Olympics and many were looking forward to watching the games while working on a project that would be personally challenging to them.  One crazy day turned that all upside down.  Very few knitters are going to be watching with the same spirit of goodwill towards the Olympic organizers and profiteers that they might have had.  It's all left a sour taste in our mouths.  It's so very petty, like the jocks in high school who picked on the artsy kids.

The USOC has created a massive PR problem for itself, and I can't say I feel too sorry for it.  I've watched with a small amount of schadenfreude as the social media have exploded with outrage about this issue over the last few days.  For sure, when the history of social networking is written, the Ravelympics will have its own chapter. 

I'm looking forward to watching the London games and cheering on the athletes who are doing their best to be the best in the world at what they do, but I'll be muting the commercials.  Or, perhaps more to the point, I'll be giving serious thought to whether I want to support the attempt to commercialize excellence.

Spinach Salad, and a Gaffe of Olympic Proportions

I made this recipe: Spinach and Radish Slaw with Crispy Chiles and Pepitas.  It's a bit of a production, and it makes a LOT.  I substituted red wine vinegar with a dash of sherry for the sherry wine vinegar called for.  And the only dried chiles I could find were "chiles negros" which I think had already been roasted before I stir-fried them.  The Pepitas are pumpkin seeds, which I had left over from my last batch of homemade granola.  This is a great salad, although rather soggy after the first day.  I'd make it for a potluck or cut it in half next time.

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Have you seen the Ravelry tempest in a teapot?  Seems the U.S. Olympic Committee has sent a cease-and-desist order to Ravelry claiming trademark infringement, because of the Ravelympics.  (The Ravelympics are a completely volunteer effort, in which individual crafters challenge themselves to complete a knitted or crocheted item during the duration of the sporting event the USOC thinks it is promoting).  To add insult to injury, the letter claimed knitting somehow "denigrates" the hard work and competitive spirit of the U.S. athletes (but only the U.S. athletes... I guess the international competitors aren't going to feel threatened by the sweater sprint).  Hoo boy.  They probably know, now that it's gone viral, that it was a mistake to do this.  Here's Mason-Dixon Knitting's take on it.  Although I'm not a huge fan of Stephen Colbert, I can see him having fun with this and would stand behind him, just this once.  The USOC has issued a semi-apology and suggested that knitters might like to knit items and donate them in honor of the games.  I don't think this is going to happen, at least not as the payoff the USOC seems to hint at.  They have proved themselves decidedly un-knitworthy.  Even after the second apology.

Ravelry, much as I love it, can be a rough crowd.  Rough as in "don't let your underage daughter go unsupervised here."  Some boards are as innocuous and friendly as you would expect from a knitting forum.  Some, despite vigilant moderation, are so overpopulated that threads degenerate and get locked quickly, but not too quickly for feelings to be hurt.  And some are actually set up to be a kind of verbal cage-fighting; no-holds-barred, no feelings spared, mob psychology and snark in full force.  I suspect that the denizens of the latter groups will not be called off easily.  Knitters have not been this vengeful since Madame Defarge.  I'm just as glad it's corporate America in the form of the USOC rather than political and religious conservatives they're targeting, this time.

As for me, I've (mostly) given up on the contentious groups and avoid the overpopulated ones as much as possible.  I will be knitting my Ravelympics project and calling it just that on this blog no matter whether they change the official name or not.  And somehow, I think I will be doing my part to work the words "Olympics" and "Olympian" into my blog as much as possible, but not in reference to the international summer games located in the capital city of the U.K.  Those shall remain nameless, since I wouldn't want to infringe on the rights of an American company to think it has a monopoly on the use of the word that refers to them.  Or denigrate the efforts of soulless fat cats to prove themselves pompous jerks.