i might get a medal after all

Posted on Posted in book reviews/events, designing, projects

because it’s been such a busy trip, my olympic goal—to finish five socks and knit a hat for david—has not really been at the forefront of my thoughts this week. despite my lack of focus on it, bit by bit, my knitting has progressed and if david drives most of the way home (so i can knit), i might actually finish.

and with a hat like this, who wouldn’t want to support a knitter’s dream of getting gold?? this was knit with a special skein from chris at briar rose, dyed on super-squishy mountain meadows merino worsted. i don’t think she has it listed in her online shop, but it may be something you’d see in her booth at one of the shows or possibly on chris’s page of selections from the dark side. it’s just yummy—so soft and squeezable, yet sturdy.

haha, i really love the rustic-ness of this hat—it’s perfect for david; he looks like a man of the forest in it. and he seems to like it a lot; he’s worn it nonstop since i finished it (he really needed a hat). we’ve even got plans for at least one more; maybe one that he can tuck his braid into. i knit until my yarn ran out, so the length wasn’t completely optional, but a longer one might be fun (and good for wearing in heavy snow).

once i got going on it, it knit up very quickly on 6mm needles, but my beginning was, as usual, fraught with indecision and false starts. i had to cast and reknit the first few rows on a couple of times.

then, halfway through the first repeat of the cable, i decided that i wanted the cable to cross differently, in a way that looked more “interwtwined”. i did NOT, however, want to rip back what i’d done (sixteen rows—big deal, right?)

so i commenced to doing some surgery. i dropped down a cable rib on the right side and re-crossed it the other way (under, instead of over), then worked those stitches back up

then the one on the other side needed to be recrossed to match it, so i took that one out too and changed it.

finally, the center one got changed as well (why not; as long as we’re change-happy, we might as well reconfigure the whole thing, right?).

i dropped the three knit sts of that rib down and recrossed so it went under at the center instead of over.

when i was all done, it looked like this

then i had to repeat the sequence for the big cable on the opposite side of the hat.

the whole process took about half an hour—probably almost the same as it would have taken to rip and reknit, but sooo much more interesting, heh. maybe i just wanted to see if i could do it successfully. sorta like adding a triple axel to my program, for a few extra points from the judges.

so far, i’ve finished the hat and three out of five socks. sock four is almost ready for toe shaping and sock five is completed to about halfway down the foot.
i could do it.

omg, it is STILL snowing outside—it’s been snowing all week, ever since we left hyde park on tuesday. there’s a big storm circling around and around out there and i guess it’s going to remain in place for a few more days yet. we are headed back to ohio today, too—i hope the drive home isn’t too painful, ugh.

the weekend was great—i taught classes here in albany at trumpet hill on friday evening and saturday. we had a fantastic turnout, despite the weather—i am so impressed with the intrepid upstate knitters—everyone who was supposed to come arrived with bells on and we had lots of fun.

barb, ruby, and barbie o. (otherwise known as the gang from montreal) drove four hours from canada for the full the weekend of classes. impressive, right??
i think they had a pretty fun friend’s weekend; i hope their drive home today is free of complications.

i was a little nervous friday night (it’s always like that when i first start a class), and i completely forgot to take pictures during the lace knitting class (sorry!).

saturday though, i managed a few before we got going for the day with our sweater fitness class.

we had the use of this incredible, state-of-the-art classroom room provided by berkshire bank—they make it available to groups as part of their “give-back” to their community. that’s one thing i love about where i grew up—businesses in the capitol region provide a considerable amount of community support and it makes a big difference.

that’s jen in the middle above; she came all the way from cape cod to join us! her family owns sage yarn in falmouth, MA

we had almost thirty people participate in this session and boy, did we ever dive in to fitting—these knitters were ready for it. a truly awesome day; i think most everyone went home very excited.

i had a wonderful time too—it was SO good to be teaching in my home town and i really appreciate that robena at trumpet hill provided this wonderful opportunity.

last night we celebrated my mom’s birthday by having dinner at the standard restaurant with my sister’s family and my aunt. afterward, we cut that cake i was telling you about

and finally got a chance to see what was inside

whipped cream and strawberry preserves, mmm.
i gave my mom the dark red hat and neckwarmer set i knitted last month; she loves the color of the hat (but declined to model it for the blog, haha).

it’s funny how everyone runs when i pull out my camera now . . .

well, i need to go—i have to pack up my stuff so we can get going this morning. have a great sunday and i’ll see you back in ohio.

22 thoughts on “i might get a medal after all

  1. Anne- Briar Rose is magic- love the hat.

    The ladies from Montreal are wonderful- I would sooo drive 4 hours for your class.

    ….as long as there was cake like that at the end.

  2. Congrats on almost winning your Olympics medal! I, alas, have had to concede defeat — even with our back-to-back heavy snowfalls keeping me from having to work for the first full week of the Olympics, I still managed to bite off more than I could chew (the Thermal sweater from Knitty in, I believe, winter 2006). I’m still working on the first sleeve. I’ll have it done in a few more days, but I won’t win a medal, alas.

    By the way, Anne, my mom absolutely *adores* the Matterhorn hat knit with the really bright variegated Malabrigo. It was a huge success! So thanks for a wonderful pattern, as always!

  3. Congrats on the triple axel! Bravo and all that 😉 I love how you pointed out that you could probably have frogged and reknit in about the same amount of time. Been there, done that, many times before!

  4. Ah! I lived in Albany for many years through high school and college. Too bad Trumpet Hill wasn’t there then. Love your blog.

  5. The hat is just awesome. And that cake is so pretty I don’t know that I could have cut it, but I’m sure it was delicious.

  6. I love David’s new hat…it looks so comfy!!! All of you look like you had a wonderful time….The cake looks divine!1 Have a safe trip home 🙂

  7. quelle chance d’avoir autant de copines pour tricoter. Moi, j’ai perdu mon travail il y a 2 semaines et je suis un pleut prufttt, enfin du coup je tricoter plus du tout et suis complètement cassée.
    Passe un fois sur mon blog ça me ferai plaisir.
    Miamm quel bon gateau.
    Bisous à bientot.

    What luck to have so many girlfriends to knit. I’ve lost my job 2 weeks ago and I’m raining prufttt, once I finally knit anymore and am completely broken.
    Spent a time on my blog that make me happy.
    Miamm what a good cake.
    Bisous à bientot.

  8. I would say that the cable re-knitting was not just a triple axel, but a triple axel-double toe loop combination! 😉 And thanks for the photo of the cake – yum!!

  9. Definitely extra points for the cable dance! What a great finished project. I hope your drive home was uneventful and full of terrific knitting. Welcome home.

  10. Love the hat and the cake! I hope you got back home ok.I seem to have problems when I rip back cables that the tension gets all wonky and they don’t look nice even though they are ‘right’.

  11. Glad you had a great time in New York…..We were slammed…..in the lower Hudson Valley…Hope you made it home to OHIO……..Today 2/3 at 3pm we got our power back. I made sock for the olympic just generic……finished and made a little pair for my GD….from the leftovers…..Then started the Snowstorm socks……got one almost finished…Ther socks that you are showing are Great……..want and need to have them…My computer that I store all your patterns dropped dead……I hope that I can regain them all…I have benn putting them in a file….My son is a geek…..so I hope I can reclaim them and download them to a disc….or what ever that is called…sorry for the long post…..My husband loves David’s new socks……hope you got home OK.

Comments are closed.