February 14th












February 21st











February 26th

This one is for Amy, Deb, Connie, Sue, Meleah, Lisa, Ani, and Alison, the ladies who I sat with last night watching the opening ceremonies and winding my unending ball of yarn.

Because I know your all just dying to know.

It's the motto for the 2006 Winter Olympics.
Faster, Higher, Stronger.
Today is the Opening Ceremonies for the 2006 Winter Olympics and not by any coincidence it is also the start of the 2006 Knitting Olympics.

I have decided to knit the Forest Path Stole designed by Faina Letoutchaia from Interweave Knits Summer 2003 Magazine. Thank you to everyone who gave me their input on which project to choose; I appreciated all your opinions.

Starting time for the Knitting Olympics begins at the lighting of the Olympic torch at Opening Ceremonies or to make it easier to figure out time zone adjustments at 2 pm in whatever time zone you're in. So technically, for me I could have cast on about 2 hours ago but, and I hate to admit this, I'm not quite ready.
While I should have been preparing for the start of the Olympics, I was frantically knitting in a mad attempt to finish up some loose ends from my January knitting goals. Of which I achieved only a partial success. From my pile of January knitting I was able to complete one scarf,
one sock,( yes, singular)
and the sleeves, collar and front bands (twice) for the Fair Isle sweater of which I finished up only this morning. It still needs to be cleaned up but I'm rather pleased with myself for getting it this far.
However that leaves me a bit behind in my preparations for the Knitting Olympics, though I'm not totally unprepared. I have enlarged the three different lace charts and colored coded them to make it a little easier to follow the patterns. I have the needles, and of course the yarn. The yarn I'm using is an extra fine merino, Cashwool, made in Italy (how apropos) by Zegna Baruffa, 100 grams= 1460 yds in a light grey color. Here's where I'm not as prepared as I should be, did you see the part about the yardage being 1400+ yds? extra fine? Yeah, being without ball winder or swift I'm still ah, winding, winding, and winding the skein into a ball.
As I was reading through the pattern this morning with all it's strange terminology it occurred to me that although it is written in plain English, to a knitting muggle it must appear as incomprehensible gibberish. Even more amazing is that what others may see as some sort of uninterpretable hieroglyphics did not seem a strange language at all, but rather it all made perfect sense to me. Seriously, if I read the instructions out loud, you would swear I was some sort of sorcerer attempting to incant a magical spell to put you under my power. However, you need not fear; I assure you, I am not reading from any book of spells, it is just a knitting pattern. The only casting I will be doing is yarn onto the needle, and the only magic I will be working is knitting the Forest Path stole in sixteen days, if I ever finish winding this unending skein. Besides, I'm not a sorcerer, I'm a wizardess. ( or so I'm told)