Sunday's Garden and Ravelympics!

Friday morning 8/8/08. 5:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time. The official start time of the 2008 Olympics. And the official start time for me of Ravelympics! As a dedicated member of Team Afghans for Afghans, I was out of bed and casting on for the sweater I'm making for the children's campaign. Okay, it was 9:00 AM, but the thought is what counts, right?

I've entered three projects in two events, sweatersprint and wip wrestling. I think I have a good chance of getting medals for all three, while finishing the socks and counting those in Summer of Socks. Goodness, what a lot of pressure.

I've been alternating between my projects, trying to use my time wisely. The sweater is from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. I'm making a child's bottom up, in- the-round, raglan pullover which I haven't attempted before. I'm adding some stripes, since I didn't have enough of any one color of wool and I think it looks pretty good so far.

Knitting in the round sure solves my uneven stockinette problems, since the purl rows are the ones that cause the trouble.

The socks I'm making are from Knitty.com and are the Spring Forward. I'm using SKNITches Limited Sock yarn in the Cottage colorway, which was one month's yarn from the SSYC's small dyer's club.
I'm also managing to get the pattern mixed up every so often, so it's not as easy for me as some other people have reported. It's my second try, having started it with too few stitches the first time and discovered it would be too tight.

The third project is the Tulip Baby Cardigan. I bought a kit for it at The Dancing Ewe in Ellensburg, and it's coming out pretty cute. They included Cascade 220 Superwash instead of Dream in Color yarn, but there were enough little balls to make the sweater, so it's working out fine.


There are a lot of ends to weave in, but I'll deal with that later.

Now for the garden update:
The impatiens are doing nicely this year, since we haven't had an excess of sunshine.



This little pod will get bigger and redder as summer ends. They are the fruit of the Pink Dogwoods we have (cornus kousa) along the driveway. They look very colorful and interesting as fall progresses.


The small pepper plants I bought on a whim are covered with peppers. They'll be pretty when they start to turn colors.

And here's the obligatory dahlia photo. I think this one is called Lemon Chiffon.


Back to the TV. The best thing about Ravelympics is that it gives meaning to all that time spent watching the games!