Friday FOs and Fog and the Frickin' Olympics

Pardon My French

Actually, never mind - I'm not even going to try the usual bad French lines that most people seem to trot out when they finish knitting their own Clapotis.

Instead, I will just say "My Clapotis is finished."

Clapotis Drapes Elegantly, Even When You Don't

It's more than a little alarming how much I can look like Buddha at times. If Buddha were a middle-aged, overweight, white woman from Central New York living in New England. There are folks who claim that there's a little Buddha in all of us, but I think I may have grabbed more than my share.*

Superficial and purely cosmetic Buddha-like tendencies of the model aside, Clapotis was an interesting and fun knit. The drop-stitch ladders lend a lot of flexibility and character to the fabric, though I have to admit that the most tedious part of the process was at the end when I had to make every last ladder run all the way down.

Close-up - Ladders and Ripples

I knit this with Size 8 needles using Red Heart Kids yarn in the Beach colorway. It took me just a skootch over 3 skeins to complete - that was annoying, I was within maybe 20 rows of the rapidly tapering end when the third skein ran out and I had to buy another.

Would I do this again? Absolutely. I'm looking forward to trying it in different colorways. I don't think it's to the point of always having one on the needles, but I liked it. It was a fun enough knit. I can also see making a wider variation of Clapotis as an alternate version of my Wearable Hugs.

More Sky for Sandy

Sandy is celebrating 3 years of blogging today - go wish her a happy blogiversary! She's giving away a prize in a random drawing among those who comment, a skein of Opal Dreamcatcher Sock yarn. But this is an occasion worth celebrating even without incentive.

Sandy likes to encourage us all to look up at the sky. It's been a while since I posted a sky picture for her - might as well be now!

Friday, Feb. 3, 2006, 4:24 p.m. Wilton, NH Sky

We're having one of those sunny-but-cold days here in the Souhegan River valley, where the light is bright, but the cold water and humidity from the river creates a mist that hangs over everything.

Fog on a Sunny Afternoon, Souhegan River, Wilton, NH

This picture is a little crooked because I was reaching out over the fence in our yard to get a view past the house. But I love the look of the fog filling all the little pockets on the river, with the sun nevertheless beating down and illuminating everything.

What Hath the Harlot Wrought?

Stephanie reports today that there are officially more Olympic Knitters than there are actual athletes competing in the actual real-world Winter Olympics. More than 2500 people have signed up to knit Olympically so far, compared to only 2400 or so for the snowy outdoor event.

There are reports that La Harlot's little event has attracted attention at places like MS-NBC.com. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if at some point during the studio sequences while they're broadcasting the actual Olympics, we hear mention of the Knitting Olympics as part of the discussion of Olympic Fever among fans.

Personally, I just did a test and Googled "knitting olympics". There were 56,900 results for that exact phrase. Pretty impressive for something that didn't even exist until Stephanie announced it on January 14th!

At this point, we've got a week to go until the Opening Ceremonies on Friday, February 10th. I've done my training for my own competition - I'm knitting Kiri, my first-ever lace shawl, with my own Kool-Aid dyed yarn. I'm on the Lace Knitting Team - "The Race for Lace", as I've termed it - as well as Team New Hampshire, naturally. Based on my training swatches, I think my dyed yarn will knit up beautifully, and I'm looking forward to seeing how my Kiri comes out.

*For What It's Worth, cross-legged like that is my normal style for sitting, so I'm even posed like Buddha nearly all day on a regular basis.

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