A good thing about swaps is...

...you end up with some yarns that you might not run across otherwise. Five were from swaps on Ravelry and Swap-bot, and one was a Ravelry trade. All of them came from Etsy shops. Since you get extra points in SuperSockScarefest for socks made from Etsy yarn, I was hoping to find some in my stash.

I expect that I won't be able to use them all for SSS. They may all be sock yarn, but no two are the same. They range from 375 to 550 yards. Suggested gauges are all different. It's also possible than none of them will be appropriate for the patterns. I might try to use them anyway and go for creativity points. I guess I'll see tomorrow when the materials lists are posted.

SuperSockScarefest

Yarn Smackdown turned out to be kind of disappointing. Some people involved are really nice. Some people are flaky. I did my best to share information with people who needed it, but some other people just couldn't do that. I don't think I'll be knitting in these sorts of things any more*. I guess I'm getting too old and crabby to put up with it.

I will be playing with SuperSockScarefest, though. It starts on the first of September. On that day and about every 10 days after that, we'll have a new pair of socks to knit. I'm guessing that it'll be a half dozen pair of socks. We don't send them anywhere and we don't have to know what anybody else is doing before we take action. That sounds really good to me. There are even prizes. The materials list is supposed to be posted tomorrow. I'll soon be busy digging through my stash for my scariest sock yarns.

*Edited to add: well, since I'm already signed up for Hat Attack II and have the yarn, I'm doing that. It starts September 16. I should be between pairs 2 and 3 of my SSS socks. As long as the pattern allows for a large head size, I should be okay with this.

Sam meets Sue

samsue
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

Sam the Ram meets Sue the Ewe. I did a Sam several years ago and he came out really badly. I put him away and knit Sue and that wee little shawl. I did Sam again as my main Olympics project. The pattern part came out almost perfectly. The purl stitches that form the background leave a lot to be desired in several places.

The yarn I did them in is called fingering, but I think it's closer to a sport weight. I think I'll do them both again in laceweight. I won't be starting them anytime soon, though. Maybe they can be my next Olympics challenge.

Toasted by Pink

lynnsox
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

Lynn aka YarnFlicker smacked me down with these pretty pink socks. I tried to tweak the color, but it still isn't showing up correctly. They are dusty pink. She also sent me some yarn, how nice was that? It surely took the sting out of death.

Yarn Smackdown is very well managed, but still frustrating. Contacting people is a whole lot harder than it should be. I am making myself see the fun side of it and not get irritated when people do things I think of as flaky.

Well, I'm trying to not be irritated. One person who should've contacted me three days ago has disappeared from the database. A couple of us are trying to reach another person whose email address can't be found. Bizarre.

Medal 2

I got this: for knitting these:

My First Medal

I received this:


for completing this:

Knit/Olympic Break time

My fingers are a little bit tired, so I'm taking a break. Here's the current project status:

1. Sam the Ram: I got him started. It'll be a couple of days before I can do more.
2. Food Fight: I knit my toast and sent it off. So has my assassin. Unfortunately for me, she lives a whole lot closer to me than the person I'm aiming at. I guess I'll learn about zombie knitting next week.
3. Flying Arrow Socks: I'm halfway done with the first one. My target may be easy to take out as she's got some distractions. I don't know this for sure, though.

Two more projects get started tomorrow. Uh, make that later on today.

08/08/08 08:08

I love dates with numbers that repeat, so I'm getting a big kick out of the Olympics starting today. It must have something to do with having 10/10 as a birthday.

I am not getting a big kick out of my (enter favorite swear words here) cable company. Let's just say that I am not happy that I may miss the Opening Ceremonies through no fault of my own. I'd like to give Charter Communications, whose fault it is, a big kick in their collective behinds.

The Ravelympics are a hoot. There are 15202 projects to be completed 5469 Ravelers in 16 days. An Opening Ceremonies thread was created that was meant to be opened at the same time as the real Olympians started to march into the Beijing stadium. The thread couldn't be locked fast enough and we're already marching in.

We'll be posting our finished object and have a moment on the Podium and be acknowledged by Augustus Bobicus.

I suppose I ought to go to bed. I can start in on my first project at 08:08 am (US Eastern is twelve hours behind Beijing). Since I won't be watching the Olympics, I've dug out my Firefly DVDs to keep me company. I should reappear with pictures by Monday sometime.

Cat-itude

I don't care if the designer's name is Gray Tabby. I refuse to move off of your keyboard so you can download another sock pattern!