2008 Ravelympics

A week ago I posted about Ravelry and the upcoming 2008 Ravelympics, where knitters and crocheters will be pushing as many projects as possible across the finish lines by the end of Beijing's closing ceremonies. Last week, there were nearly 400 Ravelers signed up and nearly 1000 projects lined up. A week later, 3,253 Ravelers have 7,764 projects lined up. And projects can be added to the competition through Thursday.

Did I sign up? Of course I did. And, lacking brakes, commonsense, and any self-control, I've signed up for 19 projects (so far). That's more Olympic projects than there are Olympic days. I can console myself that these are projects I'd intended to make, anyway--at some point. And I haven't spent any money on yarn or thread: almost all of these projects will be using materials I already had on hand. I did buy some crochet thread on sale, but it was a surprisingly low price for some excellent thread. And I had to buy buttons for a sweater, ribbon for a pair of booties. I still need to buy one large button and several small black buttons (the black ones will be eyes on "critters").

Here is more than you want to know--and lots of pictures:

First name on my injured/disabled list? My Sony Cybershot camera. I'm through with the Sony's blue photographs of purple yarn, so I took the camera to Best Buy today--along with some spare purple yarn, so they'll know what I'm trying to photograph. If the camera cannot be repaired and they decide to give me a new one, I should get word in about a week. If the camera can be repaired, it may be two to three weeks before the camera is back. In the meantime, I've resurrected my old Gateway digital. It turns purples to blue, too. And it gets other things wrong. But it'll do for now.

Entered in "WIPs Wrestling" (i.e., wrestling your WIPs--works in progress--into completion), I have two items:
A Baby Surprise Jacket for baby number 7 for my cousin Shari (due in January). The color is off, here (should be dark purple, bright green, bright turquoise, and bright green buttons):



The other WIP is a vintage doily:



Both of these WIPs are virtually complete. The jacket needs shoulder seams shown, neck crocheted (in green), and buttons added. The doily needs a border row of green, then needs to be blocked.

Entered in "Baby Dressage" and "Gift Knits Pentathlon" are two pairs of crocheted booties: one for Shari's baby and one for coworker Trina's baby boy (due in November). These will be made using yarn left from the BSJs:



I don't think these will take too long.

I've queued up three doilies (also Gift Knits Pentathlon as well as Homestuff Hammerthrow). One uses DMC Cebelia in ecru. The other two, both using the same pattern, will be multicolored doilies. The ecru doily will take several days--or even a week. The multicolored doilies are from a book entitled "Easy One-Day Doilies," but I've made two other designs from this book and they took longer than a day, so I'm not expecting too much.


(I'm still debating which green to use.)

I've also queued up two thread bookmarks (Gift Knits Pentathlon), one in light blue and one in mauve:



I've queued up the Mermaid scarf pattern (Gift Knits Pentathlon and Scarf Stroke), set to use up some mango-colored Microspun yarn:



And, by way of a triple-whammy entry (Amigurumi 'n Toy Toss, Pets Pommel Horse, and Gift Knits Pentathlon), I've queued up four versions of a pattern called Kitty Squid. It's a cat toy that will use up odd bits of leftover yarn.



Once my wrist starts to crack from all the crocheting, I'll be ready to change over to knitting (uses different muscles):

There's the adorable Sheldon (Amigurumi 'n Toy Toss and Gift Knits Pentathlon), in Mango and Buttercup Microspun:



There's the Paw Cozy (designed to warm my paw when I'm leash-walking the dogs on a cold day). This qualifies as Cable Steeplechase (there is a cable stitch in there) and Pets Pommel Horse:



There's a tank top for me in Mocha Microspun (Vest Vault):



And I've queued up a pair of BSJs: one in "almond," with "lake" and "lime" trim, and the other in "maize" with "lake" and "lime" trim (Baby Dressage again and Gift Knits Pentathlon):



The projects I'm counting on getting through are the two WIPs and the doily in ecru. Any of the others that get finished will be "gravy." I queued up plenty of small items (the squid pattern supposedly only takes a couple of hours) so I could fill in between the bigger pieces, or have something easy to work on at lunch. The official start time on 8 August is 8 pm Friday in Beijing (8 am Friday my time). The official ending time is about midnight (Beijing time) on 24 August, which would be noon Sunday for me; since I have to work that day, my official ending time will be whatever time on Saturday the 23rd I finally crash (and I'll work until 9 that night, anyway). And I might start one or more projects before the official start time; if I do, they just become WIPs Wrestling projects instead of whatever they're entered as now.

There's no prize for completing projects--no penalty for failing to complete them. Knitters and crocheters are just competing for themselves. Well--there are "teams" but they're not by nationality (there's Team Hogwarts or Team Editors--which I'm on...I edit patterns on the Ravelry site). Folks who get a project across the finish line get a badge for their blog. Ravelry's "Olympians" will be cheering each other on, admiring each other's performances, and having fun. But not, necessarily, watching the Olympics. I'm not a sports fan in general, and I'm fonder of winter sports than summer ones. I'll probably be watching Turner Classic Movies' Summer Under the Stars. (Don't miss 84 Charing Cross Road at 4am on 6 August. It's wonderful!)

Finally, today--as I wound balls of yarn, printed out patterns, bagged things up, and got my Olympic competitors outfitted and ready to go--two starving dogs laid there and stared reproachfully at me:


(They also--deliberately--raked up the carpet with their feet so the carpet looks dirty. Thanks, guys.)