Peace of Mind Organizing

Knitting Olympics: The outcome

26 August 2008

I have to admit I haven’t picked up the knitting needles since the Olympics ended. As I’ve written here, I achieved my goal of finishing the lace section of the Learn-to-Knit Afghan. I’d reset the goal to include finishing the entire afghan, but I fell short of the mark.

Those last two squares about killed me. I did finish the penultimate square, after a few false starts, but it turned out wrong. The whole thing was sort of askew. I thought I’d followed the directions, but upon rereading them, I left off a key step. And I guess I was watching too much TV while knitting, because I didn’t notice. I restarted that square twice and both times it was twisted, so I need to work on my skill of making sure the stitches aren’t twisted before joining in the round. So I moved on to the final square.

I finished the 63rd and final square on Sunday afternoon, but the deadline was 11 a.m. on Sunday. So I came thisclose to achieving the goal. I still need to re-knit the Square #62.

That said, since I did achieve my stated goal, and then some, I feel I deserved the gold medal I received at Knitty Couture, the fabulous knitting store in St. Louis where I went Sunday afternoon to finish the last square and celebrate the end of the Knitting Olympics. The owner, Thi, and her associates made these adorable pin cushions, in gold, silver and bronze, to serve as truly functional medals. Here’s a photo of the medals, from Knitty Couture’s blog entry on Sunday’s festivities:

And here’s a photo of me holding my medal in place, with my finished squares laid out in front of me:

I have to say that my knitting efforts the last 48 hours of the Olympics were almost heroic. Saturday night when I finally quit and went to bed my shoulders were hurting and my left hand was killing me from gripping the double-pointed needles. (The final square involved starting with four stitches and increasing every other row to create a full-sized square.) I know it’s not smart to knit until you hurt. But it kinda made me feel like an athlete!

Tagged with: knitting olympics, knitty couture, learn to knit afghan

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