Then, halfway through the warping process (I generally alternate the yarn with the apropriate amount of heddles as I warp, which keeps threading easier) I realized that I didn’t have near enough heddles.  Not 20 short, but over 100 short.  And really I was only going to be using a little over half of the width of the loom!  So, I ordered new heddles, which quickly arrived from Shuttleworks in Alberta (I needed them to come ASAP – BC is lacking in heddle stock apparently)  Ordered them Thursday before last and they came last Monday.  So, slowly, slowly, I have been threading the heddles.  It takes forever that way (336 warp threads -why do I love lace yarn so much?) but I am saving my body from the pain I normally have after doing a threading marathon.

I have 6 groups of 60 threads to thread, which means that I am a little over half way through.  Here I thought I would whip this shawl off and wear it for the Gathering the Women International Women’s Day Celebration in Victoria tomorrow.  Hah.  Or, I will maybe be done 3/4 of the threading.  Sigh.

I’ll post again when I get to the double weaving.  Never tried it, should be an adventure.

Forever warped

Maven

The socks knit up really fast.  So fast, in fact, that I think that I could have taken on something a little more difficult.  However,  I finished them.  I darned in all of the ends…

… it is quite remarkable actually, just how many ends there are to striped socks. I finished the first sock completely before I left for my spa day with the girls and the second one while I relaxed after my full body scrub (soft as a baby’s bum, I am!).  Here are some photos taken in the spa (lighting is bad).

One thing I noticed as I knit away on these socks and watched the olympics out my living room window (well, not really, but you get the point), was that these olympicss really brought Canada together as a country.  I even felt the need to catch the final men’s hockey game…  it was beyond me to hold myself back!  In fact, before we went into the spa, we sat and watched them win GOLD!  Oh thank God… remember what happened when the Canucks didn’t win the Cup?  ooooohhhh… pain.  I digress.

Here’s a photo taken during the closing ceremony to prove that I was indeed wearing them and not knitting them after the cauldron was extinguished.  See those cute boots there?  I had just gotten the heel re-affixed a couple of weeks before and then on this trip the heel broke on the other shoe!  ARG!

Figured it was time to splurge and get myself some John Fluevogs.  Oh baby.

I found that they looked pretty darn hot with the socks. As did my husband who at this moment

said that he was trying to work and could I please stop putting my boot up on the table.  Hot socks, check.  Hot boots to match, check.  Shiny gold Knitting Olympics medal, check.

PS: it was both inspiring and exciting to see all of your (Yarn Harlot, Melistress, Bookworm, Wise Hilda, Dances with Wool)  blogs and olympic knitting feats, they updates kept me focused and created a true sense of a global knitting matrix…  thanks for that!

Did I mention I am not very good with heels unless I am following a pattern specifically?  Especially toe up heels.  I figure a couple more pairs of socks, and I’ll have the science of the situation figured out.  I hope so anyway.

I love how the colourway goes with the rose the hubster gave me for valentines day!

So, to finish…  I figure I need to finish the knitting part of the socks by Saturday night and then I can finish the sewing in of the ends on Sunday while I’m at the Spa with the Gaias. I know, what about the closing ceremonies?  Couple of answers to that: I don’t have a tv.  I don’t really want to sit in a bar and watch them.  We’ll see what happens.  There might be a tv where we are going… I’m letting the divine will inspire the day. I will definitely be performing a one woman fashion show after dinner.  Photos to come!

I could bind off now, and have this be the top of my sock.  I have completed a couple of inches of ribbing and decreased for the upper calf.  But do I want knee highs, or thigh highs?

I am a thigh high person.  I like to wear skirts.  Long ones, but skirts nonetheless.  And to be honest there is nothing I find sexier than thigh high socks hidden under skirts. I typically where knee high wool socks, because they don’t come in thigh high length. Thus, the hubster has expressed that practically ‘ you would wear the knee highs more often’.  But how do I know this is an honest answer, or that he doesn’t just want me to stop shaking him by the shoulders moping about the house, glancing backwards at the sock and saying ‘do I keep knitting?’

I could even knit the thigh high, and then scrunch it down ontop of my boot when I didn’t want to hike ‘er all the way up.

Oh, did I mention that the goddamn Noro people tied a knot in the middle!  And I came to it in the middle of what could be the cuff?  You know the one, the classic “heh, we’ll change balls in the middle here, and not only that but go backwards from the colour progression we ended with, plus, we’ll make the change real sudden like so you can totally tell in the final knitted piece.”  Yes, I did cut off a bunch of the ball to try and make it look right.  Jerks.  So, but continuing, I will be knitting an un colour progression.

Keep that in mind when giving me your opinions.  I’ll knit away here and see what it looks like.

Basically I have two conflicting feelings: one, that the olympics are an amazing time for an individual, a community, a country to see what they are made of.  The motto – higher, faster, stronger – is so beautiful, because it doesn’t say ‘… than the other guy’.  It implies that each individual is responsible for surpassing their own personal best, and each team, each country is responsible for being greater than the sum of their parts.

The second feeling begins with the fact that I live in Vancouver, I am a middle class, white female with a fairly sporty body.  I have both the money and the physique not only to enjoy the winter games as a spectator (if I so choose) or as a competitor, if I desired that.  Not only are the tickets to the winter games out of reach for the better part of most working class people, but there are a lot of people in Vancouver who have been marginalized by the winter games.  Homeless have been displaced, problems in our society such as the economy have been swept under the carpet because the worlds eyes are on us, and the powers that be would like us to look good.  We would all like to look good, but realistically, we are a normal city with normal problems.

I hadn’t been able to make up my mind just what I would do about these conflicting issues when the idea of the Knitting Olympics came around.  How can I support an idea, sit and watch the opening ceremonies, when I can’t make up my mind as to what I think?  I don’t want to be saying one thing and doing another.

To be honest, I still don’t know exactly what to think.  I sway back and forth between my conflicting feelings, crying as we won gold for the first time on our soil, and then stopping to feel the hardship of my fellow canadians who are shoved into the background.  Generally, when I am conflicted, I knit.  So, I’m knitting a pair of socks for the knitting olympics. I realize that sometimes we can’t just pick a side.  I’m a Canadian, and a human being.  I can be excited and torn apart at the same time.  I am proud of the world for trying to put differences aside and come together to be great, even if we have a ways to go all of the rest of the time.

I think they are too big.  I think I’m going to have to rip back down to the toe and minus a few increases.  17 days?  We’ll have to see!