Knitting keeps the crazies away

Posted on 08/26/2008 by Andrea | Comments (0)
Filed under : Knitting

I've been thinking about stress relief lately, and about methods of coping. I asked my chiropractor if her adjustments could possibly have caused my right eyelid to begin twitching. It started twitching a couple of weeks ago, around the time I started seeing a chiropractor. She allowed that it's possible the adjustments could have something to do with it, but that eye twitches are more often caused by stress.

Stress? Impossible! I'm 19 weeks pregnant and more than one person has told me I've got that glow. I'm starting to feel the little bugger moving around in there and it's one of the most amazing experiences of my life so far. I was telling a friend on Saturday that maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, or maybe I'm just in a good place in life, but I've never been happier than I have been lately.

Still, I have to admit it's possible to be happy and under stress at the same time. There's a lot to do between now and January and I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed with it. My bathroom is half painted (and the half that's painted, I painted it so badly it's almost funny). The future baby's room is packed with non-baby-related junk almost to the point where you can't walk across the room.

But I take a deep breath and instead of painting or moving stuff out of that room, what do I do?

I knit.

I'm knitting the Sideways Sockyarn Baby Sweater. I don't have a photo of it in process (beyond the one I posted earlier), but Flickr user Spinnity has a photo of one that's at the same stage mine is currently at. And check out her lovely finished version.

Knitting is a wonderful stress relief as I'm sure anyone who knits would agree. I know there will be many more stressful moments in the next few months -- both baby-related and not baby-related -- and it's a comfort to me that I have something I know will keep my hands and my mind busy. Hopefully not to the exclusion of real preparation for the baby, but enough to keep me on the sane side.

I hope everyone has something like knitting in their lives. If not knitting, then reading or exercise or something. Something meditative and sane-making.

Out of the Race

Posted on 08/22/2008 by Andrea | Comments (0)
Filed under : Ravelympics 2008

I was so sure I was going to be able to finish Liesl in time for the end of the Olympics this Sunday. I'd finished the entire body and just needed to pick up the sleeve stitches and knit the short sleeves. No problem, right?

But after getting all my sleeve stitches onto needles, I quickly found myself completely confused about which side was the right side and which side was the wrong side. It took an embarrassing amount of time before I realized the reason for my confusion: I'd accidentally switched my direction of knitting after knitting the yoke. So the yoke was inside out but the entire rest of the body was right side out. Or vice versa.

After mom's stocking reversal, and now this, I'm beginning to think not only is knitting a hereditary disease, but possibly dyslexia?

I stared at it for a while until I finally had to come to terms with the depressing fact that there's no easy fix. I have to pull the entire body of the sweater out back to the armholes.

I could probably finish it if I didn't do anything else all weekend. That is not going to happen.

Well, Mom, I guess if this is a competition, looks like you're going to be the winner!

"Liveblogging" the Ravelympics Opening Ceremonies...

Posted on 08/08/2008 by Andrea | Comments (1)
Filed under : Ravelympics 2008

Though it's not technically live, as the opening ceremonies happened hours and hours ago, NBC will kick off their coverage of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics and Mom and I are "live" blogging it. We'll continue to post updates as we watch the opening ceremonies tonight and start our Ravelympics projects.

And now, I'm going to furiously try to finish my swatch before the opening ceremonies broadcast starts in a half hour. Watch this space!

-Andrea

(click through to read the rest of our liveblogging!)

Continue reading "Liveblogging" the Ravelympics Opening Ceremonies....

Last day of training for the Olympics

Posted on 08/07/2008 by Andrea | Comments (2)
Filed under : Ravelympics 2008

So the Olympics start tomorrow. I've never been a huge fan of the Olympics, though I've always been intrigued by the spectacle of it all. This year I'm more intrigued by the Olympics than I ever have before, all because of the controversies and all the hype about China hosting the event. The lengths they've been going to in order to prepare for the Olympics and impress the world are staggering to me, especially in light of their human rights transgressions and their lack of freedom of the press. I am so interested to see how this all goes down.

Today's my day to gear up for the Olympics in the only way I can - by knitting, of course. Mom is coming over tomorrow night and we'll be casting on for our Ravelympics projects together. We're going to live-blog the event (she doesn't know that yet - but hey, I'm the host so I can decide these things) so if you're participating in Ravelympics too and you're online, come and check out the blog anytime during the opening ceremonies tomorrow night!

In the meantime, check out these two guys, who are in good shape, trying to do a few Olympic events to see how the average Joe can stack up against Olympic athletes. It's amazing how compared to these guys, Olympic athletes almost make it look easy.

And it's worth a trip to their blog entry to compare their stats to the Olympians stats and read their commentary.

Back to the world of knitting, I still have to finish my "training" (aka, my swatch). I've had to make two different swatches already and neither one of them has been to gauge. I'm hoping third time's the charm, or I might have to return this yarn and get something else.

First baby knitting project!

Posted on 08/05/2008 by Andrea | Comments (3)
Filed under : Babies!, Knitting

I have to say, it's pretty cool to be knitting something for my baby. Somehow it makes it all feel just a little bit more real to be creating something tangible that I can imagine putting onto a baby - my baby. Kind of mind-blowing, really.

This is my first baby knitting project so far. It's the Sideways Sockyarn Baby Sweater. So far, I'm pretty impressed with how well-written the pattern is. It would be a good pattern for a beginning knitter; it explains things like how to close the gap formed when you join knitting in the round, and why knowing the difference between a M1 increase and a knit-into-front-and-back increase is important. It's the sort of pattern that immediately instills trust that it will not lead you astray. I hope it continues to live up to that glowing review. And it's fun to knit up something that has such an unusual construction.

I can't wait to see how this turns out!