Challenge #1

As part of the Amazing Lace, I am going to have to perform various challenges and post about them. This is one of those challenges. I need to introduce my teammate and me to the other contestants and audience members. If you are interested in learning more about the Amazing Lace, check it out here.

Challenge #1

::cue theme music::
Overly enthusiastic host: Welcome back to the Amazing Lace! I think this year will be the most exciting Amazing Lace yet! The next team we are going to meet is team Sampler Shawl and Silverarrowknits.

Silverarrowknits: I am so excited to be a part of this knitalong! I am currently residing in Rhode Island, but at the end of the summer I am moving to Florida for graduate school. Knitting lace is perfect, because this is an item I will be able to wear even in sunny Florida! I am also really excited to be meeting people from all over the world! We are all knitting lace together. I mean, golly, this is a really great opportunity to make new friends and show the world how knitters can get along, even when we are technically "competing" against one another! World peace here we come!

Sampler Shawl: To be honest, I wasn't all that excited to be a part of this at first. I was really happy living in the KnitPicks warehouse, when Silverarrowknits ordered me. I was chilling with all my friends and having a real good time of it all. In fact, even when I arrived at Silverarrowknits' post office, I stuck myself between two larger packages, so the mailman wouldn't see me and tell Silverarrowknits I had arrived.

Silverarrowknits: Sampler Shawl and I had a little bit of trouble at first. He got lost at the post office but I found him. When I got him home, I told him about the Amazing Lace and the great opportunity it is for meeting other lace projects and knitters. He was a bit skeptical at first, but after looking at the website, he seemed more interested in the spirit of the event.

Sampler Shawl: Once I went home with her, she started talking about world peace and knitters uniting. I thought she was off her rocker. It was only after I saw the website that I got interested in the event. Beating out other lace items really got me going. Seriously, take a look at me, I have some nice variegation going on, I knit up well, and I am 100% merino wool. Plus the winning team gets a skein of Helen's Lace and she is HOT. What other competition let's you take home a smoking skein?

Silverarrowknits: I am really excited that Sampler Shawl agreed to do this with me. I think we will have a lot of fun while meeting other lace knitters! I also heard that the winner gets a skein of Helen's Lace. I have always wanted to buy a skein of it, but it has always been out of my price range. It would be really great to win the skein while meeting lace knitters, which is something I want to do anyhow!

Sampler Shawl: We are going to win. We are going to blow the competition out of the water. I want that skein of Helen's Lace and I will do anything necessary to ensure that. Silverarrowknits might think this is all about meeting new people, but let's be honest, how many of the do gooders win in any reality show competition? That's right none. I am going to keep us in the race and get us to the end. I will push Silverarrowknits as far as she needs to go to do this.

Here is Silverarrowknits and Sampler Shawl's official team photo.

Overly enthusiastic host: Well, those two seem to have very different game plans. Hopefully that will work to their advantage, but as we have seen in the past, this sort of team play only leads to heartache and loss. Now let's meet team....

Happy Summer!

Today is a very busy day! Two wonderful challenges started today: The Amazing Lace and the Summer Reading Challenge. The summer is officially here and I am off and running! Let's get down to business!

The Amazing Lace:
Things are going well. It might have taken me two days to cast on (401 stitches is a lot!), but I have already knit four rows. According to some quick (and poor) calculations, I only need to knit two rows a day to be finished by Labor Day. Hurrah! This makes the whole project seem less daunting.

Summer Reading Challenge:
I am going to return to The Lady in White and try to finish that in the near future. I have a suitcase full (no joke, that is where I am storing them) of books that need to be read before I move to Florida. If I don't finish them, I will need to bring a suitcase full of books to Florida. We won't talk about the second suitcase full of books, because they are books, I am planning on doing away with before the trip. I am going to do a weekly update about my reading, so as to not clog my knitting blog with it but you can still get your reading fix. :)

Current Projects:
Yesterday was Brown's Graduation. It was so much fun! The alumni march in the Procession and cheer the new graduates on. After the march and the big graduation, I went to the Neuroscience (yes, that is a concentration, here at Brown for undergraduates) graduation for my friend S. and for the free food. I also said hello to my old first-year and sophomore year advisor. I am really glad that I brought the feather and fan scarf, because I ended up knitting during the Neuroscience graduation. It was really long. Even though there were only about 50 graduates, the department felt it was important to list all the accomplishments of every graduate and where they were going. I did learn one important thing though, India is a very popular destination for newly graduated students.

-SAK

Knitting Television:
Vanity Fair (Reese Witherspoon version)
Amelie

More Sock!

I worked on Sock a bit this weekend. It seems that now that he is in the running to be a (partly) finished object, I don't seem to want to finish him. Maybe I am still upset about Sock running off with the pirates at Disney? Hmmm....

The first The Amazing Lace challenge has been announced! By June 4th, I need to have a team photo of my lace and me. At the moment this is going to be a bit hard considering my teammate has not arrived, but no matter, I will figure something out. In fact, I might even trade partners before I even start the Sampler Shawl. I saw the Icarus Shawl in the new Interweave Knits and I must have it. I know, I have a commitment problem. The Sampler Shawl and I have barely started seeing each other and I am already looking at other lace projects. At least my swift understands, he doesn't care what I wind, he just wants to spin!

Oh, you might notice that I joined the Knit the Classics KAL and the Summer Reading Challenge 2006. I read a whole book this weekend and it has motivated me to read more books. It doesn't take much to get me on a bandwagon! I am hoping to push myself not only to knit (even though that would make me happy) but read too this summer. I have a feeling I am going to regret not doing things I enjoy before I start grad school and get overloaded with work.

-SAK

Knitting Television:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
Mostly Martha

Yarn and Sharks

My yarn didn't come today! I am starting to think that someone got my package by mistake and is using my yarn! With every passing day, I imagine someone using my yarn to tie things together and doing who knows what else with it! After this explosion of concern, when I got home I didn't even want to knit! I just wanted to wallow in self-pity. I read knitters' blogs about them getting THEIR yarn in the mail. I read about the other lace knitters starting (and continuing) their projects for The Amazing Lace, and I wondered why I couldn't start MY project. How do I know if the Sampler Shawl is a good teammate? Right now he is completely undependable. blah.

I have a couple of more pictures of Sock in Florida. These will be the last of the pictures. Starting tomorrow, I am going to go back on the knitting bandwagon. The Florida trip was relaxing but intense, and I am still exhausted. NOTE: If you are waiting for a reply from an email, I am still working through them and I should be caught up this weekend. I know I said I would get them done by Friday, but I actually had to get some work done at the office today. Weird, I know. My boss wanted to talk about my paper and getting it finalized to send to journals for publication. Is there something wrong with you when you would prefer to reading knitting blogs than do things that can advance your career? I need to start getting motivated, especially since I am starting school in the fall.

Anyway, Sock met up with a bad crowd in Walt Disney World. I kept warning him that these characters looked unsavory. I told him that there was probably a reason why they were locked up in that dungeon. Did Sock listen? No, he did not. He just looked at me, grinned, and joined in a chorus of "A Pirate's Life for Me."

I decided that if he would prefer to hang out with pirates then he was just going to have to learn the consequences of that decision. Needless to say, I wasn't surprised when I had to rescue him from a shark mere hours after meeting his "great, new friends." All of a sudden, multiple rides on Dumbo and It's a Small World didn't seem too bad after all. If you are having a hard time seeing Sock, click the image. He is almost directly below the shark's nose.

-SAK

New Look

Since I have been cleaning piles and piles of data at work and freaking out by all the disorganization (no one's fault, just too many cooks in the kitchen), I decided to make my blog more streamlined. I am going to figure out how to change the color (orange isn't my favorite color) and make it a bit more me. I hope you like it so far. :) If I get tons of protesting, I will change it back, but give the streamline-ness a chance to grow on you!

While I was going through the piles of data for the Hepatitis C study, I found myself listening to the opening sequence for Trainspotting. I thought this was a perfect monologue to listen to while cleaning data on heroin users. After listening to the "Choose Life" sequence a couple of more times, I realized that this speech could work well for knitting and since I am getting pumped for the Amazing Lace, it has a lace theme! Note: This is a family-friendly version. If you are interested in the real version, know that the language is rough.

Choose lace. Choose a pattern. Choose a knitting needle. Choose a yarn. Choose a freaking big chart, choose Eucalan wash, Addi Turbos, Chibi tapestry needles and cachachas. Choose good designs, with few errors, and an email address. Choose reasonably priced local yarn stores. Choose a starter project. Choose your blogger buddies. Choose shells and cotton tanks. Choose Jaggerspun Zephyr in a range of freaking colors. Choose designer patterns and wondering who made the unintelligible pattern at two in the morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching reality television and crime shows, for just one more row. Choose collecting yarn, filling your house with it, knitting hats and mittens for your family and friends. Choose your future. Choose lace.

Okay, I am on a slight kick, since I bought yarn last night supposedly for the Folk Shawls' Sampler Shawl. I am not sure if I got the right weight, so I am going to make whatever the yarn tells me. Yes, I know finding a yarn substitute should be easy, but I started thinking way to hard about it. I should also confess (Mom, I am really sorry about this, I don't know why I am apologizing to you, but I see the frown on your face from here) that I bought a swift and a ball winder too. I had coupons! The yarn I bought for the shawl needs to be wound! It is a good investment. Really, it is. Wow, I can't believe how much guilt this purchase is causing me. When I get my fun packages in the mail I will have pictures and then you will all see how I could not say no to the yarn or to the swift and the winder.

Besides thinking about knitting and changing my blog, I have been knitting! I finished another dish cloth. Okay, I do need to weave in the ends, but I am going to do that tonight. I am really enjoy knitting these dish cloths. I have been trying out all sorts of new stitch patterns that I might not have tried. Plus, I am being a good knitter and writing down any important notes about the stitch like whether it is stretchy and if the "swatch" curls or not.

I havent't gotten too far on my sock recently, but I am going to finish the cuff tonight, probably while watching Leno and Conan. ;) I am going to Gainesville, FL with my parents later this week and I have been spending my free time running errands. At least I will have some uninterruptable knitting time on my flight to Orlando!

-SAK

The Lace Is On!

I am so excited! I have just joined my very first knit-along. Okay, I did join the Knitting Olympics, but we all remember how that panned out, so we are just going to forget that it ever happened. You should all the join The Amazing Lace, because

1) my friend Theresa is co-sponsoring it,
2) I am participating in it, and
3) it is knitting as a sport!

I am trying to figure out what lace item I am going to knit. I am thinking about Knitty's Branching Out, Rowan's Birch, and EZ's Pi Shawl. I want to make a shawl, but I am not sure if I am willing to commit to a knitted good that requires 300+ live stitches. I am going to do some investigative work tonight. So many possibilities, so much yarn. :)

Oh! Good news! I have convinced my friend E to start a blog (so she can join The Amazing Lace! hint hint wink wink). You should all check out her new blog, because she is faboo and she is knitting a Fiddlesticks Shawl. This is her second, I believe. Impressive I know!

-SAK