Finished

I finished casting off the Pi this morning. It's smaller than I had anticipated.



I carried on with the crochet cast off, even though I'm not sure I like it, because yarn became an issue. I had enough left for maybe one more round.

I may have gotten belligerent about it at the end, but whether I finished on time or not, the Olympics gave me my first finished knit of 2010*. In March. Can you believe that?

*Well, there is a baby sweater that just needs buttons, and this isn't blocked yet, so I guess those two are nose and nose.

No gold here.

I started casting off in Friday, but I wasn't sure I liked it, so I put it down and haven't picked it back up. Oh well.

Now I can get back to sewing!

Many stitches.

The Happy Stacker is complete! Yay!


Pattern by Heather Bailey, Cosmo Cricket "Girl Friday" fabrics, and lots and lots of ric rac (as it should be)

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to take a wee break from sewing and actually clean my house. Too bad it won't clean itself. I keep waiting.

And I've made it through the 48-row section of the Pi shawl. I now have 576 stitches on my needle. I only have to go around 40-50 more times, and then knit on an edging. I'm trying to decide if I should switch to a lace pattern now or not.



Probably not. And I clearly forgot that, when knitting lace, I do not like to pull from the inside of the ball. We're on the verge of a collapse, here.

Progress.

Eliza is teething again, and we had a very rough night last night, so I was tempted to just sleep when she slept today (which wasn't much), but, coffee-fueled, I forged onward.


Don't they look like yummy little cakes?

I finished one more ring last night and two today. One ring tomorrow and the pole that they all stack on (instead of the stand-in four poster), and I'll be done. I might be a little sad. This is a fun project. I've been tucking jingle-bell-in-a-cage cat toys into the rings as I stuff them, so they make noise as well. I can't wait to see her play with it.

As for the shawl, I'm on row 33 of the 48-row section, and then I'll double my stitches again and knit 40 or 50 more rows, per EZ's directions, or until I decide it's big enough. I might put it down and tuck in early tonight, though.

Getting into the spirit.

So yesterday I cast on for an Olympic project. I had a skein of handspun laceweight singles (Hello Yarn "Air" merino/bamboo -- another example of me turning a small spinning project into a long one) by my desk that was meant for an Elizabeth Zimmermann Pi Shawl, and when I looked at it this time, it said, "knit me." And I thought, "why not?" This is something I can do at night when I can't be sewing. Nothing could be easier than stockinette in the round, but it is the sort of project that I would never finish without a deadline. So I cast on and made up for some lost time. The rows are already getting really really long, but I only have about 70 or 80 to go. The real beauty is that I can always just cast off where I am on the last day and still win gold.



And I started another project today involving five rings. A fabric stacking ring set for Eliza's birthday. I just finished the first one, and it wasn't as tricky as it looked in the pattern. She's taking a late nap that may just turn into going to bed insanely early (she does this every so often), so I may have a chance to get ahead on this as well while I wait for the fabric for her birthday dress.