Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Knit Off...!

I am a dismal failure! Team Louet, I let you all down.

Despite knowing that it starts 3am Sunday Sydney time, I signed up for Socktopia's live Knit Off. "Surely it can't be that hard to pull an all nighter to knit a pair of socks," thought I.

Alas, I completely over-estimated my stamina to pull all nighters in my advancing age. (Was I insane?)

It didn't help that I had a pretty full on weekend - I came home at 3am (2am thanks to daylight saving) from a hens' night on Sunday morning, already knackered, but decided to wait for the pattern launch on the website nevertheless. 3am. Nothing. 3.15. Nothing.

When 3.30am came and went, I couldn't cope any more and stumbled off to bed.

By the time I woke up, someone had already finished a sock! I tried to catch up, purely because I didn't want to let my team down, but I was so groggy from lack of sleep the night before so I only managed 1 sock by the end of the weekend.

(I name thee, Egg Yolk sock. Second sock is still in the making!)

Needless to say, I'm not going to attempt such a reckless venture for a while. I think.

On a more joyous note, I received my first Secret Pal package on Tuesday! It contained a ball of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran, a ball of Bouton D'or Plum'Kid and the Erika Knight Glamour book.

I've had my eye on the Kid Silk Haze gloves in there ever since I saw a copy at Kinokuniya. Thanks Secret Pal!

In other knitting news, I've started the Jo Sharp cable cardigan for my mum from Knit 2. See?

(In the background is the wonderful Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush which I got recently and a wash cloth made from GGH Scarlett. I was at a LYS a couple of weeks ago looking for 2.5 dpns and somehow walked away with a ball of this softest of all cotton yarns. Don't ask. I'm weak!)

Oh and I'm supposed to talk about my favourite knitting accessory - does a piece of waste yarn count? It's so versatile. I can use it as a stitch holder to hold live stitches, tie knot to make a stitch marker, thread it through a row as a lifeline, and best of all (unlike most other knitting tools), it's FREE! So there you have it.