41 hours 39 mins

The Oxfam Trailwalker is done and dusted and I'm back from the dead.

It was by a long shot the most excruciating and emotionally draining experience of my life.

Some lowlights included...

58km into 100 - Team mate discovers giant blister across her whole foot. 15 min rest stop becomes 2 hour stop.

65km into 100 - Forced to beg for food from passing team. Left dignity on the side of the trail.

72.5km into 100 - 5 out of 8 team mates retired due to exhaustion, blisters and injuries

10k's to go (about 10pm Sat and 36 hours into the walk) - Team mate starts falling asleep and is delirious. Wants to power nap in the bush. Pretend not to hear her.

6 k's to go - Start hallucinating from fatigue. See people and houses on the trail.

4 k's to go - Team mate sprained or broken ankle. Ignore her again and force her to keep going.

2 k's to go (around 2am Sunday and 40 hours with no sleep) - Looking for final turn-off in heavy fog. Visibility close to zero even with head torch. No longer feel any pain.

1k to go - Finally reach the road. In delirium abused enthusiastic volunteers for cheering and clapping.

The Finish - Feel unaccountable urge to stab volunteers who are clapping and cheering with walking pole. Pile into car and fall asleep straight away.

For boring team stats check here. So, when's the walk next year?

In knitting news, my Sockapalooza Pal Andrea from Mexico has received her Marigold socks and has some great pics here! (She likes them she likes them she likes them.)

Deathly Hallows Scarf

Well the Sockapalooza socks are done, blocked, and packaged (and only 1.5 weeks late - so sorry Sock Pal!).

(More pics here.)

I ended up working the heel as per the pattern because I simply couldn't get the colours to stop pooling when I tried the Widdershin heel, although I did find a very useful link that shows you how to knit this heel for socks with different numbers of stitches to the original pattern (thanks Talvi!).

The pattern is Marigolds by Pamela Wynne of Flint Knits. Yarn is Joan in Lilly Pilly from Live 2 Knit. I used 2.5mm Knit Picks dpns.

In the meantime, I'm working on something I haven't done in years - a garter stitch scarf!

I started this while in the Deathly Hallows queue at Borders, with my iPod plugged in (I was really paranoid I would overhear a spoiler) and grumpy as anything (standing in a queue of 200 people at 8.30am after a big night is not my ideal Saturday morning).

The garter stitch is strangely soothing and the colour changes in Noro Kureyon is just interesting enough to keep me going.

Day in Lieu

Only 2 posts in July - that's got to be an all time low!

My main excuse... (no, it's not Ravelry) is this little charity walk I'm doing called the Oxfam Trailwalker. It's a 100km bushwalk to be completed in 48 hours in teams of 4. My team has been doing 20-40km walks every weekend to get ourselves ready and unfortunately this means knitting has taken a backseat.

I've only been working on the necessary projects - i.e. my Sockapalooza socks (late! late! late!) and my mum's cardigan.

Yes, the cardigan is FINISHED!

(More photos here.)

After blocking, the cardigan was the purrrfect size and mum was so happy with it she squealed and danced around like a silly school girl (a very funny sight). I found the buttons at a shop in The Rocks called Buttons Buttons Buttons. They have a fantastic range of buttons (funny that) in a tiny little shop. The address is 25 Nurses Walk, The Rocks, for anyone who lives in Sydney.

Forgot to add project details yesterday...
Pattern: Lacy Cable Cardigan from Jo Sharp Knit Issue 2
Yarn: Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette in Musk - ALL of 8 balls
Needles: 3.5mm (pattern calls for 3.25mm)

Modifications:
I made the long sleeves from the sweater version (the cardigan version has short sleeves) and shortened them to fit my mum. I used a tubular cast on for all the 1x1 ribbing and did the sleeves in rounds to avoid seaming. That's it!