Let the Games begin

The Ravelympics games, that is. Let's just hope I can catch up with what I have to get done before I start on what I want to get done.

I have two projects to finish that will be samples for classes I want to teach this fall. I'm hoping to get both done this weekend. One is a reversibly cabled scarf and the other is a thrummed hat. I have only the crown shaping to complete on the hat, although I'd like to re-do the ribbing on larger needles, but we'll see how that goes.

For Ravelympics, I've entered two projects in WIPSwrestling. One is the Samus cardigan I knit two Augusts ago and which I take out every 8 months and attempt to do the zipper. The last time I worked on it, things were going fine, but I got bored with hand sewing I wanted to be knitting. The second project is the second argyle sock for the Master Hand Knitting Level II program. I only need to submit one sock, but since I intend to wear these, I'm making the second and will submit the best of the two. I made an error in the line diamonds across the instep, which no one except a judge holding it two inches from her face would notice, but since the judges will be holding the sock two inches from their faces, I have to make one that's error free. The other issue with the first sock is that I was working out the best way to deal with weaving in ends and joining a new length of the same color. Superwash wool is supposed to be feltable with extra friction, but I haven't been successful at getting a good join this way. The Russian join isn't great (either that, or I'm just not proficient enough at it), and my standard reverse duplicate stitch weaving shows up too much from the front, in that the extra thickness seems obvious. I finally hit on splitting the plies and weaving half along one row and half along another. In addition, I plan on making bobbins large enough to handle three vertical diamonds in one color, in order to eliminate as much additional weaving in as possible.

The third project will be my Level II vest. I'm going to use the silhouette for Eunny's Deep V Argyle vest, but knit it flat and with a texture pattern instead of in the round with color and steeks. Given the gauge will likely be different, too, it's hard to say if this is a variation of her pattern, or simply the use of her schematic. Either way, I'll have to write up my version and chart the cables and lace stitch patterns I'm planning to use. I decided against steeking because I've never done it before and this project is too important for me to try a technique like that for the first time. Also, the committee wants to see seaming, as much of the focus of this level is on seaming. I'd like to use as many of the swatch techniques as possible in the vest in order to show that I can apply those techniques to a project.

Alas, I am already behind, and the argyle sock will likely take me a good portion of a week, leaving me with only a week to get the vest done.