It's not the gold but playing in the game. Right? After all it looks very unlikely that the founder of this game, Yarn Harlot, will get her gold either. But it's not over yet. I will keep spinning and keep listening to book 11 of the Wheel of Time series. That at least is going very well. And the scale finally made it. There is a bit of good news. More good news, my bobbins hold 3 oz not 2, so I am farther along than I thought.

The other Olympics, the Finishing Olympics hosted by my local yarn shop is going great. I entered 7 items and have finished 3. Today it looks like I will finish 2 more. The last 2? That's looking pretty grim but it could happen. For this Olympics there is more than bragging rites, there are prizes. I have to go to the closing ceremonies Sunday to find out what I have won.

Oh, You want to know what I have finished? See, I have this big drawer that I carefully place things once all the knitting is done and all I have to do is tuck the ends before wearing. Once I found out about the finishing Olympics I cleaned out the drawer. I finished my purple hand dyed fibernachi striped purple sweater, I finished my hand spun natural fawn just the right shade to match my swede boots Shetland sweater, I finished my mini aka boob holder sweater and it has a supper cute button to boot. To be finished today the second mitten of a pair. In fact half of the ends are already tucked. This one is so close to finished I'm not sure how it end up in the drawer. Also for today, a baby wallaby needs some grafting at the arms and hood.

The last two projects need ripping and reknitting. One is a vest I made before I knew about shoulder shaping. Now I know but I still haven't implicated it so I keep putting it off. The other is the sweater Child Hood. Remember the one were I ran out of yarn? I'm leery of seeing how the yarn from a different dye lot looks. So that's something else I have been putting off.

So off to that LYS to have photos taken of my FOs.

Problem solved. It turns out that the polonaise is supper easy to treadle, no down right effortless, once the half knitted stocking cap is dug out from under the treadle. I swear the UFOs are escaping their tidy knitting bags to hide and have litters when I'm sleeping. Once I removed the stocking cap I easily spun 2 oz while eating bread from Great Harvest and most of a box of chocolates. Finally I am on track.

Day 4

Day four and I have just finished 4oz. Anybody see a problem with that? I really have to treadle hard and fast with the Polonaise using the small whorl. I don't know why. Whatever the reason I'm spinning yarn at my fastest pace ever but my leg gets tired before I fill a bobbin. I will start spinning on my Lendrum too. That one is effortless. Maybe by having the same project on both wheels I will be able to get back on track.

Day 3

Day 3 of the Olympics and I am at the back of the pack. That's not so bad if you consider that I had a late start. With Himself being sent off to Tokyo to do Some Very Important Stuff I spent Friday not spinning but having an early valentines diner and watching him do laundry so he could pack. Saturday the going was strong, but today I am lonely. I ended up squandering most of the day playing computer games and knitting on the random stripe sweater.

I did finish the laundry. Yes, every bit of clothing is clean and most of it is folded and put away. It turns out we have never planed or experience this before and the dresser drawer isn't big enough to hold all of my socks at once.

Back to the Olympics. I figure if I spin one bobbin full a day I should be OK. I'm pretty sure that my bobbins hold 2 ounces. I'm also pretty sure I can make the sweater with 2 pounds of wool. So that is my goal- 2 ounces a day. Since I can't find my soap making scale I went ahead and ordered a new one. Once it gets here I will weigh my yarn, play with my yarn balance, crunch some numbers, and actually be able to know how much yarn I have, what I need, and whether it is possible to spin enough in 16 days. Right now I am just shy of 2 full bobbins. I should have 3 by now but the day isn't over yet.

Samples

This morning I spun samples. This may be a first for me. I rarely spin with a project in mind. I made a loosely spun single and a tightly spun single and turned each into a 2 ply and a 3 ply yarn. I was surprised how much faster it was to spin the tightly spun single, but my wheel kept stalling on me. If it turns out that is the yarn I like best I will have to spend some time adjusting and making sure everything lines up perfectly before putting hours into spinning. Right now the wheel is adjusted for the loosely spun yarn. I feel like I am missing something because I think there shouldn't be so much adjusting when I change whorls. None of my other wheels needs this much adjusting. I might see if I can get the assembly video. It wasn't yet available when I got my wheel.

The samples washed and hanging to dry. I will then knit some swatches and have everything all set for Friday. I even have my spinning team button all picked out and photos. If you can't tell I still don't know how to post them. Maybe Himself will have time to help me tonight.

To hold me over until then I am knitting a random stripe, from the top, knit to fit sweater. The swatch is stunning but I'm irritated at the sweater. I'm not liking how the dice are falling and the metal needles hurt my hands. Ok so maybe I shouldn't knit for 3 hours at a time, but still. Also with 4 yarns stores in my area I should be able to get a size 2 bamboo needle, but Nooo. Ok whiny fit is over. I'll keep knitting until the olympics then I will decide how the sweater is turning out. It may be headed for the frog pond.