Kavalkade

Wow. Winter really hit us again. More snow, and lots of wind. Crazy. Good thing the Olympics are on and I've got lots of knitting and crocheting to do.

This week in preschool E got to dress up for carnival. He chose to be Politimester Bastian from Torbjørn Egner's Folk og røvere i Kardemommebyen. KE painted his face and I found a police hat at the party supply store near Steen & Strøm in Oslo. He didn't look much like Bastian, but awfully cute nonetheless:


I also finally got a chance today to photograph some projects, both in-progress and finished. First up is the pair of Elizabeth Zimmermann nether garments that I knitted for E last month. This project finished off all the DK weight superwash yarn I had left over, so that's a good thing:

The next finished object is the ridiculously easy toque in olive green alpaca yarn, also left over. I have to admit that I find it a little scratchy, which I totally wasn't expecting. So my pursuit of the perfect toque will have to continue. This is the first of my three Ravelympics projects:

I can't believe how much I look like my mom in this picture. Can you see that my hair is shorter? I had KE hack off a couple of inches this morning. Too cheap and lazy to go to a salon. When you spend as little effort on your appearance as I do, there's no reason not to have the spousal unit just cut it straight across the back.

Then there's the baby blanket for KE's cousin as my second Ravelympics project. This is my first crochet project in quite a while. When I first started I thought it was going to be a total disaster, but the more colors I add the more I start to like it:

Woo. psychedelic ripples. Not sure what impact this will have on the baby. For some reason I forgot that you can (and should) actually crochet over the tail ends as you go (rather than weaving them in after--thinking like a knitter). From here on out I'll be doing that. I ran out of the black yarn, but picked up more on Friday, so I'll be able to pick this up again once I finish the Ravelympics raglan:

I photographed this on our white coffee table, which makes it look like it's floating in space. For some reason whatever I put in my pizza today is making everything on my computer look trippy right now! I've knitted all of the first sleeve, and have a good start on the second. I'm a little worried that I won't have enough yarn (this seems to be the theme of my 2010 knitting experience so far). I still have a skein left over of the red version of this yarn (used in KE's wacky artist sweater), so I could conceivably use that to finish it off, perhaps as a contrasting cowl neck?

Curling

So far the Olympics are pretty much a bust for Norway. Everyone good is choking, except for two respectable silver medals (yay Aksel Lund Svindal, yay Emil Hegli Svensen!). The only really spectacular thing so far has been the men's curling team's pants:

Wow. Talk about ugly! But they're probably going to do wonders for the sport of curling. Here's an article from Aftenposten (er, that would be the article I lifted the photograph from...).

Another "fargeklatt" that made watching the men's 12.5K biathlon sprint enjoyable last night was the guy who won it, Swede Björn Ferry. He did the most hilarious and geeky happy dance at the flower ceremony. I think maybe it was clogging? At any rate, I love it, and I'm glad he won since he appeared so incredibly frustrated at the officials for letting other racers start early. What a fiasco all that has been. Did the officials somehow forget the rules? Did the Canadians just bring random people in out of the woods to officiate? How bleeping hard is it to count 14 seconds or look at the start number on a competitor's chest? They did it with the women's event earlier in the day, then again with the men, so clearly the learning curve is pretty flat there at Whistler. Wait, it looks like it's the IBU's fault, not the Canadian organizers according to this article. That actually makes it even harder to understand. Did I mention how much I totally, totally love biathlon? It has become my favorite sport.

So the Canada-Norway curling match and the 12.5K sprint allowed me to finish a toque (and yes, I grew up 20 minutes from the Canadian border, so that's what I call them. Not beanie, not stocking cap, or any other lame name. It's a toque, dammit). I used this drops pattern and the left over olive green Drops Alpaca yarn. Going to wear it to today for the first time.

Speaking of toques, and awkward, geeky stuff, what about the crocheted Swedish Olympic toques? They're incredibly ugly, but kind of cool. I found a blog with instructions on how to crochet them (apparently scanned from a newspaper?).

ETA a picture, borrowed from Dagens Nyheter:


Still more hurdles and frustrations with the publication grant I'm writing. Grr. Will blog about that after the deadline has past and I know where I stand.

Smerte

I am so dumb. I went bananas on the crocheted ripple baby blanket that I started in honor of the Olympics and totally--I mean totally--overdid it Saturday and Sunday. I think I crocheted for something like 10 hours each day. All I have to show for it is about 9 inches of blanket and extremely sore wrist and hands.

Then last night I found this post about the challenges of knitting on a blog that I follow. It almost made me want to cry, thinking that pulling dumb stunts like the one this weekend could eventually make it impossible for me to knit.

Today I have to get a publishing grant finished. I'm totally dependent upon my editor coming through with the supporting documents I need. The likelihood is looking slim, which ticks me off to no end, but I'm trying to remain sanguine about it.

All in all, this day is starting off a little tense. Hope things work out.

Oh, and speaking of blowing things, the Norwegian men's cross country team really bombed yesterday in the 15K free event. It was painful to watch.