KnitFreak

I told you I'd do this (well, it could also be interpreted as a warning), I made a gold medal for everybody who finished their Olympic Project... and for everybody who competed.

Feel free to save it to your disks and to upload it to your computers!

...stupid? angry? annoyed? stupid? Yeah, getting there...

And why do I feel like that? Because I saw this today on knitty.com and thought 'Wow! How cool is that? And the yarn seems great too, wool and 30% Alpaca!' and then I thought '...dammit!! I'm just knitting Josephine! But the Starsky jacket is sooo much cooler than Josi!' Then, I had an idea: The yarn isn't that expensive, and I'd only need 11 skeins or so... why not get it in a color different to eggshell and knit it anyway? So I went to check out the KnitPicks-site... and I quite liked it. I thought, 'okay, deal! What are their shipping fees?' and then I found out: They do not ship outside the US or Canada. And Germany is obviously not in either of these countries.

That would leave me with following options: A) find a replacement yarn which I don't like doing because I'm not good at this, or B) not to knit this project, or C) have the yarn shipped to somebody in the US who is willing to forward it to me which is hilarious (actually, it isn't), but that's one of their solutions they offer for international customers. So, either you're lucky enough to know a trustworthy person in the US or in Canada, or you're out.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with shops that don't ship overseas. That's cool with me, really. But I don't understand that knitty.com uses yarns that are hard to get for their readers, if at all. They could have mentioned a suitable yarn for replacement, at least. That would have been a good start for their international readers, and especially for the not-so-much experienced knitters among them.

I didn't promise, but here's a pic of my finished socks:

I'm soooo keeping my fingers crossed that they will fit!

And here's a "side project" I started while I was waiting for my Olympic yarn to arrive and when I didn't feel like working on Josephine.

It's for the Red Hot Sizzling Socks! The red is actually way stronger than in the picture, I didn't have good daylight because it's been snowing all day long today. The color is quite luminous, quite fierce. The pattern is again from Nancy Bush's "Knitting Vintage Socks", it's the Lozenge pattern. Quite an easy, but nonetheless intriguing knit.
It is actually not the yarn that I had planned for the Sizzling Socks because that was in the delivery with my Olympic yarn, but who says I can't make two pairs of Red Hot?!

Knitting + Olympics = Knitting Olympics

I'm in the final spurt! I'm about to start the toe shaping (yes, my feet are that much bigger than my pal's, and yes, I'm going to wash the socks before I send them away), and my guess is that I'll be done tonight! Yay!

Update: The socks were completed around 6.30-ish p.m. Munich local time. That means: Gold for me!!! And socks guaranteed for my pal. Now I have to wait until May 2 until I can ship those two beauties... and in the meantime I'm going to decide whether my pal is going to get two pairs of socks...

To make my progress official:

Despite the whole yarn-being-late-thing, I'm very lucky with my pal as she doesn't want the leg part of her socks very long, just a bit above the ankle. That saves knitting time!
The finished sock looks a bit strange, I think, but I tried it on before I finished the toes, and it fit pretty well - I was surprised actually. Unfortunately, I can't model the sock for you because my feet are way too big for this sock size.
Now I'm more confident that I can manage to finish this project before the Olympic flame goes out...

The first of my Olympic Sockapaloooza sock is done! And the second one is on the needles.

No time for pictures though. I'll have to catch up on that soon!

On Wednesday, I decided I had waited long enough for my Olympic yarn to arrive. So, in the evening, after therapy, I went to my favorite LYS (okay, I'll be honest, I went to another LYS first. This place is a bit more fancy, but the people who work there... they are quite arrogant) to see if they had any yarn I'd like to use for my Olympic project. Remember that my project isn't for me, but for my Sockapaloooza Sockpal; the problem was, I had already decided on a yarn and was eager to start, so any other yarn seemed like second choice (which it is), but with a negative aftertaste.
I ended up finding two nice yarns, both colorful and cheery, and I cast on for a swatch with one of them. As I wanted to make the Child's French Sock pattern from Nancy Bush's "Knitting Vintage Socks", I realized that the yarn I had on my needles was too colorful, too wild (sorry, no pics of this one!). Then, I cast on with this:

It's Regia, from the "Canadian Color"-range. This color has only a number instead of a color name, so I like to call it something like "Sea Grass". I think the name is quite appropriate.
The good thing about my pal is: she wants short socks. Yay! That gives me a chance to finish in time before the Olympic flame goes out. By last night, the heel was three quarters done:

I know you can't see the heel in this picture, and no, this isn't my foot either. But you can see the pattern in this picture quite well; this part will go down the foot to the toes.
The pattern instruction is really easy-peasy! I can only recommend it.

Yesterday in the afternoon, the door bell rang. The mailwoman usually comes around noontime, and it couldn't be her, so I thought it would be the parcel guy delivering something for K (he was expecting something he bought on ebay). When the parcel guy finally came up to our apartment (we live on the 3rd floor (that's the 4th floor for you guys in the U.S.), and no, there is no elevator), I saw that he carried two parcels - one of them was for me!

Isn't that a pretty sight? The green yarn top left and the blue bottom left are both for K. He has only one pair of socks made by yours truly, so I promised I'd make some more for him. The pink yarn middle left is still a secret; I might give it away to somebody, but I can't tell you any details yet. The red-red-red yarn in the center is for the Red Hot Sizzling Socks (I'll post a close-up of this some time soon); the purple yarn middle right has the name "Doro" - which is my nickname. I couldn't not order it! The orange-ish balls top and bottom right are for... I don't know yet. Maybe for giving them away (if you'd like to make a yarn swap, let me know!)
The two balls top and bottom center are the ones that I had originally chosen for the Olmypics:

I just lovelovelove it! I'm so glad I bought two balls of this, so I can keep one of them for myself! It's called "Singapore", and I believe that one (or more) threads that were used for making the yarn are from Singapore as well. This is truly a widely traveled yarn - from Singapore to Germany, and from Germany to ***.

However, I kept on knitting with the Sea Grass yarn because I was quite far into the sock already. So, if my sockpal gets really really lucky, she'll get two pairs of socks - one Olympic, one... well, not-Olympic. She is definitely going to get the socks pictured above. But what do you think? Should I make two pairs of socks? I have bought both yarns already, I have started knitting with one of them and I'm very curious how the other one turns out once it's knitted. So, leave your vote to help me decide!

Unfortunately, I can't put a nice poll-thing in here because the only thing I found is in JavaScript which I can't handle, so you'll have to leave me your opinions in the comments or you can email me, of course.

I might have misfigured my ball circumference. I don't remember what I measured, that's why I'm not sure.
Do you think you can knit without knowing this measurement? If not, let me know, and I'll remeasure for you.

Yarn update tomorrow.

Guess what was in the mail today.

Just take a guess.

Come on, take a guess!

Okay, I'll help you a little bit. I'll give you a hint:

What do you see when you close your eyes?

Do you see any yarn? Anything woolen that looks somehow Olympic?

Well, if you do, you're lucky, 'cos when I close my eyes, I don't see a thing.

And that's exactly what was in the mail today.

Don't worry, it's still too early for my mailperson to come.

A week ago or so I bought a plant at a supermarket. On Sunday, it looked like this:

 

Today, it looks like this:

 

Check out the details:

 

Isn't it gorgeous?! I'm surprised how accurate the camera captures the color, once I turn off the flash...

Yarn news hopefully later today!