This was my second, and last, project for the Ravelympics 2008 WIP Wrestling Event. It’s the Minimalist Cardigan pattern from the Fall 2007 edition of Interweave Knits. I used yarn from Debbie Bliss’ line to knit it – the Cashmerino Aran. It’s a beautiful yarn – soft, bouncy, and gives great stitch definition.

Overall, I’m please with the way the sweater came out, but if I were to make it again, I’d make a couple of changes:

• Alter the pattern to knit the body all together either in the round with steeks at the front to cut later or just back and forth to the armscye. Anything to avoid having to do so much seaming.
• Make it slightly shorter, both in the body, and in the arms – maybe by 1 1/2 inches or so.
• Use a slightly different stitch pattern – moss stitch gets kind of monotonous after a while!

Hope your Ravelympics projects have gone smoothly!

As I mentioned in my last post, I am participating in the 2008 Ravelympics – in the WIP Wrestling event. And, what do you know – I’ve actually completed the first of two projects that I’ve targeted for the event – a pair of socks. Here they are in their finished glory:

This is the Nanner Socks pattern that WendyKnits created especially for her knitting friends on Plurk (which is a social network, somewhat similar to Twitter, for those of you that haven’t checked it out yet).

This is a really nice pattern that is not too difficult to knit. It’s a toe-up pattern with a fairly easy to memorize pattern repeat. I finished it off with a sewn bind-off, which for me, turns out a bit stretchier than a regular knitted bind off.

I used Crystal Palace’s Panda Silk yarn in the 4005 colorway for these socks. This is my first time trying the Panda Silk yarn and I really liked it. The yarn is 52% bamboo, 43% machine washable Merino wool, and 5% combed silk. It’s quite soft, and the bamboo content makes the socks feel very cool – perfect for summer weight socks. I’ll definitely be using this yarn again.

Now that this project is done, I’ll be working on finishing my Minimalist Cardigan.

Hope you are enjoying the Olympics – and the Ravelympics – as much as I am!

Now that the Tour de Fleece has concluded and you’re all rested up, now it’s time for another fiber-related event – the 2008 Ravelympics!

Similar to the Tour de Fleece, the Ravelympics begins with the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympic games and ends after 17 days with the closing ceremonies. The basic idea of the Ravelympics is for you to choose a project to complete, start to finish, during the Olympic Games. There is one exception to this basic ‘rule’ – the WIP Wrestling event, in which the participants declare the WIPs (for those that aren’t fully initiated into knitting lingo, that’s works in progress – projects that you started some time ago but haven’t finished) that they will complete. There are many other events you can choose to participate in, including two that will be of particular interest to spinners:

• Fleece to Finished Fencing – in which the participants will start with a fleece and end up with a finished knitted or crocheted object
• Handspun Heptathlon – in which participants will either spin a certain quantity of fiber or will knit or crochet something with handspun yarn

I’ve decided to sit out the spinning events and concentrate on my knitting instead. I’ve entered the WIP wrestling event and intend to finish both a pair of socks and a cardigan that I’ve been working on.

If you’d like to enter the Ravelympics, go to the Ravelympics Overview page on Ravelry (login required) to learn more. Hope to see you on the Ravelympics discussion boards!

Just wanted to do a quick post to show off the wonderful goodies I acquired at the Estes Park Wool Market. I decided not to get any raw wool fleeces even though there was a great select to choose from just because I wanted to get to the spinning more quickly.

Item 1: A Teeswater/Cotswold Cross roving, approximately 1 lb., in natural white.

Item 2: A natural brown Bond roving, approximately 1/2 pound.

Item 3: Some hand-dyed Cormo wool, approximately 4 oz.

My tentative plan for the three items above is to use my drum carder to blend them into a batt, then spin that into either a two or three-ply yarn to use in a vest. I’ll be doing some sampling soon to figure out how well that plan is going to work.

Lastly, I got this – a 2 oz. dyed silk cap. I really don’t have any plans for this yet – I just couldn’t resist it!

The Great Western Alpaca Show was held this weekend, and I got a chance to stop by for a little while today to check it out.

Have I mentioned how in love I am with alpacas? Just take a look at this face and you’ll see why. He’s a Suri Alpaca and has long, flowing locks of fiber – and the sweetest face you’ve ever seen.

According to the show’s website, the Great Western is one of the largest alpaca halter shows in the U.S. While I was there, I watched some of the alpaca judging. Although I’m sure this sort of thing is old hat to those of you that were in 4H, I thought it was really interesting watching the judges and hearing what they were looking for in the alpacas as far as how how their bodies should look and what their fiber should be like.

Have I mentioned the fiber? In the halls surrounding the show ring and upstairs there were small vendor areas where fiber and finished products made from alpaca fiber were being shown. And earlier during the weekend there was a fiber arts contest. Although I missed that, luckily for me, some of the winning entries were still on display. I think the coolest thing I saw was a bowl that had been formed by wet felting some alpaca fiber, then further embellished by needle-felting some more alpaca fiber on top of it. Although there were a lot of nice things that were tempting me, the only things I ended up taking home were a 1-oz spindle with a rose quartz whorl and about 4 oz of alpaca fiber.

One of the most interesting things I saw in the vendor area were two women at two different vendor booths knitting socks on antique sock knitting machines. I watched one of the women go through almost the entire process – with one of those babies, you can knit a sock in about 20 minutes!

One of these days, I’m going to have to get myself a couple of alpacas. And a couple of goats. And maybe a sock knitting machine.

Yesterday my husband and I went to the Alpaca Extravaganza, which is a trade show put on by the Alpaca Breeder’s Alliance of Northern Colorado. If you’re in the area for next year’s event and you are interested either in seeing beautiful animals or in spinning, weaving, knitting or other fiber arts, I highly recommend that you stop by.

It’s a rather small event compared to some of the other fiber-related shows like the Estes Park Wool Market, but there’s still plenty to keep you entertained for a couple of hours. At yesterday’s event, we saw huacaya alpacas, suri alpacas, some paco-vicunas (a cross between an alpaca and a vicuna) and one llama, who looked positively statuesque surrounded by all of its smaller cousins.

There were also plenty of items available for purchase – alpaca yarn, roving, and raw fleeces; sweaters and other items made from alpaca fiber; and spinning and weaving tools. And, for those who were interested in owning alpacas, several lectures were offered on raising and breeding alpacas as well as what you need to consider if you want to get into the alpaca business.

If you’d like to take a look as some of the beautiful animals I saw yesterday, here’s a short video – enjoy!