And so it begins

Happy Saturday Morning everyone!

The Olympics have officially started! And I have made good progress I think on my sweater. DH requested ribbing at the bottom so that he could tuck it under and hold in the heat, so I obliged. 12 rows of ribbing completed, and then the 13 rows before the pocket starts. That is what I'll start with this morning. I removed the triangular shaping from the side patterns because DH really doesn't need waist shaping, so all I'm left with is a more boring 5 stitch twisting cable. I've already done 2 repeats of it since it's a 6 row repeat. Oh well, it's still better than plain stockingette.

I actually believed yesterday that I had to wait until the opening ceremonies were televised here in Denver starting at 7pm in order to cast on, until I started reading blogs yesterday. Apparently the ceremonies took place at about 2pm EST. This was nice to hear! I cast on at about 2:30 mountain time (well within the correct guidelines). I actually didn't' get to see the flame lit last night. I went to bed about 9:30 (we pregnant women need our sleep) and they were to the M's in the parade of countries.

In my delusion that I needed to wait until 7pm, I started another project yesterday morning. I figured since I had learned how to do illusion knitting, I should learn how to double knit. This is another technique I've been wanting to try. I have visions of someday making a beautiful snowflake afghan in double knit. Something with an intricate pattern that you will never have to see all those fair isle strings! For now, I started a pot holder, using that same maple leaf cross stitch chart as a pattern. Double knitting is a way of knitting a 2 sided fabric at the same time. Both sides are a flat beautiful "front side" with reverse patterns. This is accomplished by casting on stitches for both sides alternately onto the same needle. On the white right side, you knit all the white loops, and pearl all the colored loops. I wondered how all the strings would stay in the middle, but amazingly all you have to do is keep your yarns together and put them both in the back for the knit stitches, and both in the front for pearl stitches. It automatically hides all those floats inside, just like magic. To create the pattern you simply reverse your colors, just as if you were doing fair isle. The fabric is double thick, so perfect for a hot pad, but I'm not entirely sure how stiff an entire afghan would be. I'm also pretty sure that I could shadow double knit if I really wanted too, but that would definitely be a thick fabric. Too thick for a wash cloth, but again, probably good for a pot holder. Hmm... I may have to try that, just to say that it can be done. For now, though, all double knitting ambitions are on hold until the Olympics are over, or my sweater is completed!

"Up down, up down, now it's time for lazy town!" Says the little cartoon host for Saturday morning cartoons. He says the same thing every week on Saturday morning, and now my kids have it memorized. We don't get Nickalodeon here at our house, so Saturday mornings are our chance to watch the kids' favorite cartoons (Diego and Dora the Explorer). Time to turn off the computer, pick up my pretty blue yarn and watch some mind rotting TV with my kids!