Cleaning up before the knitting storm

Babushka Doggie says it's cold. Brrr.

We're in the middle of a hellacious snow storm (like most of the States), and I'm getting bored of it. Thank heavens I leave for my (seven day, six night) Mexican Riviera cruise this Saturday. It better stop snowing before my flight--I will not tolerate any delays. Luckily, I'm heading south and west on the way out, so I might get rained on, but shouldn't get snowed on. Knock on wood.

(Yes, that's a snuggie on Dog. He likes to swaddle up when he comes in out of the falling snow.)

Anyway, this weekend started Ravelympics, or the Knitting Olympics, depending on whether or not you're participating on Ravelry or with the Yarn Harlot. Either way, an ambitious project for someone like me, who can barely knit one project to completion per year.

I had to clear some projects off the needles before I could get my Ravelympics project up and running.

Mom's Pepto-Pink (soon to be) Felted Bucket Hat. I finished up the main knitting and now just have to find time to supervise the felting. God forbid I overfelt the thing; I never want to knit this again. Oh, I say that, but I have another skein of the yarn; I'm sure it will become something or other.

I made myself a shrug, I'll call it the Half-Arsed Shrug. It's basically a long sleeve tube with a knitted on collar. I accidentally cut off one row of knitting around the neck (it had a collar I disliked, I wanted to take it off and redo it, but cut the wrong yarn), so I have a rolled-up-and-over-stitched-like-nobody's-business side under the new collar. I think I'll put a button on the bottom there and no one will ever have to see the undignified mess I've made of the insides.

It's warm, it's soft and I don't really care it's not perfect--I think it's perfectly fine, myself. Although if I ever want another shrug....I'll probably do the same pattern, just not bollocks it up like that. And do it in something other than alpaca--this thing sheds worse than Dog. Which is saying something.

Anyway, here's a first shot of the Ravelympics scarf:
Malabrigo laceweight, colorway Lime Blue, using the waterfall stitch pattern with a simple garter border. It's not pooling in a horrific fashion and the stitch pattern is fairly simple and easy to remember. This will make wonderful mindless knitting for my travel this weekend. Let's all just hope the TSA don't make me take the needles out--I can only imagine Clover bamboo is more expensive in L. A.

And the back is nice, too:


Unexpected, but quite welcome!

I'm sure I'll blog on the high seas--I'm buying wifi time on the ship--so you'll get to hear all about my knitting on deck and on my private balcony (Oooh, swanky.) I may even post some pictures for you, to remind you that is it, indeed, warm somewhere in the world.