Fearless Fibers Yarn

A Thank You to the Masses Plus Knitting World Cup Stuff

I’ve had several new visitors here in the past week or so and just wanted to take a moment to say Thank You! As I discussed in my very first blog post, I feared that blogging would be my first step toward insanity (well, arguably first) and that it was really just an elaborate form of talking to myself. And so it is with much gratitude that I greet these new visitors.

Ubercherry stopped by and left a comment. She reached me through the Etsy seller’s blogring. She has a blog of her own and also has an Etsy shop.

Tess and knitidiotsavant from my favorite LYS, Farmhouse Knits in Beaverton, Oregon, came by. (Thank you, ladies! You rock!).

The Kitchener Bitch was here too. Like Brenda the Knitter who began popping by some time ago, I don’t know how Kitchener found me, which is particularly fun to see! I popped over to Kitchener’s blog to check it out and I found lots of cool things, including a vintage stocking pattern that I really love and now want to knit (why, I don’t know, as I never wear skirts short enough to show off such lovely stockings. I might as well just wear old-lady-rolled-down knee-high’s under my skirts. Nobody would know the difference.)

And earlier today, barbp was here. She found me through the Stalk & Knit contest I sponsored on Anne’s fabulous KnitSpot blog. The comment Barb submitted began by saying that she was “ROTFLMAO” as she read some of my posts. I have to admit that I’m not very savvy on the commonly used acronyms online. I knew what LMAO meant, but when I first read barb’s comment, for one brief flash of a moment my mind automatically translated it to read “rotten f***er laughing my ass off”! I quickly realized that it actually meant Rolling on The Floor LMAO. Whew! I thought perhaps we had a bawdy broad in our midst.

And finally … hold your breath in anticipation now because this is both a “celebrity” blogger sighting as well as a smooth segue into the next topic … the YM was here. OK. That’s my attempt to sound hip and in-the-know with my acronyms. I know, I know. It didn’t work. Let me try again. The Yarn Monkey was here. That’s the Yarn Monkey as in Organizer of The Knitting World Cup! There is no comment submitted from YM, but she sent me an e-mail to acknowledge my participation in the KWC and mentioned her visit here and referenced something she saw posted here. So there!

And so thank you again to the new visitors. You may be saving me from the slippery slope that leads from blogger to madwoman!

And so, now on to KWC talk.

Let me begin by saying that when I first heard about the Knitting Olympics some months back, I just didn’t get it. I scratched my head and looked puzzled. Why would anyone do this? Just knit something between the start time and the finish time and then pat yourself on the back and stick a gold medal picture on your blog or website? I scratched my head again and continued with the whole puzzled-look thing I had going on. But why? WHY?!?

A few weeks ago, I started seeing the buzz spread about the upcoming Knitting World Cup. As I read about on different blogsites and eventually at the Yarn Monkey’s KWC site, the fog suddenly lifted and I saw the light. The answer to the question became clear:

Question: Why?
Answer: Just ‘coz!

It’s actually a bit more complicated than that, I suppose. As I wind my way through the online knitting community (and as I’m learning, it really is a community albeit a vast and ethereal one), I began to feel the connectedness that events like the KWC bring to knitters all around the globe. You can find a sense of belonging, much as you find in your own LYS, as you begin and end a project in unison with scores of other knitters, knowing that you are all marching to the same deadline, starting and stopping in fits and starts as you begin that new project, debating whether there’s time to frog your UFO and start over, persevering in the face of doubt, and finally falling into that wonderful stride of certainty as your project begins to take shape. It’s just cool. You do it … well, just ‘coz.

And so I joined the KWC. My name may not yet appear on the roll on YM’s site, but it will be there in time. She has officially accepted my late entry.

For my KWC project, I decided it was time to finally start that lace shawl I keep saying I’ll start. Well, my first mistake: instead of sticking with the original plan of doing Anne of KnitSpot’s gorgeous ostrich plume shawl, I instead got a hair up my rear and decided to just wing something. That meant wasted time messing around with different possible stitch patterns. Why do I do that? I see a perfectly lovely pattern, read through it, pick the yarn I want to use, dye that yarn, and then suddenly sit bolt upright as if I just received an electric shock and say: “I think I’ll do something a little different.” I do this far too often. Truly. It’s some kind of genetic disease or something. It’s a particularly bad thing because I’m a pretty lousy designer. I’m not being humble folks. Just honest. I have a shelf in my closet that I call The Shelf of Shame. Needless to say, it is where I house those items that are completely unwearable that I have not had the heart to rip out. There lie my old friends “Monkey Sleeves,” “Disco Days,” and “Kansas Farm Girl” among others. Sigh.

But I digress. Back to the KWC project.

So I’ve decided on a cashmere lace shawl. I dyed some cashmere especially for this (well no, I dyed it for the ostrich plume shawl, but … well you understand. It’s a disease. I can’t help it.). It’s a springy shade of emerald green. The cashmere is a slightly lighter weight than the standard laceweight cashmere I carry in my eBay store. I bought this lighter/thinner cashmere planning on carrying it in my line, but I then decided that it’s just a little too lightweight for most people and so I changed suppliers and now have an ever-so-slightly heavier laceweight. (Perhaps I was just looking for an excuse to keep several pounds of laceweight cashmere for myself?)

And so I began the shawl last night. Here is a picture of it so far:



I think it will turn out nicely, although it’s always difficult to envision the FO exactly with lace. That’s particularly true of lace patterns that don’t lie anywhere near flat until they are blocked. That’s the case with this stitch pattern, so the end result will be a bit of a transformation from the WIP. You may ask yourself why I didn’t do a swatch and block it before beginning so that I would have a clearer picture of both how the stitch will look as well as how the gauge will end up when all is said and done. The answer is simple: NO TIME! I have a deadline. It’s the KWC for cryin’ out loud!

Yes, it’s ridiculous, but now that I have signed up for this event I feel compelled to complete this project by July 9th. I have no idea how I’m going to do that. It needs to be around 6 feet long and it’s taking me about a damn hour to complete an inch. EEK!

If you are wondering why my progress on this shawl is so slow, you’ll have to tune back in for a future posting. I’ve rambled on long enough for one day and need to get back to other pursuits now.

Thanks again to all for stopping by!

All the best to you and yours, and Happy Knitting!