February 21, 2006

Commitment, focus and...and what was that last one?

Thursday, before I put my behind on a plane to Boston to catch up with the carpool crowd to SPA I had a little talk with myself. I reminded myself that I had written of commitment, of focus, of 16 days of a knitting epic and that if I was going to win gold, I was going to have to pull it together a little bit. Stop talking with Joe about our lives screwing around, stop eating and sleeping wasting time, and start living and breathing this *&^%$#!!!ing sweater directing my energy toward my goal in an Olympic way.

So I did. (Sort of.)
I drank wine and laughed myself silly into the wee hours got quite a bit done Thursday night.

I knit all the way from Boston to Portland Maine, and so did Julia (right on target with her olympic knitting)

Juliamholm

I knit while Wendy made her very first yarn. (Show our girl some love. The fist yarn you ever make is sacred. Crap....but sacred. Note the look of glee and contentment? She has no idea that she's just fallen down and won't be able to get up.)

Wendysfrstyrn2

I knit while Wendy (Yes. Same Wendy. Wendy charmed the daylights out of me, Can you tell?) showed me her unbelievably cool Knitting Olympics spreadsheet. It calculates how many stitches she needs to do per day, how many she has done, percent of total stitches knit....it's enough to make me delirious with joy. I may actually have fallen hard for Wendy when she showed me this.

Wendysspdsht
It's exactly the kind of anxious anal-retentive obsessive compulsive twitch organization that I can really get behind.

I think Juno liked it too. Hard to tell for sure, it's so hard to tell what she's thinking. The woman is expressionless.

Junowendylkt

I knit while everybody spun late at night...

Olkntspinall

I knit while I spun late at night.
(Ok. That's a lie.)

Boogiefbr3
(Anybody else notice that my camera gets fuzzy when I drink wine? Odd, that.)

I knit while Cate put together her brand new Alden (gasp) Amos (gasp) wheel.

Catewins3

Look how captivating a new wheel is. This is how you can tell that your new wheel is really good. When everyone in the room stops what they are doing (even though they are spinning too) and stares, transfixed at your new wheel with a vaguely turned on happy expression? Good wheel.

Agoodwheelsound4
I knit all the way home on the plane. At the end of it all...I was here.

Screwedolyknit9
Some of you may not recognise this exact part of the process. It's the black hole. I knit and knit and knit and nothing happens. Nothing. Yarn goes in but no sweater comes out. This exact spot is also referred to occasionally as "SCREWED".
5 days left. Yup. Screwed. I have today to knit, and then tomorrow night is a little tight. (If "by a little tight" you understand that I mean "What the hell was I thinking?")

I'll be speaking tomorrow evening at the Flying Dragon Bookshop (1721 Bayview Avenue...here in Toronto) at 7:00. Come one, come all, but do them a favour and let them know you are coming (tel: 416-481-7721) so they can save you a seat. I'll be talking about the knitting olympics. (And knitting. Bring yours.) If you don't think you'll recognize me, I'll be the lady knitting and clutching a whack of green wool wet with my tears.

Olympic Quiz:

To celebrate the Canadian Women's Hockey team bringing home gold yesterday, I'm going to run a tiny contest. (By the way? I love Women's Olympic hockey. It seems so much more real than the mens. They are ordinary women, not NHL superstars with 8 million dollar paychecks. Way more moving to see them do well. What every happened to the Olympics excluding professionals?) I'll draw a name from among those who correctly answer the question below and send them this:

A fine upstanding Canadian sock yarn. (Fleece Artist, colourway "I lost the label")

What do I and Cassie Campbell, the Captain of the Canadian Women's Hockey team have in common?

Leave your answer in the comments.
(PS. This is a hard one, and Ken can't answer.)

Posted by Stephanie at February 21, 2006 1:41 PM