sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

July 26, 2012


an olympic effort at knitting
posted by soe 2:21 am

As you know, the Olympics begin on Friday, which means that I have slightly less than 48 hours to figure out my knitting project to work on during the Games.

As with every Olympics since 2006, knitters, crocheters, weavers, and spinners around the world will begin a new project or pick up a long-lingering one with the intention of completing it before the torch is extinguished at the end of the closing ceremony.

The first time this massive knit-along was conducted it was known as the Knitting Olympics — a brainchild of the Yarn Harlot. In 2008 and 2010, the field of play expanded to include crochet and moved to Ravelry, where we dubbed it the Ravelympics. This year, due to a cease-and-desist order from the U.S. Olympic Committee (accompanied by a poorly thought out letter that ended up eliciting a slew of bad press before an apology was issued for the wording), the knit-along once again has changed names. We have henceforth dubbed it the Ravellenic Games.

I already have the project I’m going to work on picked out. I’m going to knit a Color Affection shawl.

What hasn’t been decided is what colors to make it with. I’d like to use up some of the yarn I already have on hand, as it calls for three skeins of sock weight yarn, and, frankly, I have a lot of sock weight yarn. My solid/semi-solid choices are decidedly more restricted than would be my variegated options, but I think I like the way a one-color yarn works more than a multi-colored one in this instance. And I’m not above a trip to the yarn store to supplement the stash, but I’d like to rule out what’s at home first.

Normally I’d go for three bright colors — probably blue, green, and purple — but the completed shawls on Ravelry [apologies if you can’t access that link] suggest that picking at least one neutral/dark might make for a more striking accessory. Unsurprisingly, neutrals are few and far between in my stash (and life), so if I go that route, I’ll likely need to hit the store.

So, if it were you making/buying this shawl, what colors would you pick? Leave a note in the comments to help a girl out.

Category: knitting,sports. There is/are 5 Comments.



Actually, I completely love the blue/grey version in the first link – it reminds me of a cozy rainy day in England.

Comment by Jenn 07.26.12 @ 7:35 am

I really like that blue/gray color combo, too.

Comment by Karen 07.26.12 @ 8:35 am

i LOVE that shawl! it is on my rather long list of must knits.

as far as colors, i don’t think you can go wrong with grey and then a brighter color for the second. i’d probably go with a grey and purple but then, if you were to open my closet, you’d see i stick with those two colors 😉

Comment by amanda {the habit of being} 07.26.12 @ 12:51 pm

So I finished fine for the TdF knitalong, and totally used a variegated. It’s possible! I used a pale blue for my first color, dark green for my 3rd color, and the in-between color was a multi-color that happened to have some light blue, some dark green, and then pink.

I’ll admit I probably would have loved a simple tri-color shawl (just the pink would have been just lovely), but if you have a variegated yarn that has colors that match or coordinate nicely with your other two, I think you’d be just fine!

Also, for the record, my Color Affection was a total stash-buster. I just emptied out my sock yarn bin and pulled three colors. I probably have enough semi-solids that coordinate to do it again, too. YIKES!

Um, also, it’s so much garter stitch. But I never entirely got bored of it, until the very last few rows (which are just too long). So YMMV! Bonne chance with the Games.

Comment by Mikaiya 07.27.12 @ 8:52 am

@Jenn and @Karen: I agree. The blues and grey version is quite nice.

@amanda: I like purple, too.

@Mikaiya: You weren’t kidding about the garter stitch! I haven’t even gotten to the third color section yet and I find myself nodding off over it!

Comment by soe 08.10.12 @ 12:36 am