An Olympic Success

Months ago, when NBC started to advertise that the Winter Olympics were coming in February, I was worried that the Tivo would not have anything to record. I figured, that for two weeks, I would be in a TV wasteland of reruns and wieght loss programs.

How wrong I was!

I have spent most of prime time for the last two weeks watching every minute of what NBC deigned to broadcast from Vancouver. All the silly pieces puff pieces and ads for things I would never buy did not detract from my enjoyment of the games.

The wackiness of ski cross, speed skating pursuits and snowboard half pikes provided many moments of wonderment at the athletes' sanity. All of this was offset by the shear joy in the figure skatng programs. I almost wept at the wonderful program of South Korea's Yo-Na Kim.

The final hockey game was a nail biter throughout. I had the pleasure of watching the overtime period at Sweet Sadie's with a multi-generational family who had stopped in for some lunch. One of the teenage boys really knew his hockey. While he was watching the game his little female relatives decided to set-up a girls only table so they could play wth their dolls.

All this TV watching was done by me reclining on the living room couch, covered in a quilt with a three puppy sandwich next to me. I can't just sit and watch TV so I decided to give myself the goal of starting and completing a pair of socks. I figured that a sock, which has very short rows, would be an ideal project during the games as I could easily complete a row or two during the commercials and puff pieces so I could enjoy the actual competition.

I not only got my challenge pair of socks done but I started on a complex pair from the sock club at Twisted Yarns. Here's how my Olympic Socks turned out:

The yarn is called Regia and the colorway is one of the landscape colors designed by Kaffe Fassett. I bought the yarn at Twisted Yarns but here is a link to the selection at Fabric.com. I knitted the socks from the toe up using elements from the book Knitting the Perfect Pair by Dorothy Ratigan. This is a great book on sock knitting with lots of options on how to successfully knt interesting socks. I used a heel construction technique from the free sock pattern e-book from Knitting Daily.

These socks are a little long but very comfortable and I love the way the leg part crumples up on its own. The fact that I got the stripes to pretty much line up is the icing on the cake.

What am I going to do now that the Olympics are over? Well, the other day I got two quilts basted up for quilting and I have a few UFOs that need attention so I don't think I will be lacking for things to occupy my time.

I hope you enjoyed the Olympics as much as I did and that you will forget the ugly moments (like those bob sled uniforms... TMI!) and continue to savor the many medal winning performances we got to share.

Have a great week!