Are You Stitching in the Ravellenic Games This Year?

It’s almost time for the beginning of the Summer Olympics, which means it’s time for another session of the Ravellenic Games (formerly known as the Ravelympics, but that’s a long story).

The Games are a time when knitters, crocheters and other fiber artists challenge themselves to complete a project that is started during the opening ceremonies and cast off (or however you want to define finished) before the torch is extinguished. That gives you a little more than two weeks.

You can join a team, based around anything from geographical location to type of knitting to geeky fandoms and more, or you can compete on your own. This time around there are 15 events, from the Afghan Marathon to WIPs Wrestling. You can also earn laurels for using different techniques such as cables, colorwork, lace, weaving and more.

I have never successfully managed to do a project for the Games, though I would love to. My daughter is home for almost all of the time period this is happening, but maybe that means I would have more time for knitting than I might otherwise.

Are you signed up? I’d love to know what you’re planning to make!

[Photo via Ravelry.]

Next Pattern:

When I knit socks (which sadly I have not done in a while; need to get a new pair on the needles soon!) I generally stick to pretty simple designs and colorwork that isn’t all that detailed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a fancy sock, I’m also just pretty lazy and I figure a project worked on size 0 or 1 US needles is going to take a long time even without the added work of intricate colorwork, so why make it more complicated?

But there are definitely socks out there I’d be willing to make an exception for, and I think Tangled Bliss by Annette Schleicher may just be one of them.

If you can’t tell from looking, this is decidedly an advanced knitting pattern. There’s brioche for the cuffs, complex looking colorwork done with the ladderback jacquard technique, multiple charts, and colors changing everywhere.

There are links to tutorials for all the special skills in the pattern, but still it would help to have a handle on these concepts before you get started.

The pattern uses three colors of light fingering weight yarn at a whopping 31 stitches per 4 inches/10 cm (that’s 7.75 stitches per inch/2.5 cm).

Would you believe me if I told you that this pattern was designed for a speed knitting contest? Speed would be the last thing on my mind.

But again, I think all the work for these fancy socks would be worth it. I love hoe the colorwork looks like an old tile floor, and think of the bragging rights when you tell people you made them yourself. (Though of course you did; have you ever seen store-bought socks that look anything like this?)

Best of all, this pattern is available for free on Ravelry, so there’s no reason not to give it a try if you’ve got the skills. If you do, I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Annette Schleicher]

Elevation Yoga Socks Knitting Pattern [Knitting]

How to Adjust Sock Knitting Patterns [Knitting]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?