Knitting Olympics

Yesterday I went to the Knit N Stitch yarn shop in Riverside, California where they were having a knitting Olympics party. It was a fun day of great people, inspiration, food, and events...

This was the javelin throw. They had marked areas on the floor with tape and labeled them with 30%, 25%, 20%, and 15%. We each had several tries to throw a large knitting needle toward a bushel basket of yarn balls and try to stick it in. We'd start at the 30% spot. If we didn't make it in, we'd move to the 25% spot, and so on. When someone got the needle into the yarn, they'd win that percentage discount on a purchase for that day. If we didn't get any needles to stick, but at least tried, we'd get 10% off. I got 10%, but it was fun. Here are some knitters giving it a try...



Another event was the yarn ball shot put where we tried "putting" a large yarn ball across the room. They would place a mark on the floor for where each yarn ball "put" landed. The person who "put" it the farthest won. My mom won "gold" (a container of chocolate gold coins). Here's someone giving it a try...


One event was the "basketball" (aka ball of yarn) toss. We tried tossing a large ball of yarn up into a basket on top of a yarn display. I did pretty good at that and won "silver" (a container of Hershey Kisses). I didn't get any pictures of that event.

Then, there was speed knitting. We took turns in twos and tried to knit as much and as fast as we could to see how many rows (18 stitches wide) and stitches we could do in three minutes. The needles were long and heavy and probably about size 13. The yarn was really thick and almost like tight roving. Those two things added to the challenge. It think this event was my favorite...



Of course, what is a fiber gathering without show-n-tell? There were a lot of great things to see, including this beautiful circular lace shawl knitted by the lady in the peach colored shirt. Unfortunately, this picture doesn't show how gorgeous it is...


Linda, the shop owner, was so gracious to host such a wonderful event with games, food, prizes, and even discounts. So, I couldn't leave without buying more yarn! I know...I just said in my last post that I was trying not to buy more...but...how could I not? This was absolutely the right thing to do...and of course...fun! She had some great new sock yarns at great prices. I chose these two. I got the one on the right to make socks for hubby and the one on the left is for me. So pretty and soft and only $8.25 per ball. Not bad.


One final challenge of the day was to bring a UFO to finish during the course of the real Olympic Games. We signed up and had our pictures taken with our current progress. We'll check in after the games to share what we've done and there will be more prizes. I decided to challenge myself and try to complete my Pomatamus socks. I had started them a few months ago but set them aside from deflated confidence when I'd tried to knit some lace socks that didn't work out very well. So far, I only have a cuff completed. Time to dive into the challenging part. Whew! Wish me luck!