Crossposting

Some of you may have noticed that I have "borrowed" a couple posts from my knitting blog this week.  I thought some of you might be wondering what I do with myself when I'm not engaged in bizarre cooking experiments or spreading layers of horse manure on our lawn.  Perhaps you were thinking that I conducted myself as a "normal" person or something.  So, in order to fully dispel such a rumor, I thought I'd introduce you to the "Ravelympics."

Ravelry is a "social networking" site for people who are obsessed with enjoy knitting, crocheting, or spinning.  I actually don't really understand the term "social networking" as I don't see how one can actually unsocially network, but I can tell you that Ravelry is a tremendously cool site that allows over 600,000 knitters world wide to share pattern and yarn reviews, share project pictures and details, and to quit boring their spouses/friends with constant chatter about knitting and all things yarn related.

Not that I don't have a lot of very cool friends who don't  knit, but joining the online knitting community has been a lot of fun.  I haven't participated, but the annual Sock Wars totally crack me up.  You just have to love a group who can invent death by sock.  The Ravelympics are a funny take-off of the Olympics.  The events for this year are

• Aerial Unwind (Frog those poor unloved projects to reclaim that yarn)
  
• Bag Jump   (Bags, totes, pouches)
  
• Beading Biathlon  (All things beaded and embellished)
  
• Bobsled  (All things pets)
  
• Cable Cross-Country (All things cables)
  
• Charity Curling  (Projects for charity)
  
• Designer Biathlon  (From a swatch to published pattern in 17 days sample completed and pattern released on ravelry - swatching allowed before torch lit)
  
• Designer Original Dance (Create your own design sample from scratch in 17 days {swatching allowed before torch lit}; pattern need not be written)
  
• Designer Pattern Skeleton  (Create a publishable pattern; do what you feel is necessary to produce a publishable pattern testing, editing, etc)
  
• Downhill Dyeing  (dyeing yarns - this will only create stash)
  
• Felting Freestyle (All things felting and fulled)
  
• Fleece to FO Long-Track  (Start with fleece or roving and create a finished object)
  
• Flying Camel Spin  (Just spinning…lots and lots of spinning)
  
• Free Dance  (Don’t fit into any other event? This is for you)
  
• Giant Slalom-ghan (Afghan, blankets, throws)
  
• Hat Halfpipe (All things hats and heads)
  
• Holiday Jump-Start Skiing  (Projects to be gifted/given in Dec 2010 and holiday-themed items; also any gift-giving projects qualify here )
  
• Junior Olympics  (garments/accessories for kids and babies {toys have their own event})
  
• Labyrinth Weaving (All things woven)
  
• Lace Luge  (Lace patterns and laceweight yarns)
  
• Mitten Moguls (Mittens, gloves, anything that covers hands/wrists/arms)
  
• Nordic Colorwork Combined  (Colorwork, intarsia, fair isle)
  
• Platter Lift  (Home and décor projects)
  
• Samalog Machine Skate (Machine knitting)
  
• Scarf Super-G  (Scarves, cowls, neckwarmers, smokerings, scarflettes…all things neck)
  
• Short Track Shawls  (Shawls, stoles, wraps, shawlettes)
  
• Single Skein Speed Skate (Projects of just one skein/hank)
  
• Skelegurumi  (Toys and amigurumis)
  
• SnowCross  (Projects that combine knitting, crochet, needle-felting, embroidery, sewing …; minimum of 2 crafts combined together)
  
• Sock Hockey  (All things socks and slippers)
  
• Stash Compulsory Dance  (Use of long-neglected stash purchased at least 1 year ago)
  
• Sweaterboard Cross (All forms of sweaters, vests, cardis, pullovers, boleros)
  
• WIPs-Dancing  (WIPs/UFOs and only these; Projects not touched since Jan 12th)
  

There are now more than 9,000 competitors, with more joining every day.  Bobicus Maximus--otherwise known as the site owner's dog, Bob--will be handing out "medals" for the event, and there will be a "parade" of finished projects.  I am competing in the Sweaterboard Cross, and in case you haven't already guessed as much, trying to knit an entire sweater in 17 days really is few sandwiches short of a picnic.  But, not like insanity has ever stopped me before......