Looks like a hat ...

Well. So. Remember how I said I'd be lucky to finish my fair isle hat before the end of the Olympics/Ravelympics? Well, I was wrong about that. I'm not quite on the home stretch yet, but I'm close. I'm 10 rows away from starting the decreases. I could very conceivably finish this hat today, only 2 days after starting it and with 15 days to spare in the competition.

I can't believe the knitting is going this quickly. I mean, I've knit hats in a single day before, but they were plain stockinette hats with worsted weight yarn and size 5 circular needles/size 6 dpns for the top. I've barely knit any stranded colorwork before, and what I did knit was with worsted weight or heavier. And it was certainly MUCH slower than my normal knitting pace. We're talking hours to finish a 20 st x 10 row swatch. Plus, smaller needles and yarn require more stitches, and therefore more time, to fill the same amount of space as larger yarn and needles, and I am noticeably slower on dpns than I am with circs. So how in the world am I managing to knit a fully-stranded hat on size 3 dpns in only 2 days?!

This is completely unexpected, and it baffles me. I was betting on 4 rows per day for my average. Um, yeah. Try 34 today. I only have 29 rows left, 19 of which take place after the decreases begin, which means they're all getting shorter and shorter. But even if you ignore that, if I only worked 2 rows per day, I'd STILL finish in time for a Ravelympics medal.

But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to finish this hat as quickly as I can, then I'm moving on to Zane's HellSackboy. I'll include it with my Ravelympics projects too, and I should be able to finish it easily. So I'll also include another project from the top of my queue. I just haven't figured out yet which one I'll start after the plushie. Luke's gloves aren't eligible, but the matching hat is. So is my hat and glove set. I'm just not sure which I want to knit most. I want to get Luke's hat out of the way, but it's another hat knit with fingering weight out of size 3s, and quite frankly, I don't know if I can take it this soon after working the Vermont Hat. I don't know. I'll figure it out later.

In the meantime ... today's progress:





It looks like a hat, but it fits like a glove. Maybe it's because it's 3 a.m., but I find that little pun extremely funny right now.

This hat also happens to be insanely comfortable, and I can't wait to wear it. I need to measure and make sure the length is working out properly before I start knitting tomorrow; I may even be able to shorten the hat a little. It also has a few ladders, but I think I can easily take care of those with blocking.

I think I now have the fair isle bug. You know, to go along with my lace bug and my cable bug?

Hi, my name is Amie, and I'm a knitaholic.