so I might have got distracted

So I might have got just a little bit distracted from the Olympic Knit - but I had to do something, to stop myself casting on before the actual pyromaniac moment. So, in the front, the start of a sock which actually seems to marry yarn and pattern well, unlike the poor Oriel sock - Nancy Bush's Conwy, from her 'Knitting on the Road' in the Motherlode colourway from Lorna's Laces. (See, I do learn. Although it seems to be the kind of learning which comes from my own numbwitted experience, and not from listening to the better advice of others. Were you the kind of child who would still put their hand in a fire, even though they had been told, repeatedly, that a fire is very hot, and it would burn, and it would hurt, and you still did it anyway, just to check? Are you kind of person that is irresistibly drawn to push the large red button that says 'do not press, under any circumstances'? Because I was that child, and I am that person. Mmmm, large red buttons...)

Anyway, hiding in the back of the photo, being a little ruff to keep the ball of alpaca warm, is the very small beginnings of the 'It is meant to be a Faroese Shawl, but it seems to be trying to develop a confused identity all of its own Shawl' official olympic object.

But I'm home now, after an exciting weekend playing with my godson down in London (and he has not given me a bug, I am not coughing, I am not losing my voice, I do not have a fever, and I do not want to crawl back into bed surrounded by cats), and I'm optimistic. Particularly now that I have stopped trying to fit a 28 stitch pattern into what was, is, and always will be 25 stitches wide.

Is there an olympic medal for having successfully navigated the knitter's own stupidity?

Oh, and new excitement over in the side-bar. Pixeldiva cracked (knew someone would), and volunteered herself to set up a Team GB blog, at the very last moment. Go look, there is some good knitting there, and surely medals are in the offing.