The Knitting Olympics / 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games have both been points of contention for me, for different reasons of course, but I only got a handle on it today as I was standing in the shower.
Basically I have two conflicting feelings: one, that the olympics are an amazing time for an individual, a community, a country to see what they are made of. The motto – higher, faster, stronger – is so beautiful, because it doesn’t say ‘… than the other guy’. It implies that each individual is responsible for surpassing their own personal best, and each team, each country is responsible for being greater than the sum of their parts.
The second feeling begins with the fact that I live in Vancouver, I am a middle class, white female with a fairly sporty body. I have both the money and the physique not only to enjoy the winter games as a spectator (if I so choose) or as a competitor, if I desired that. Not only are the tickets to the winter games out of reach for the better part of most working class people, but there are a lot of people in Vancouver who have been marginalized by the winter games. Homeless have been displaced, problems in our society such as the economy have been swept under the carpet because the worlds eyes are on us, and the powers that be would like us to look good. We would all like to look good, but realistically, we are a normal city with normal problems.
I hadn’t been able to make up my mind just what I would do about these conflicting issues when the idea of the Knitting Olympics came around. How can I support an idea, sit and watch the opening ceremonies, when I can’t make up my mind as to what I think? I don’t want to be saying one thing and doing another.
To be honest, I still don’t know exactly what to think. I sway back and forth between my conflicting feelings, crying as we won gold for the first time on our soil, and then stopping to feel the hardship of my fellow canadians who are shoved into the background. Generally, when I am conflicted, I knit. So, I’m knitting a pair of socks for the knitting olympics. I realize that sometimes we can’t just pick a side. I’m a Canadian, and a human being. I can be excited and torn apart at the same time. I am proud of the world for trying to put differences aside and come together to be great, even if we have a ways to go all of the rest of the time.
I think they are too big. I think I’m going to have to rip back down to the toe and minus a few increases. 17 days? We’ll have to see!
Halfway questions
Today is halfway, or at least that is second hand information from the Yarn Harlot’s blog post. Am I halfway? Well, I could be. I could stop here.
I could bind off now, and have this be the top of my sock. I have completed a couple of inches of ribbing and decreased for the upper calf. But do I want knee highs, or thigh highs?
I am a thigh high person. I like to wear skirts. Long ones, but skirts nonetheless. And to be honest there is nothing I find sexier than thigh high socks hidden under skirts. I typically where knee high wool socks, because they don’t come in thigh high length. Thus, the hubster has expressed that practically ‘ you would wear the knee highs more often’. But how do I know this is an honest answer, or that he doesn’t just want me to stop shaking him by the shoulders moping about the house, glancing backwards at the sock and saying ‘do I keep knitting?’
I could even knit the thigh high, and then scrunch it down ontop of my boot when I didn’t want to hike ‘er all the way up.
Oh, did I mention that the goddamn Noro people tied a knot in the middle! And I came to it in the middle of what could be the cuff? You know the one, the classic “heh, we’ll change balls in the middle here, and not only that but go backwards from the colour progression we ended with, plus, we’ll make the change real sudden like so you can totally tell in the final knitted piece.” Yes, I did cut off a bunch of the ball to try and make it look right. Jerks. So, but continuing, I will be knitting an un colour progression.
Keep that in mind when giving me your opinions. I’ll knit away here and see what it looks like.