Competitive knitting

Ravelympics, Ravellenic Games and the Year of Projects

With the Olympics about to start, I thought this might be a good time to discuss competitive knitting.

Try to match the coloured stitch markers to the five continents they represent

Non-knitters reading this blog may not have realised that knitting could be competitive, but I assure you, we knitters can be as dedicated to our craft and as determined to improve our skills and achieve excellence as any Olympian out there. We're just lucky we don't have to navigate the London transport system to do so.

Yarn Harlot started the whole thing off with her Knitting Olympics during the 2006 winter games, and Ravelry went on to host the 2008 Ravelympics. This is a group knitting activity which encourages knitters to complete one project within the timespan of the Olympics. Unfortunately this year USOC (the United States Olympic Committee) squashed the fun by determining that using the name 'Ravelympics' was copyright infringement.

Knitters raised a hue and outcry, and USOC eventually apologised for their rude insinuations about knitting (which they implied was somehow denigrating and disrespectful to true athletes), but Ravelry has had to change the name to 'Ravellenic games 2012'

For myself, I don't see why knitters would even want knitting to be compared to the Olympics. Knitting actually produces something useful at the end, as compared to sports. The Olympics have become the puppet of corporate sponsorship, and USOC is not the only one who has been overzealous in protecting the Olympic 'brand'. LOCOG (the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) have turned the 2012 Games into "the most heavily copyrighted event the world has ever seen."

On top of which, hosting the games is an outrageously expensive affair, with host cities usually ending up debt-ridden and saddled with a bunch of underused, expensive sporting facilities. And don't even get me started on the way it reinforces fantasies of competitive nationalism.

So, I will not be participating in the Ravellenic games. I don't watch the  Olympics or sports in general, don't have a TV, and find the idea of scheduling my activities around TV programming frankly unthinkable. Basically, if it is not on DVD or streaming, I'm not going to watch it.

Also, I'm not much of a joiner, and I can't really see the point of knitting alongside a bunch of other people online. Some people may find participating in a group knitting activity helps them to be more productive, but I'm quite happy with current state of productivity, and anyway, spending too much time on Ravelry tends to cut into my knitting time.

From a delightful blogger I follow, Knitsofacto, I learned about another competitive knitting activity on Ravelry - the Year of Projects. This, much like the Ravellenic games, is really more of a competition with yourself, wherein you chose a set of projects to complete within a year, blog about your plans, and then post comments about your success/frustration/insanity to the associated Ravelry board.

As it happens, I had decided at the beginning of the year to work through Norah Gaughan's first booklet. I completed Aamu and Kaari earlier in the year, recently finished Kukka, and plan to complete a few more in the fall (the patterns are mostly aran weight, so not really suitable for summer knitting).

I briefly considered joining the Year of Projects, but decided against it, partly because their year runs from July 2012-June 2013, and I couldn't possibly fit my knitting activity into someone else's schedule. And, as already mentioned, the more time I spend online, the less time I spend knitting.

On Growing Cabbages

The king of vegetables

I've been gardening on the allotment for three years now, and I've been relatively successful with most things I've grown - well, most things that can successfully be grown in England, that is. I've had very little success with aubergines, but I should probably just give up and accept that I don't live in Italy.

The one main exception is the brassicas. These include many of my favourite vegetables - broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco, kale, brussels sprouts. And then there are the Asian versions: bok choi, napa cabbage, choi sum, nabana. We are told these are superfoods: nutritious, high in dietary fiber, low in calories, and tasty to boot. Unfortunately, garden pests are all too aware of these benefits as well.

My first year I tried to grow bok choi. The plants were growing beautifully, and had reached about five inches in height, when I went down one day to find the row completely stripped bare. This was how I learned how essential netting is to prevent the wood pigeons from eating my cabbage down to the ground.

Veggie-related bunting at the allotment - the pigeons like peas as well

Once your cabbage are a bit larger and less tender, birds are no longer quite as interested. This is when you have to start looking out for smaller pests, including whitefly. These are tiny white moths that will infest the leaves and weaken the plants, retarding growth. I try to keep on top of them by spraying frequently with soap solution. I had a terrible time with them in previous years, but this year I haven't seen any. Maybe they don't like the rain.

Another pest that you have to watch out for is cabbage white butterflies. They lay their eggs on the underside of the cabbage leaves, and the developing caterpillar will munch its way through whole leaves. I haven't had as much trouble with these - possibly because the netting deters them to a certain extent. Any that get through, you just need to try to destroy the eggs and pick off the caterpillars.

Allotment gardening is a continuous learning process. My worst pest this year, flea beetles, didn't even show up until year 2. And now the garden is infested with them. They are tiny little black beetles that chew numerous holes in cabbage leaves, until it looks like lace. Naturally, this inhibits growth, but also makes the leaves dry, leathery, and pretty inedible. I haven't found a way to manage them, other than by covering the plants with cloches. If I spray them with soap solution they just seem to hop off the leaves and come back for more later.

Pesky flea beetles

And this year, because of the constant rain, we have been inundated with slugs and snails. I have given up on organic gardening and now scatter slug pellets with abandon. It is so satisfying to see the resultant exploded slugs. And although the manufacturers promise they do not attract other animals, I must confess I would not mind if I poisoned a few pigeons on the side!

Hate the slugs, but I have a soft spot for snails.

 
I usually sow my seeds out directly in the garden, because I only have a small greenhouse on my balcony which is reserved for especially delicate plants like tomatoes and gherkins. Cabbage are relatively hardy and can handle cooler temperatures. But if the pests get to them when they are tender seedlings they don't have much of a chance. I had such poor results in previous years I almost gave up - but I decided to make one final effort, and ordered seedlings in the post.

3 types of romanesco and 3 types of kale

I felt a bit of a cheat until I read in Tender, Nigel Slater's cooking and gardening book, that he does the same. If the professionals do it, why not me?

I cover the seedlings with half-bottle cloches until they outgrow them.

romanesco and kale planted out

And then cover with netting.

white cabbage and brussels sprout planted earlier in the year

In general it has been a terrible year for gardening, but so far it looks to be a good year for cabbage, so I'm glad I gave them one more chance. They are thriving with all the rain, and don't seem to mind the fact that light levels in June were more consistent with February.

And the best thing about cabbages - they'll be ready to eat in the middle of winter when gardening on the allotment (even in this poor excuse of a summer) is a distant, fond memory.

Knitting the blues*

It's a blue summer

I've become utterly obsessed with blue lately - which most conveniently goes well with last summer's obsession, chartreuse-yellow - and I'm knitting (and buying) an absurd amount of navy.

It all started with a pair of java socks for my brother-in-law, his IOU Christmas present. I bought two skeins (because his feet are enormous) of a baltic blue variagated sock yarn in Helsinki in April. I finally completed and sent them off to him in June. The pattern is cable throughout, so takes a bit longer, but also, as noted, his feet are seriously enormous. Anyway, better late than never. And surprisingly, I have enough left over for a pair of socks for myself (ok, so maybe his feet aren't that enormous. I'm probably just justifying why his Christmas present was so inexcusably late).

icy baltic blue

Next, I knit a citron shawl as a wedding gift for a friend. Her wedding colours were navy, so I used a midnight blue Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace.

I call this one naval (for navel orange, another citrus....get it?)

I was really happy with how this turned out, and was tempted to keep it for myself, especially as it would have been perfect with the outfit I wore to the wedding. But I managed to resist those selfish urges for once. And the wedding happened to be during the only beautiful weekend we've had all summer, so I didn't actually need a shawl at all.

New blue skirt worn with last summer's
chartreuse-yellow tulip top

After that came Kukka, the next installation in my knitting Norah project. Kukka is a funky asymmetric tee with tails in the front that you can tie up or leave dangling, as the fancy takes you. I did mine in Katia cotton/linen.

Almost the best thing about this top is that I can use
the Viking pin I got in Tallinn to fasten the ties.

And then comes Raiun, a partly ribbed short-sleeved cardigan from the genius knitwear architect Kirsten Johnstone.

I love how the rib pattern angles down the back
© Tamara Erbacher

I really wanted to do this in, predictably, chartreuse-yellow. But I couldn't find anything at Woolfest in the right shade, so instead, predictably, I picked out a midnight blue wool/silk from Ripples Crafts.

I've now knit several projects with this yarn, all from different hand dyers (I'm assuming that Fyberspates, Ripples Craft and Old Maiden Aunt all have the same supplier of wool/silk yarn, because it feels so similar).

My most recently completed project in this yarn is a shawl from an Old Maiden Aunt skein that I purchased last year. Naturally in chartreuse-yellow. I think it looks fabulous with my new navy bamboo dress.

Ginko shoulderette shawl

Will this spate of navy ever end? Keep tuned for further craft projects.

* A nod to Rowland Solly's Killing the Blues, which I first heard in Tucson, Arizona - a place that really knows how to do summer. Here is John Prine's version: