Road Trip!

My mom had asked me on Friday afternoon if I thought I might want to go camping with her this weekend. Her and dad went last week but paid for another week and just left the tent trailer at the campsite.
Not long before we were set to leave, I mentioned reading about the TTC Knitalong on Ravelry. I was just making conversation but Mom loved the idea so I hurried back to the computer and sent in a last-minute signup.
We had a blast! Met lots of nice girls, discovered some fantastic yarn shops and enjoyed TTCing around Toronto - a treat for us!
We were on the North Route and I think it was a good one because I managed to find a ton of cotton for the dishcloth effort that was in colors I don't normally see near home. (At home I'm restricted to Walmart, Zellers and Michael's for dishcloth cotton and they all usually have similar stuff.)
I also found some sock yarn, my very first skein of Manos del Uruguay and some gorgeous laceweight alpaca that matches the beads from my Ice Queen cowl!
For your drooling pleasure:


Sadly, my camera had an accident at the end of the day - I found it swimming in ginger ale in the bottom of my purse :( Canada Dry is a stupid name for the stuff. It was a mini-can that I was carrying around in my purse for mom in case she needed a little something sweet so she said if I couldn't get the camera to work that she would replace it. The picture above was taken with my cellphone once I got home. When I have a working camera I will take a new picture but it may be missing some of the dishcloth cotton! I'm trying to knit at least one Olympic cloth a day. I finished one in pink yesterday:

It is more of a hot pink than how it shows in the picture, sorry for phone camera quality!

Olympic Cloth Completed

The cloth has been knitted, the pattern charted and written out and it is ready for sale on Ravelry! I'm getting so excited about heading to Vancouver - I finished my volunteer application and submitted it today. It feels a little more real now :D
One of my bosses said I could bring some of these in to the bank to sell there - it's a start!

Big Olympic News!

My shifts at the bank are short and few and far between, so I didn't receive this email until Friday the 29th even though it had been sent on the 21st of May:
Congratulations! You have won a premium volunteer position at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
I could barely contain my excitement!!! My cousin has worked closely with Team Canada for a number of years and has traveled to Atlanta, Greece, China, Italy and so many other places. I've always been so jealous of his involvement. He lives in Vancouver, so it is right at home for him this time!
RBC is a big sponsor of the Olympics here in Canada and has been for a long time. I applied for a chance to become an RBC volunteer and won one of 100 spots!
I have to pay for my flight and my accommodations, which is going to be difficult working so few hours (a grand total of 7 last week and it's looking like another 6 and a half this week unless my phone starts ringing).
My mom suggested working on a fundraiser for the trip - it's not for profit, just to get me there and pay my accommodations. I doubt I will be able to make enough money for the trip itself but every little bit will help.
I was browsing some Ravelry projects for an Olympic dishcloth and stumbled across a 2008 cloth and thought to myself, "I could design a 2010 cloth!"
I've charted out a design and am just knitting it up now. I will post a pic once it is finished :D

Time to Share!

After 7 years, knitting is no longer a hobby but a passion and I find myself dabbling in pattern creation but lacking a place to share them.
My friend celebrated a birthday yesterday and I gave her a dishcloth knitted from a pattern I designed. I meant to print out the pattern to share it but my printer refuses to acknowledge the fact that there is a wireless printer on the network.
I decided that it was time to have a place to share my knitted goodies and other ideas - I love to share a good thing!

Here is the daffodil grid for the dishcloth I made for bankerknits. Enjoy!

(click the image to enlarge)

Cast on 39 sts and work 4 rows seed stitch or garter stitch.
Row 5 is wrong side - work 3 sts border then purl to last 3, work border.
First 3 and last 3 sts on either side are worked as border, last 3 rows are worked as border as well. Purling the green and yellow stitches on the right side and knitting them on the wrong side is a great alternative if you don't want to change colors.

The finished cloth: