Olympic Effect

In just two days the opening ceremonies for the 2012 London Summer Olympics will start. Like much of the world I will be glued to my television watching “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat”. I love the games, summer or winter it doesn’t matter. I watch athletes compete at the highest level accomplishing feats I could never imagine and it’s exciting.The knit world has jumped into Olympic fever as well. Back in 2004 Stephanie Pearl-McFee, aka the Yarn Harlot, challenged her blog readers to take on a new project for the Olympics. The rules were (and still are) to cast on a new and challenging project and then knit like a crazed athlete so you can bind off during the closing ceremonies 16 days later. That first year about 400 knitters joined in. Now the Knitting Olympics have taken on a life of their own with teams and challenges sprouting up everywhere.Of course I will be knitting as I watch the games but I have not joined the challenge to make an Olympic piece. I love the idea of it all, the planning, training (swatching), and frenzy of knitting. But I think the real reason I am not taking part is I treasure my knitting as a calm and quiet activity. I rarely force a deadline on myself. I simply pick up my needles everyday and do my rows. I change projects on a whim. I enjoy getting to the end of a piece but I don’t rush to finish. I even love miles of stockinette. I don’t want to compete with my knitting; it’s my happy place I don’t need to break a sweat. So just as I enjoy watching the athletes perform super human acts of courage on the playing field I will watch amazed as knitters post their super human projects of knitting. I’ll be cheering from the sidelines.Let the games begin!