The OTHER Olympics: Knit One, Purl Two

Go ahead. Drool all you want over the speed of the bobsledders, the grace of the figure skaters, the sheer, brazen nerve of the skiers who look down the steep side of a mountain and decide, "Yeah, I wanna jump off and go down this on on two waxed pieces of lumber." They'll be all the rage at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin/Torino, Italy, but a certain subsegment of bloggers will be doing something completely different: Knitting. For the past few weeks, blogger Stephanie Pearl McPhee at the Yarn Harlot (today's No. 8 blog post) has issued a challenge to fellow weavers of yarn: begin a knitting project starting today (opening ceremonies) and complete it by the time the Olympic flame is extinguished. So far, 3,649 knitters will be busy for the next few weeks, crafting everything from baby overalls to a sailor's watch cap, a hoodie to a Viking chicken hat, "one plain sock" to a "Hardangervidda," whatever that is. Maybe it has something to do with downhill skiing. Or the luge? Regardless, the effort has started quite an online conversation.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at February 10, 2006 12:22 PM

Category: Sport Spectator