UFO #1, the fifth bear mitten:  FINISHED 07/09/08.

Final time:  2 days!

Yarn:  donated acrylic stuff.
Pattern:  from Twisted.

announcer’s voiceover:  She’s certainly maintaining a very competitive pace thus far, but can she possibly keep it up throughout the whole event?  We’ll have to wait and see.

I threw a 6-inch ruler into this picture for scale, so you can see that a single bear mitten really is a fairly heroic amount of knitting:  heroic, that is, if you did yours by hand.  Of course, I am not so heroic:  I knit the middles by machine, which makes finishing one in 2 days much less of an epic task.

I kept wondering, though:  why did I make five mittens, exactly?  I mean, it’s not like any of these poor bears are going to need that extra one.

One reason is, that I managed to machine-knit 5 midsections in one evening, before I ran out of gas.  (And, wisely, I decided to stop there for the moment before I knit up the other dozen skeins of acrylic I have sitting in the box.)

Of course, I now realize that the other reason was to symbolize the 5 Olympic Rings!!

I’ve thrown ‘em in the laundry basket for now.  Once they are washed & dried, I think I’ll take ‘em to the zoo – and have some fun visiting the sun bears and the polar bears – during my upcoming vacation-from-DH week.

0.  Brioche st hat:  finish for shop sample.

1.  Bear mittens:  one left to finish, of the five I originally set out to do; then it’s time to take ‘em to the zoo.

2.  Bunny slippers:  slippers have been successfully felted; make ears, felt, attach, and add eyes and tails.

3.  Glam rock vest:  top-down vest in a really funky fur & eyelash yarn of somewhat questionable taste.  It’s looking like something Elton John might wear.  Need to decide what to do with it.  (OK, the action item here is probably more like, rip it out and give the yarn away, but I haven’t quite gotten there yet.  Give me time.)

4.  Anny Blatt "Jonelle" tank:  shorten armholes by removing a few rows from the top.

5.  Rowan bulky vest:  another top-down vest, though in much better taste; need to finish knitting and attaching the trim, install a zipper, maybe add a hood.

6.  Silk sari / felted wool bag:  bag is mostly knitted; need to figure out how to finish out the top; add handles, pockets, hardware, lining?

7.  Wrap cardigan:  finish out the sleeves and seed st trim.

8.  Cabled bag:  fish or cut bait; act accordingly.

9.  Modular vest:  fish or cut bait; act accordingly.

10.  V neck raglan:  decide whether it fits, or needs to be ripped out AGAIN; act accordingly.

11.  Ribbed pullover:  add I-cord reinforcement around neckline.