Let the Games Begin!!!

That's right, folks! I did my cast-on during the opening ceremonies on Friday night! Whoo hooo! The gauntlet is thrown ... the torch is lit .....the game. is. ON!

I came out of the starting gates fast and furious! Finger condoms ... errr ... I mean, bunny arms ... DONE! Check! Next task?

Bunny legs. No problem! (well, minus the whole "what the hell does 'KF&B' mean? And how do you do it??". Luckily I only had one row per leg for that. Because it SUCKED. The rest of the leg ... in stockinette stitch. Granted, stockinette involves The Purling..... but when compared to the KF&B, oddly enough, I'll take The Purling!)

So here are the legs .... yes, those are TO legs and not just swatches (at least that's what the pattern keeps promising me!) ... one "leg" per circular.

Now the dilemma ... how the heck do you split and join the stitches on the two circulars?

The pattern said to split the 40 stitches total amongst both ... but so that half that is on the one now joins with half from the other ... and the other half of the one goes with the other half of the other. But in a certain order. Uh yeah.

The pattern more specifically said something about taking the "last 10 stitches from your second leg" and joining it with the "first 10 stitches from the first leg".

Huh? On a circular needle ... which is your "first" stitch and which is your "last"?? I was guessing that the "last" stitches on the needle were those furthest from the needle point. Though I realized "last" could also be the "last ones knitted". So uh ... yeah.

Plus, I had NO IDEA what I needed the knitting after the join to look like. (More pictures in this book would be helpful! Just sayin'!)

And so, utter confusion reigned.

But then, LIGHTBULB! Coaching is allowed during the Olympics, right? That's right! All the athetes have their coaches with them. I remember (yes, I AM old) gymnast Mary Lou Retton and her coach Bela Karolyi.

So me and my bunny-to-be headed off to Lint. (yeah, yeah ... I could have called T1 to brainstorm with me ... what with her being my official Knitting Olympic coach and all ........ but being that SHE wasn't having a big weekend clearance sale on yarn, I opted for Lint! ;) (hey, athletes can shop too, ya know!))

The wonderful ladies there pondered the pattern and decided that the "last" stitches would be the ones closest to the needle point. But fumbled when looking at the following steps listed in the pattern (yeah, ya know it's not a good sign when knitting gurus start scratching their heads over a pattern!).

Anyway, but I was excited. Armed with this new "which is first, which is last" info ... I headed home to continue on with my Olympic Quest.

Here's the look after the split ....

Whoo hooo! Seems easy-peasy now, right? Because now that I see it like that I can see how the legs are going to be formed. And it all just makes sense! (thanks, ladies at Lint!) WHEW!

And so I kept knitting. On two circulars. Which is a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ARSE for those of you thinking of trying it. After one round I knew that if I had size 6 DPNS I would have transferred to those. And it would be SOOO easy with the DPNs.

But alas. No Size 6 DPNS. I've got size 2s, size 5s and size 10.5s. But no size 6s. (*pout*). I could have caved and stopped to go purchase some ..... but by then the yarn stores were closed and so I figured I'd just tough it out.

Ya know ... like a true Olympian and all!! ;)

And so halfway through the bunny body is were I am.

More Olympic Quest updates to come. But not tomorrow. Because there will be no Olympic Knitting tonight. For tonight is my date with Joe Perry (and the rest of the Aerosmith guys!). So I plan to have many Joe Perry pictures to post for you tomorrow. If not, tomorrow's post will be pictures of my jail cell after I get arrested when the mean concert security folks tried to confiscate my camera.

So stay tuned!