Ravellenic Games - medaling!

The "Ravellenic Games" are basically a knitter's challenge to declare that you will make something, cast on and finish during the Olympics. I'm a quiet person who doesn't usually announce in advance. But I do commit to myself to make something. When it first started, via The Yarn Harlot, I declared for a Multidirectional Scarf and made it with two balls of Lion Brand Magic Stripes (now discontinued) in Jelly Bean. I finished the scarf easily, in part because I had a trip to Thailand which meant a lot of knitting time, and the pattern is just garter stitch so it's great for mindless knitting.

I don't remember what I did for the last Olympics, but this time I decided to try for "medals" in two "events" - knitting and crocheting, both for charity. For my knitting event I decided to make five hats for an organization called PatPat's Hats, which collects chemo caps for kids that are distributed through local hospitals, in thanks for the treatment that PatPat received when he had chemo. He's healthy now and his hair is coming back, but it's a great way to say "thank you" to the people who helped and to pass along the love and good wishes.

I thought about making a hat in each of the five rings colours. Then I thought that the black one would be depressing to a child.* And I wanted to use up stash yarn. So I made these:

The arrangement is roughly in the rings colours. The top three are Patons Canadiana Colours, with the middle one standing in for black and using leftovers from the ones on either side of it. The pattern is one I love from KnitPicks' free patterns section and very easy. The brown one does contain gold (it's Encore Worsted Colorspun #7172) and the one in bottom right does contain bits of green. Yes, I did crochet two of the five, but since I knitted three I counted this as being majority knitting. Maybe silver instead of gold since I didn't knit all five?

*I have since decided that I could get a ball in each colour, and make the hats primarily in the ring colour with accents of the other four. I guess I have my next Games project already planned!


The other event was to crochet a shawl. I used a pattern I've made several times before and five balls of Lion Brand Amazing - two in "Joshua Tree" and three in "Vinyard" because that's what I got on clearance at Joann's a couple weeks ago:

I changed the pattern by adding a couple of extra rows of shells at the bottom and two rows of single crochet at the top edge. I might be able to get another row out of the remainder, but it's not certain. This goes past my waist in the back and feels like it will be nicely warm. It is going into the collections for the mammas at the orphanages supported by Mittens for Akkol and its related organizations. I've made this pattern a couple of times for myself, and now I feel inspired to make another, maybe of some Katia Jamaica that I have in bright colours and could make a great summer shawl. I do wear them on cool nights at concerts or theatre in the parks.