Swatchless

As the end of March approaches, my hat total is getting closer and closer to 50.  This is hat #47, knit for a boy who skateboards and has long hair.  He wanted a hat that would droop, and hopefully this one fits the bill.

What he doesn’t yet know is that the robot and team number glow in the dark!  K-Botics is getting ready for another competition next weekend.  I’m packing up my knitting needles and robotics yarn stash, and aiming for 50.

Last week, in New York with K-Botics, we met a man named Woodie Flowers.  He’s an important founding member and mentor for the FIRST robotics organization.  He models “G.P” (gracious professionalism) in his interactions and encouragement for our teams.  He asked us all to sign his shirt, and he chatted with us about our team and our robot for a while.  I had thought it would be fun to make him a hat, so we asked if that would be ok.  He got out his iPhone and used the caliper tool to measure out how big his ponytail is so we’d know how big a hole to put in the hat.  What a guy!

I knit through most of the day, and ended up with a hat by the end of it!

It had GP on the back by the ponytail hole, and Woodie written across the front.

We wrote him a thank you card for being such a good example for us.

I think he was pleased to get his new hat…

What do you think?

Yarn!  It’s great for knitting hats….here’s hat #45 (2nd one this weekend)

Our robot needed some rope to pull a part loose and deploy our minibot.  We took turns making a braided rope (similar to making friendship bracelets).  It’s cool that our team yarn ended up on our robot.

The yarn was also great for games of cats cradle that kept breaking out while waiting for something to happen…

Before long there were cats cradle games in the stands too!

So be sure, when you are packing for a competition, bring along a little yarn for you and your friends.

This past weekend I was with the K-Botics team in New York City to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition.  It’s been a busy 8 weeks preparing a robot and fine tuning our team and strategy for competition.  There were ups and downs along the road but it’s all worth it when you get to competition and catch the excitement! 

Part of my job as a supervisor is to help out in the stands while others work on the robot in the pit area.  The stands are full of kids, cheering and scouting the robots as they play.  I generally bring my knitting along with me and see how many hats I can make in a weekend.  Almost everyone on the team has a hat…but this hat, hat #44 is special.  It’s not for our team.  It’s for a member of FIRST team 694, Team Stuypulse from Manhattan New York who very graciously offered to have some of our recent material order shipped to their address because it would take too long to get to Canada.  We appreciate the extra effort extended by this team, and so, to say thanks, I knit them one of our hats (in their colours).

Their logo is one of the cutest I’ve seen.  Of course we signed our thank you gift.  And I very stealthily took pictures of it being worn during practice day-a very intense day where everyone gets a lay of the land, sets up their pit area, gets their robots to pass inspection, and connect to the field.  Some robots work right away, and others take a lot longer to become functional.  Strategy gets discussed, and scouting begins.  It’s the start of a busy weekend.

We spent the rest of the competition cheering in the stands right in front of Team 694.  They are an enthusiastic group who brought vuvuzelas!  They also brought us cookies–We LOVED the cookies.  It’s great that even though we were rivals in the matches, we were friends in the stands.

What else would I be doing now that robot building season is done?  Of course I took a road trip to watch a robotics competition, and brought along my knitting!

I was lucky to be a passenger, so I had lots of time to knit.  That much knitting represents Kingston to Burlington.

It got finished during the VEX robotics competition in St. Catharine’s…and I had time to start another hat while I watched the robots battle each other for control of the stacks of rings.  It’s impressive what high school kids can do!

On the way back home today, hat 43 got finished.  It is topped off with i-cord and pompoms, and glow in the dark embroidered robot and team number.

Slowly but surely our team will be outfitted with the coolest hats in town.  We compete in New York City in 12 days.  There’s lots of knitting to be done between now and then.  There’s lots of robotic preparations to do to.  Looks like we’ll be busy for another few weeks!

This past week has been a whirlwind.  I got a chance to knit on Thursday while in the car for an extended period of time.  This is the result!

Today the glow in the dark wired icord and pompom were added to finish off this hat.  It’s a fun one since the pompom bounces from side to side when the owner bounces…and believe me, he’s a live wire!

We’re spending the weekend at robotics, in a warehouse.  It’s cold in there, so hats are a great addition!

Here’s another hat…I didn’t knit this one, but I did add the ears!  The ears are wired icord so they can be horns, or ears, or heart shapes, or anything else!

A great excuse to get back to knitting!  A long time friend of mine is having a baby pretty soon, and I was thrilled to get an invitation to her baby shower.  Since nobody knows if the little one will be a boy or a girl, neutral coloured clothing was requested.

I’m not really sure if rainbow and blue count as neutral, but I sure think it is cute!

The blue acrylic is left over from the secret santa mittens I knit, and the rainbow superwash wool is from my excellent score at value village.

The hat is my favourite baby bonnet pattern (Top Down Bonnet with Anime Character), and the wee baby booties are a version of Saartje’s booties written for seamless construction and published on Fleegle’s Blog.

I look forward to seeing pictures of the new little baby wearing these bright happy colours!  Best wishes to the mom-to-be.

Finished this weekend:  HAT 40

Hat 41 has been started, but progress is slow since most of my time outside of working hours is spent helping with the robotics team.

One good thing about being busy is that you learn to make every minute count.  I’m getting pretty good at that, and well, its a good feeling to get things accomplished!

Accomplishment #1:  I drank 4 pots of tea last night and slogged through my paperwork until 4AM.  It’s done!!!  I didn’t feel all that awesome when I woke up at 7:30, but I have survived the day, and feel happy not to have paperwork looming when I get home.

I helped out today with robotics.  It was great fun to see things take shape.  The robot is getting taller, but I can’t show pictures because I’m sworn to secrecy.  It will all be revealed toward the end of February.  Needless to say, it’s going to be great.  I ate dinner with the kids, then I left at 7pm tonight.  I did not have to stay until 10pm, and that is a nice feeling to be able to leave and know that things will be just fine without you…

Accomplishment #2  I went shopping.  I HATE shopping, but I did it anyway.  I went to Value Village and got 3 pairs of pants–the first 3 I tried all fit!  Success….

Accomplishment #3  Since I saved so much time shopping for pants, I wandered over to the yarn section–dangerous!  Today it was a real gold mine.  I got all of this for $12.  10 balls of Superwash double knit 100% wool, a skein of handspun, and 2 large balls of roving.  I’m not sure how the roving will spin up, but it is soft, and interesting colours…and doesn’t smell like pets or cigarettes….it smells a bit like wood-smoke, but that’s fine with me.

Accomplishment #4 In the 1 hour since I left robotics I did all that shopping, filled the car with gas, got groceries and got home and into my PJs.

Now what….knitting?  spinning?  sleeping?  so many options.

It’s been a wild 3 weeks.  I’m up to my eyeballs in robots….and all the work that I usually do has been put to the back burner.  I keep telling myself that I’ll have time eventually to deal with it all…and have time to spin up another bobbin…

…lies!  all lies! There is no time!

Today I have a day off from robots, and after catching up on hours of lost sleep, and sorting out piles of paperwork, I am taking a break to transform the soft bananas that were on my counter into muffins, and planning my evening forage for caffeine.

The piles of paperwork are there…and deadlines are looming. Looks like it will be a long night tonight!