Go, Team GB!

I was looking at my beautiful, exquisite daughter the other day and had a sudden yearning to crochet a lace bonnet to frame that gorgeous little face. Cue much scrabbling around for appropriate yarn and patterns. The first pattern I fell in love with used #100 thread (eek!) and I didn't have any, so more scrabbling around followed. I eventually found (via Ravelry, natch) a gorgeous little set from a Japanese site. Of course the instructions are in Japanese, but the charts are clear enough. Now, I'd not done crochet from a chart before (or, indeed, any thread crochet that doesn't involve beads) and thinking that it would be easier to learn to read charts than to read Japanese I dug out my old Crochet Monthly mags and set to learning. No problem. A couple of skeins of white 4 ply cotton was discovered in the bottom of my stash, add a 3mm hook and I was off! It's nearly done, pics to follow.

All this to explain my entry for the Ravelympics this year. While hooking away, I was regretting not having any fine thread so I could finally learn that beautiful lacey crochet my grandmother was so very good at. There are so many pretty doilies and other things out there, and I WANT some! Finding some extraordinarily cheap thread online at Abakhan, I ordered a box of 10 Anchor Ancora 12, a box of 10 Anchor 25 and a box of 10 Anchor 100 (which is scarily thin thread indeed) and started queueing things to make with it on Ravelry. I ended up with 139 different snowflakes.

Not having anything planned for Ravelympics, and having an epic fail in 2008 when I ended up deleting every project I had listed for it (hopelessly overcomitted and finished nothing at all) I had a brainwave... Make as many snowflakes as I can during the event, rather than committing to a big project or several and failing miserably. I must be able to do at least one a day, right? So, to make things more interesting (and keep me going) I have committed to at least 30, which is 2 per day with a couple of days off.

So, the rules (which apply only to me). All snowflakes to be different. All to be crocheted using Ancora 12 and a 1mm hook. Start and finish at least one while watching the opening ceremony (which will have to be red-buttoned rather than live as I can't justify staying up from 4am til 6am and wouldn't be able to see the thread at that hour anyway). Finish at least 30 flakes in order to be able to declare the event a win. Each flake has its own page in my projects, plus I have an overall project called 'Snowflake Marathon' to keep track of them all.

Game on.