Ravelympics – Day 6

I mentioned yesterday that I’m knitting furiously for the 2012 Knitting Olympics and promised a little background. So here goes. In 2006, one of my long time favorite knitting bloggers, The Yarn Harlot, had this crazy idea that we (‘we’ being readers of her blog) challenge ourselves to knit something personally ambitious during that year’s Olympic games. Her official post with all of our names and projects listed (scroll down, I’m there!) is here. Since it was the Yarn Harlot’s love of the winter Olympics specifically, she didn’t host again until 2010 and given that this year is a summer year, she’s not doing any crazy marathon knitting right now, she’s on the Friends for Life Bike Rally. Anyhoo, so Ravelry was born in 2007 and every Olympic year since then, there have been Ravelympics groups ranging from the standard ‘official’ group, to teams for different countries, to teams for different projects (like fingerless gloves, socks, etc).

It remained a relatively small thing, I say relatively because almost every knitter I know at least knows about it, but the only non-knitters who know about it seem to live with knitters. Last month, the United States Olympics Committee discovered the existence of this little event, and instead of reading up on it, they got really upset at the general idea of it and sent a good, old fashioned angry letter to Ravelry. Of course this letter made it’s rounds on the internet and a whole lot of Olympics-loving knitters read it.

This part of the letter was a little insulting:

We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games. In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work

So, long story short, they apologized and while people are still irritated, I think it’s pretty amazing that an organization as huge as this would issue anyone an apology, let alone 7500 knitters. LOVE this.

This year, I have joined the Ravellenic Games 2012 group. I’m focusing on the Modular Relay event and I’m on Team Knit Picks Lovers, since I probably buy more Knit Picks yarn than any other.

I’m attempting to knit 100 puffs! Wish me luck!!