Avast, me hearties!

Arrr, September 19 is Talk Like a Pirate Day! Get yer pirate name. Then talk like a pirate or yer a stinkin' blige rat. Swill some grog and caper to the hornpipe. Shiver me timbers!

- Captain Mary Bonney (Maureen the other 364 days)

Happy International Crochet Day!

Sept. 12 is International Crochet Day. To celebrate, I'm doing a couple of things. First, I'm showing off my latest Finished Object. This is a scarf from a CAL (Crochetalong) on Ravelry. The pattern is called the Sweet Loopy Scarf, and the yarn is the astonishingly gorgeous Rayon Metallic from Blue Heron. This photo does not do the yarn justice. It has subtle sparkle from gold to complement the Raspberry colorway, and the scarf actually has a little more magenta in the mix than shown here. I got the yarn from Coveted Yarn, an online store owned by friends Rob and Laurel Porter of Gloucester. Rob is adding new yarns every week and really growing the business. It's exciting to see it happen and because I live nearby, I get to see some of the new yarns "in person."

I'm also meeting my friend Helane at the Barnes and Noble in Burlington, MA today for coffee. I told Helane that I'm bringing crocheting with me. So, to celebrate the day - I'll be hooking in public.

- Maureen

Michael Phelps, the Red Sox, and Barack Obama

That title sounds like the punch line to a joke, doesn't it? I will now explain how I got 8 ravelympics medals to equal Phelps.

The tote bag surprised me by only taking 8 days. I had 9 days left in the Ravelympics, so I decided to challenge myself by doing a lot of little projects instead of another big one.

The five baby hats were done in my identity as part of Team Red Sox Nation. These baby hats are for charity. My friend Rob Porter owns www.covetedyarn.com, a website with many amazing yarns in varying price ranges (as well as lovely Leslie Wind shawl pins). Rob found out that Beverly (MA) Hospital didn't always have hats for the newborns. Thus was born his quarterly contest. If you donate any knit or crocheted hats to him for the hospital, each hat entered will be counted as an entry into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate to his website. There is no limit on the number of hats you can send in. Please make them newborn or preemie size; the hospital will accept any type of yarn. To be eligible for this quarter's contest, all hats must be received by end of day on September 30. All hats should be sent to: Coveted Yarn, PO BOX 6015, Gloucester, MA 01930. Please include contact info so Rob can let you know if you win!! (If you include your e-mail he will include you in mini sales he runs for entrants.) Oh, and you do not have to use yarn purchased from Coveted Yarn. Rob says, "I'm not that guy."

So anyway, I got 5 gold medals for the hats. 2 more to go.

I then did two washcloths for Team Obama. We are part of another Ravelry group, Knitters for Obama, that is knitting and crocheting items for homeless veterans. The shelters told our organizers of the need for hats, washcloths, scarves, fingerless mitts, lap robes. With very little time to go in the Ravelympics, I just did the two washcloths. Only one is pictured above, because, really, do I need to take up bandwidth to show you another crocheted square? The Knitters for Obama are continuing on, and right now I'm working on a hat.

So that's the end of my story of the eight gold medals. What I really won was newfound knowledge about Kool-Aid dyeing, a beautiful tote bag, the satisfaction of charity work, and positive messages on Ravelry from the US, Canada, and Japan.

Sounds like a cute little event for crocheters and knitters, right? We got the final statistics from Ravelry yesterday and they are mind-blowing. During the Ravelympics, participants completed 6,764 finished objects using almost 2 million meters/1,240+ miles/2,183,131 yards of yarn in 56 countries.

- Maureen (known on Ravelry as RockportMo)