Swatched, designed and all ready to go.

I'm all set for the Knitting Olympics. (I know this should go on the knitting blog...but I clicked this one, so there ;P

I'm making another hat for ZooDad. I finished his first one and even with the massive amount of K2,P2 ribbing, it barely fits his massive noggin.

So I am starting a new hat, designed just for him.
I planned to do the Rebel, Rebel hat from the Lion Yarns book of hats. (picture to come later) That's the one hubby picked out. It has cables up the sides that turn into knitted braids that end in two (like pigtails) tassels on the top of the hat. It will be absolutely ridiculous on ZooDad's head.

The problem was that I didn't have any chunky weight yarn that ZooDad liked nor did I have #10.5 DPNs. My hat plan was foiled. (I have too significant of a yarn staff to justify buying more yarn right now.)

So I swatched a few rounds of Cascade 220 on #8 circular needles to determine how many stitches I would need to go around ZooDad's head. (104 with a little stretching on the ribbing) Then I swatched out the cables to see how to do it and rewrote the whole pattern to accommodate the smaller yarn and increased amount of stitches.
Now I am all set to go.

In fact, the project seems that it just might be a bit too easy. I mean, this is supposed to be a challenge. Something that is to push us to go beyond our level of expertise.
So I have a back-up Olympic challenge. I have cable socks (Never done any patterned socks) ready to go too. I plan to knit them on 2 circular needles (which I have also never done) at the same time. (New for me too.) I've already swatched that yarn and rolled two little balls.
The swatching went well. I'm right on gauge. The rolling of the little balls was a fiasco. I need a ball winder.
Since I don't have one and had never made two balls from one...I pulled out the whole skein. (Picture that mess)
And then folded the two ends and made one ball with two strands. Cut the end and unwound the ball into two piles. (twice the mess) And finally wound each ball separately.
Next time I will just buy two skiens and make two pairs of socks. It was bad. The yarn made it through but my nerves were shot.