…If he is smiling, then I am smiling…

Olympic Sweater Success!

Pattern:  Dale of Norway Liberec 2009
Yarn: Reynolds Whiskey in natural and navy
Needles: Size US 1, 2, 3
Started May 2009 / Completed December 2009

I finished seaming at 10:35pm on New Year’s Eve – about 1.5 hours shy of my “deadline” of the new year.  I did not count the initial blocking into my deadline, so I blocked over night and let it sit out for the morning and got photos this afternoon.  (If I had finished this one day before, I could have had snow pictures, but it melted pretty quick!)

Aside from the Olympics knitting, this is the fourth year that I have made an annual “my man” sweater – with Christmas, his birthday, and our anniversary falling within two weeks of each other, it seems like a good time to make a big project like this.  By far, this is the biggest project of all!

Probably the biggest undertaking of my knitting career – but what a great sense of accomplishment!  There are only a few very minor things that I am not happy with (the raglan decreases are pulling across the chest, even after a good blocking…)  but I am thrilled with the fit and overall look of the sweater.

The yarn was a decent substitute, as my yarn shop did not have the colors of the Dale yarn that I wanted for this sweater.  I used Reynolds Whiskey.  It seems to be a good sturdy yarn that will last awhile.  Kris wears his clothes pretty hard, so this will be a good test!

…and I think he may actually wear it without me asking him too!

Countdown to Vancouver Olympics – 41 days!

(in other words, 41 days to finish MY Olympic sweater!)

Even when things don’t go as planned – like doing the decreases incorrectly for over 4 inches! – and a looming self-imposed deadline of 12/31… PERSERVERE!

Perhaps I was too focused on the ultimate goal of just getting this sweater finished that I misread the instructions… My raglan decreases in Kris’s Olympic sweater were just not cutting it, and my stitch count was off.  While I think Kris could totally rock the off-the-shoulder pullover look, it may not be most fashion forward item for the workplace… and I want to have a great finished product that shows all the work that went in to it.

This is my “before the rip” photo – my stitch count was 50 or so stitches off, and there is no way to fix that… so on Christmas day, at my parents’ house, I just bit the bullet and did it.  On the photo above, you can see:   I ripped back to the purl ridge rows right above the main snowflake motif.

Luckily, I had some good time to fix my mistakes and catch up.  So, I spent the 27th and 28th catching up, and even surpassing.  Now, I started the neckline decreases, and I am only a few rows away from the turtleneck.  Wow, it feels good to be so close!  I really think it may happen before the new year rolls in!  *Fingers crossed*

I have been knitting on Kris’s Olympic sweater like it is my job…. like getting paid overtime and only short 15 breaks in between (maybe enough to write a blog post?)  Hence the little bit of blog silence – it’s knit knit knit all the time!

As I am knitting, I have been listening to audiobooks – I am lucky to have a good library that has so many titles on hand.  It is truly a gift to be able to do my two favorite things at once!  Especially nestled up in front of the fire… now, that is a perfect day!  I will share some book reviews with you in the next post.

I enjoyed your snow stories sooo much!  and I had a few emails telling me that they enjoyed the stories as well.  It’s amazing what kind of memories snow can bring up.  The snow that we had last weekend has since melted (I want more!) but I will definitely be returning to this post to read the stories again.

As for the winner – congratulations to Kimberlyn at Bungalow 312!  Her name was randomly chosen for the Classic Elite Snow Day booklet!  K, email me with your address!

Be back soon with more progress shots and some great book reviews

Sleeve vs. Sleeve

Olympic sweaters – all the time around here.  While looking at the official Vancouver Olympics website, I realized that there are only 70 days until the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.  Is there any way I can finish these two sweaters in time?  I am hopeful.  Kris’s sweater is the ivory striped cuff, and mine is the navy one.  This is the second sleeve of Kris’s sweater, with only this and the yoke remaining.  Of course the yoke is where all the complicated charted colorwork comes in, but I am looking forward to that.  Even on tiny needles with small gauge, colorwork does seem to go a little faster.

If I keep up my pace, I think there is a chance that I can have Kris’s sweater finished up by the end of the year.  That seems like a nice end note on a pretty good year.  Keep your fingers crossed for me as I try to knit like the wind!

I started my sweater later than Kris’s, so naturally I have more to go, but I am pleased with my progress.  When I left for California, I only had 1.5 inches of the body.  By the time I got home, I had 14 inches.  Pretty decent for 260+ stitches on size 2 needles in the round!  Of course, I still have several more to go before I start the colorwork and then the *dun dun dun* steeks!

This year’s Dale Vancouver sweater has a great feature with the ribbed sides – it’s much less boxy than previous designs.

Plus, I like how it looks like a ski slope!

The bottom hem will be tucked under, where I will run an elastic cord through.  It came with the official patch and zipper

–

The plans for the Vancouver trip are really starting to shape up.  We are so excited because we have 8 event tickets – 6 of them are hockey tickets (is that a surprise?), a freestyle ski event, and a curling event.  Unfortunately we didn’t score specific Team USA or Team Canada tickets (they sold out in seconds!), but we still have a small chance to see one of them in the 2 playoff game tickets we have.  So, if Canada advances like everyone expects them to (very well could be the Gold medal winners – such a strong team!) we could see them in those games in the second week playoffs – one is for preliminary playoffs, and the other is for quarterfinals, which is right before the Bronze medal game.  We have tickets to see primarily Team Russia since my favorite player, Evgeni Malkin, is Russian.  We also get to see Team Sweden who are the defending gold medal champs, Slovakia, Germany, Latvia, and Czech Republic.

The freestyle ski event is going to be north of Vancouver city at Cypress Mountain.  It is men’s aerial skiing – so flips and jumps!  that should definitely be fun.  Hoping I can get some photos!

…and curling!  I am excited to see it because I know so little about it.

Wish me luck and speed as I work to finish these sweaters!  I figure with the holidays and time off from work, I may be able to make a dent.  Knitting posts may be a little sparse considering that these two sweaters are the only projects I am working on, and 3 inches of stockinette doesn’t feel special enough to warrant a blog post… but I may get a bit desperate!

…and if you are excited about the Winter Olympics and want to join the chatter and knit-along plans, please check out my Vancouver 2010 group on Ravelry!

I’m going to need some new phrases for my titles relating to my Olympic sweater knitting… I have lots more knitting to do, and presumably a few more posts up my sleeve!

As you know, I am wading through the deep water of the sleeves of Kris’s Olympic pullover, working towards that fateful day when I can join the body and the sleeves and yoke it all up together.  A few rows here and there…

With any hope to have my Olympic sweater done for the Games in February, I had to cast on for my very own sweater… luckily, I had some support in the form of a class at my yarn shop.

I haven’t taken a formal knitting class since I learned to knit nearly six years ago, but I figured that a big project like this would be a nice camaraderie knit – and honestly, I wanted some “hand holding” during the steeking process!

Here I am at last week’s class choosing my third colorway – my first choice, the turquoise at the end of the third row, was discontinued unfortunately – but I decided to go with the close match, the robin’s egg blue at the beginning of the fourth row.  Not quite the same “POP”, but pretty close!  We have met twice now, and my classmates and I are all cast on and ready to knit a few miles of stockinette for the body before we reach the colorwork sections in the chest.

The part I am pretty “chuffed” about is the OFFICIAL Olympic patch and zipper:

The knitting is a bit slow on the small needles – size 3 and 3.25mm – but every little bit counts.  With some roadtrips coming up in the next month, I trust I can make some significant progress.  The first inch of the knitting – in the rib pattern – is actually a hem facing that gets tucked under later.  There is an elastic cord that came with the zipper kit to run through the bottom of the sweater.  It will make it look like a real ski fleece!

These Olympic sweaters are probably the biggest thing I have ever taken on – and I am excited about them!  Kris’s is much closer to the finish line than mine is, but I feel good that at least mine is on the needles and ready.

And with all of this work still ahead of me, I am also thinking of how great the new official Canadian Olympic gear is – the designs were released last week, and my mind is already buzzing about how quickly I could knit up something similar to the lovely Cowichan-inspired design… it is a large gauge… so, it may be possible to knit *after* I finish these, right? (it appears that the designs have set off a controversy with the “Cowichan” word choice… but I figured that “Cowichan-inspired” was safe enough, right?)

A quick search of Cowichan-inspired sweaters turned up this number by Rebecca… I think I could cardiganize it pretty easily, and maybe add some colorwork motifs…

…Okay, I am getting ahead of myself… let me finish my Dale sweaters first