There she sits.

Undone.

…but I am okay with it…

It was a whole number of things that contributed to the fact that the sweater is not done – and won’t be done by the time I leave for Vancouver.  The snow was both a blessing and a curse.  It gave me five days to sit in the house (with occasional “snow shoveling” breaks), watch movies, and work on her.  But, when I ran out of the main color of yarn for the collar and the top colorwork section, it also prevented me from going to the yarn shop to pick up another ball.  And time constraints prevent me from going there now and spending another day working on it…

The knitting was a joy – but the finishing is not.  I have attempted to seam her up three times – shoulders and sleeves into armholes – and each time, I am not happy with the results.  So, I ripped back.  I think I need to do one of two things:  rip back to the point where I made the first mistake (stockinette and all) and just start over from there – OR steek about 2 more inches so that the armholes have more space and don’t bunch up like a trash bag.  It’s a drop shoulder construction, so that automatically changes things – it’s hard to get it to lay right on my shoulders.

So, maybe I ran out of steam as well as running out of yarn.  Maybe we both need a little break from each other.  Maybe she needs a vacation too.

Yeah, I am a little disappointed, but I also realize that it is not the end of the world, nor the end of the sweater.  I don’t want to do a shoddy job in finishing – cutting corners and leaving out parts of the chart – just to have it finished before the trip.

There you have it.  I am at peace about it.  It does help knowing that at least one part of my goal was completed with Kris’s sweater turning out so well – much better than I expected. And I will just finish this one sometime in the future…

–

Did you watch the Opening Ceremonies?  I was just amazed.  It was so beautiful and so well-done.  I loved the tributes to each part of the country and the cultures therein, and I thought the tragic death of the Georgian athlete was handled well during the ceremony (although the media really needs to stop showing the accident footage).

I know many of you were watching and casting on for your Olympics/Ravelympics projects.

Which part was your favorite?  I almost have too many to name – but the First Nations’ welcome, the orcas, the fiddlers, and the Rocky Mountain aerialists come to mind.  It was beautiful!  YAY CANADA

…Can’t wait to get up there and join the festivities!

See you on the flip side!!

]]> http://lollygirl.com/blog/2010/02/13/on-the-sil/feed 36 http://lollygirl.com/blog/2010/02/07/cry-me-a-river http://lollygirl.com/blog/2010/02/07/cry-me-a-river#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:12:00 +0000 lolly http://lollygirl.com/blog/?p=2608 So, this was not the update I was planning to give.  But, sometimes, things don’t go as planned.

This is proof that the unexpected does happen… and it happened to me this time around.

I have knit several patterns in translation – primarily Norwegian and German – and I know that English pattern writers, specifically North Americans, tend to “coddle” their knitters with step-by-step instructions.  Countries with a long-standing knitting traditions tend to assume that their knitters know what to do since they have been knitting since they were in diapers…

Well, I am North American and didn’t learn to knit in diapers, but I am pretty intuitive… and I totally missed the three little words amongst all the others that said “continue in stockinette”.  So, I went along on my merry way with the established rib pattern – 4 inches in, to be exact.  Once I realized the folly of my ways, I just took a deep breath and knew what I had to do.

Instead of ripping back the WHOLE body and losing many hours/days of work, I decided to surgically repair and just rip back that section.  I saw Stacy Shutterhoney do it last year – with cables, no less! – so I just bit the bullet and ran my lifeline and rip rip ripped it.  Thanks for the inspiration (and the courage), Stacy!

Maybe I am delusional, but I feel like this is still under control… and I feel like I might still be able to finish this baby in the next week before I leave.

Here’s a progress photo *before* I realized the mistake…

So, body has a few more inches, including some colorwork rows, and then the steeking, and then the sewing shoulders together and picking up for the mock turtleneck.  Doable, right?  Right?  *sigh*

Luckily, there are multiple feet of snow on the ground outside, so I am not really going anywhere for the next while… we’ll see what I can do today!

:: knitting sleeve two of my Olympic sweater whilst studying Spanish with Rosetta Stone ::

(Hello operator?)

Great progress on both fronts.

Sleeve has doubled in length since this photo taken yesterday morning (and I have a callus on my finger to prove it) but I like the placement of the official patch here on the sleeve.

13 days till Vancouver.

… Almost there …

More details on the sweater, the trip plans, and Spanish studies to come ~

]]> http://lollygirl.com/blog/2010/02/01/quick-glimpses/feed 17 http://lollygirl.com/blog/2010/01/20/xs-and-os http://lollygirl.com/blog/2010/01/20/xs-and-os#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:52:13 +0000 lolly http://lollygirl.com/blog/?p=2587 So many inches of stockinette for the body and the sleeves – when I finally reached the colorwork portion, it felt like a celebration!  Of course, the colorwork is *also* stockinette, but it’s about the introduction of that new color into the mix that just brings the excitement level to a pinnacle!

I had a little trouble with the color combinations on this sweater – I originally planned the navy main color with the ivory accent with a turquoise.  However, my local yarn shop could not order the turquoise as it was now discontinued (::sad face::) but I put on a positive spin and decided to go with this blue/green color for my other accent color.

Now that it is working up, I am very happy with my choice.  I think it evokes a mood that I wanted with this sweater ~ wintery, classic with a modern touch, and memorable.  Although I haven’t been to Vancouver yet, it somehow seems like these colors will really “work” there – the deep blue with the blue green, reminiscent of the ocean and the nearby mountains. 

23 days till the Opening Ceremonies for the Winter Olympics!

…and 25 days before my plane lands in Vancouver, so just as long to get this sweater off the needles! … it looks plausible!  I am going to try my hardest!

 If you are starting to get excited about the games too, it would be great to see you in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics Ravelry group!   We are chatting about meetups in Vancouver, athlete news, as well as what you are planning to work on while watching games and competitions… it’s a grand ol’ time and it would be lovely to see you there!

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!

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