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Archive for February 18th, 2010

My Olympic Knitting

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

boyfriendsweaterpatternI am destined to knit a sweater out of beautiful, hot pink yarn. I can prove that I am an incredible optimist, by admitting that I thought I might be able to knit it during the Olympic games. That is 17 days.

This becomes more complicated, because we have chosen not to watch TV since it all went digital. We own 3 black and white TVs but have no converter box, cable or any other service.

I adore figure skating. It used to be I pretty much did not turn on the TV, maybe 2-3 times between the winter Olympics and the next winter Olympics. For skating, I watch happily.

So four years ago, I attempted a project during the Knitting Olympics. I got pretty close to done, even though it was a very unfamiliar sort of project. It was a vest (relatively thin yarn), and I messed up the decreases on the neckline or I probably would have been able to finish.

Now, I have cast on a full-length, long-sleeved sweater. I did swatch. I did have the right gauge/stitch size on that swatch. Then I cast on 100+ stitches and knit for about 2.5 inches, and figured out the stitches were far too large. Never mind I can not remember ever knitting too relaxed, ever. There is always a first time!

So last Sunday, Brian took me to dinner at a neighborhood eatery with TVs. I normally don’t like that about this restaurant, but was delighted Sunday. I cast on the 2nd time, while waiting for our food.

olympicsweater2ndstartI expect I will finish. I expect it will not be next weekend. I’m having fun, though. And I totally went out of my comfort zone, which is a good thing. It’s a sweater (have finished ONE long-sleeved sweater thus far, which took me a year). It’s also knit flat rather in the round.

I have now knit about 9″ or so on the bottom of one piece (front/back are the same at this point). I will post progress as I have something to show.

The yarn is Nashua Creative Focus Worsted, for those who like to know such things. I adore this yarn, which is a “singles” (one ply) yarn of wool/alpaca.

I plan to embroider the “Charlie Brown” stripe on it with a smoother yarn. I hope I have enough leftovers of the turquoise yarn in the top photo. It’s Heirloom Easy-Care 8 (a DK weight washable with cable structure). The Nashua yarn is rather fuzzy, and I think a stripe in less-fuzzy yarn will show up better.