yet another post about a blob

Apart from the obvious fact I was so deluded about the remote possibility of completing this sweater by today....man. It has already nearly done me in. What you see above is hours and hours of tedious work which in its production has yielded an increasingly heavier thing to suspend, so my hands have been a bit achey (and keep getting that weird 'film' on them from the superwash yarn). I would also just start to gain some speed on each side before hitting the side ribbing I once thought was so cool, then pick through that, then try to speed up again on the other side...suffice to say it has been a bit labourious.

BUT. I am within an inch (an inch I tell you!) of an extremely exciting part (besides the multiple steeks I am already involved with). I finally get to grab my ball of red and my ball of white and do a bit of colourwork at the shoulders. Woo hoo!

And the very best part is to come - the sleeves, which I know from experience will each be a smaller circumference than this mammoth body and are practically half colourwork besides. And I will have been through the worst of it, so I will be completely motivated to see the whole thing through. Even though I won't have any more Olympic coverage to keep me company. I'm going to miss that. It's been awesome.

Hope you're having a good weekend.

maybe by 2014....

When I set myself the task of finishing this sweater by the end of the Olympics (because I always work better to a deadline) I must have completely ignored the fact that I have a fulltime job, and 2 children involved in many activities, and responsibilities like cleaning the house and shopping for groceries and cooking and sleeping....and that I really have no more than about 1 hour per day to devote to knitting anything. And that knitting a whole sweater in sportweight yarn in nearly a size that would fit me takes a bit longer than, say, knitting a scarf for a barbie doll in bulky weight yarn...

But I have 11 inches done of this tedious wonderful sweater. I am getting used to these "delayed gratification" sweaters where you spend a thousand years on the plain body to be rewarded with colour towards the end, just when you're about to give up knitting as a hobby altogether. (I'm also working on one of these right now, for example).
Anyway, thanks so much for your encouragement. Have a great weekend and happy knitting!

solo event, non-qualifying

The Olympics have started! I am planning to be uncharacteristically excited about sports for the next 16 days. I love the courage. The effort. The teamwork. The dreams and hopes. I get choked up. I watch way too much tv.

It's made so many times more exciting by being here in Canada this year. Everyone is so stoked!

I mentioned before that I was planning to make the Dale of Norway official Olympic sweater for my son. I debated for awhile whether or not to wait to cast on until the Ravelympics started at the start of the Games. But I decided a few weeks ago I needed to get a jump on this one if I had any chance of finishing it this winter so I cast on. I'm also working on that argyle sweater, so this one has just come to swimming lessons with me lately and it's not far along. BUT now that the Olympics have started I've decided to dedicate my full attention to it and see if I can actually get it done before the closing ceremonies.

Because I worked on it in January I don't even qualify for the WIP event on Ravelry, so I'm holding my own solo event. It certainly qualifies as a challeging project, if only because of the tight timeline and the fact I've barely started this very time-consuming project (I'm doing the smallest adult size - this is not a baby garment). It has some cool features - the side ribbing, the shock cord seam at the bottom...although these first 16.5" of mindless black sportweight body are making me wish for the first time in my life that I had a knitting machine and knew how to use it. Just a bit.

Happy weekend!

aftur

Pattern: Aftur (#21) by Vedis Jonsdottir in Lopi 25
Yarn: Istex Lett-Lopi

I've been working on this one a bit at a time on lunchbreaks at work since September. I had wanted to try an Icelandic sweater for a long time and I really love the simplicity of this pattern. The yarn is fairly rough to the touch, although I'm going to try a softening bath and see what happens. Since it's a single ply, it can't be tugged too severely while knitting, but now that it's together I think this sweater will hold up for forever.

I had a mental lapse the first time I worked out the colour sequence here (I didn't do the original colour combo) and it looked horrible. Ripping back the entire yoke and doing it again yesterday was very much worth it. I'm really happy with it now. There's a single line of lighter teal next to the darker teal in the centre band and their combination pleases me immensely.

This will be a good layering sweater for the freaking cold weather we have.

back in the saddle

Thanks for all of your interesting comments about what you're up to! What a busy bunch. It was great to meet some of you for the first time. Please see the winner in the post below.

So I took a small hiatus from spinning to knit some things and I was really missing it, so I got my 2nd 8oz batch of CMF roving out and spun some singles. It's for the sweater I've talked about before a few times. Slow, but still on track. The finished yarn is gorgeous and squooshy.

I'm also working on an argyle cardigan for my husband in Rowan baby alpaca dk (which I imagine has to be the closest substitute possible to having a soft baby kitten on your lap) and I'm done the plain back, but now I've hit my nemesis on the front: intarsia.

I split my dark grey ball so I could run each of those lines up separately, but I figured I could run the taupe loosely behind the white and do it fairisle-style. It's adequately loose, but I'm having doubts. The alpaca is so fine and delicate that the slight bulge created by the extra string behind the diamonds might bug me forever.

Even though these few inches have been tediously slow and I really want to finish this before moving on to the Olympic sweater (and the Olympics are coming up.Fast.) I think I've talked myself into frogging and re-doing it with 2 taupe balls - one on either side of the diamonds. Since the diamonds go right up both fronts and there's more on the sleeves to notice it on. Drat.

Hope you're having a great, frog-free weekend.

edited to add: After ripping down, I'm back to where I was, this time with 2 balls of taupe. Totally the way to go. Faster and better all around. I would feel more clever about this if the instructions hadn't pretty much laid this out for me from the start.

one (a giveaway!)

Thanks for your lovely comments on my last post. You guys are awesome.

So this little blog is turning one year old in a few days and I thought I would do a giveaway to celebrate. Here's the details (top to bottom):

- Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 handdyed sock (or anything you want) yarn

- Fleece Artist Suri Blue laceweight (alpaca/blue faced leicester)

-The Plucky Knitter merino superwash sock yarn

- Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash (2)

- Erika Knight's 'Simple Knits for Little Cherubs'

- Fiber Optic Yarns merino/tencel spinning fiber - 4 oz (says 100% merino but there's also tencel - this adds strength which is good for socks)

I chose these because I love them all and thought you might, too. The Fleece Artist and Mission Falls are also Canadian, and I don't know how available they are elsewhere.

So leave a comment about whatever you're doing/thinking/knitting and I'll pick one (boldly assuming there's more than one) using a random number generator on the day of this blogiversary - Friday Jan. 29 - 9:00pm CST. Thanks for stopping by!

And the winner is #1!

barefootrooster at barefootrooster.wordpress.com

starlight, starbright

Pattern: Starlight, Starbright by Kirsten Jensen

Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport, colours #117S Winter Blue, #N80S Mountain Purple, and #144S Limestone

So my first FO of the year/decade is this one. As I mentioned, I test knit it for Kirsten and every bit of it was thoroughly enjoyable. I loved the pattern and the yarn and I finally cut my first steek (!). These late-in-the-day photos were all I could do today - I'll see if I can get better ones later. This week has had a constant crazy agenda and I got in very little knitting time or at home time at all. But here it is. And even though it's big on her my daughter loves it (I think you can tell). So do I.