ravelympics: check-in.

So, this was what my sweater looked like at 2:30 PM on Sunday, before I left to watch the men’s gold medal hockey game.

And this is what my sweater looks like this morning, after casting off last night.

I had two rows of button band to go by the time the Olympics were officially “over,” and that’s fine with me. I’m not going to grouse over the fact that I didn’t have yarn until two days in, or explain that I’m like, really busy – I knit very nearly all of a sweater in two weeks, and that’s good enough.

The sweater isn’t done done – I still need to figure out how I’m going to close it (if anyone knows where I can buy snap tape in Toronto, you get to be my BFF forever), weave in all the ends, and do blocking, but whatever. It is close enough to finished, and I am in love with this sweater and can’t wait to wear it, and that’s what matters.

ravelympics! (no interesting entry title)

So, like every other knitter on the entire internet, I’ve signed up for a Ravelympics* team – mine is headed up by Julie. What this really means is that you guys had better like the way this project looks, as you’ll be seeing a lot of it in the near future as I try to finish it before the 28th.

I got a bit of a late start, waiting for the postman to bring my yarn, but I cast on while Mike Robertson was winning his silver medal for Canada, which I think made up for it.

The goal, for me, is to knit myself a sweater that I will wear often, and with a lot of things, which is why I’m making the Treeline Striped Cardigan, in boring blue and tan. I’ll look a little bit like Where’s Waldo, but hopefully in a cute way, and it’ll match most of the stuff in my wardrobe.

The goal is also to treat myself a little bit, which is why I’m knitting it with Tanis Fiber Arts’ Green Label Aran, something I’ve been secretly pining for after working with her sock yarn a few times. Rad.

*The Ravelympics, for the uninitiated, are a totally dorky challenge where you try to begin and end a knitting project over the duration of the Olympic Games. It’s more fun than it sounds.

fo: featherweight cardigan

It’s done! My sweater! It’s so done.

Pattern: Featherweight Cardigan! I knit the size small, but it’s possible I could have sized it down a little – the finished product is a little wide for me in the shoulders, and has a tendency to slouch off and look a little baggier than I’d like.
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace, in Azul Bolita – close to 2 skeins. (I bought three, and worked from two simultaneously from the sleeves, but I think my leftovers add up to a full skein.)
Needles: 4mm Addi Lace circular

I did a little bit of modifying to this pattern, but really not a lot. I had big plans, when I started, to knit this up from the collar with a hood, but by the time I got there I was just so sick of knitting laceweight yarn, I couldn’t bring myself to make it an even bigger project.

As a lot of people on Ravelry have mentioned – and as should be pretty obvious from the design of the pattern – the collar will curl, since it’s unbordered stockinette. I tried to fix this, a little bit, by adding in a half-inch of Feather and Fan lace to the edge of the collar. I saw a lot of sweaters where people went all-out with this, bordering the cuffs and the hem the same way, but I wasn’t together enough to think of it until the cuffs and hem were already knit, so – my sweater isn’t quite that pretty. Such is life.

I am, however, a little in love with it all the same. It’s so soft, shockingly warm, and so light it feels like I’m not wearing anything at all. (Possibly because, as you can see, it barely touches me anywhere. So floaty!) I definitely forsee myself getting a whole lot of use out of this.