Olympic sweater day 7

Yesterday I finished the row of mitered squares. It was very hypnotic knitting each one, and spurred me on to the next ones to see if it would come out the way I envisioned. I really got into that lovely knitting trance. I am pleased with the result, but wish I'd had the presence of mind to add a few details to the process like keeping the center spine stitch at the corners. Oh well. Now for picking up all around and continuing on! Go Team Wales!

Olympic Progress

I spent way too much time yesterday knitting. I was knitting along on my diagonal sweater, and suddenly it hit me it might be really fun to put mitered squares in along the rows. It was getting kind of boring just knitting straight stockinette, even with an occasional garter stitch row thrown in and suddenly the puzzle of how to fit squares in and makes the directions of them work properly inspired me and I just had to see if it would come out the way I was thinking it might. I did a couple of squares and had to rip the whole thing out because I had not anticipated the orientation of the miters. I was trying to make the entire thing one continuous thread but I realized I would have to cut the yarn at various points in order to get the squares to fit in properly. I actually got so involved with this that I watched a whole bunch of the Olympics while I was doing it!! I figured if those for bruised skiers could ski feeling that badly I could knit even though my hands are starting to cramp up. Not as badly as usual-- maybe the flax seed oil is helping a bit. So here's a photo of my work so far. It's a 25 stitch starting row,with a s1K2togpsso in the middle on even rows,and a garter ridge on alternate purl sides.YikesI had to look at three different books and pattern to come up with squares that would make me happy.And the pressure is on because of theOlympic time limit so I couldn't spend a lot of time making swatches and learningtoo many new techniques. I am intrigued by Iris Schreier's new book " Modular Knits", but didn't have time to figure it out to my satisfaction. Onwards to victory! Team Wales needs us!

Wonderful Winter Weekend

I spent the full moon weekend at Melanie's house( www.melanietesta.com ) playing with soy wax batik and knitting. I was going to work on my Olympic sweater for Team Wales, but got sidetracked by my other WIP: a blue alpaca top-down raglan cardigan. We had fun with Elizabeth ( www.elizabethpoole.com ) doing the sleeves on her fabulous Kafe Fasset intarsia sweater ( and showing me how to knit in those pesky ends : thankyou! )It was an inspirational and inspired weekend!With a sweatshirt, fleece vest and lab coat with towel over the shoulder and 2 sets of gloves it was perfectly comfortable in the basement ( and plenty of wine, of course!).I had such fun and Melanie is the perfect hostess. Here is the fabric after washout, drying in the basement . I worked on soda-soaked and dried fabric, monoprinting, direct painting and using soy wax at different times to see what would happen. It was lots of fun! We knit in the cozy kitchen during the mealtimes, and I got a lot done. I love alpaca for its warmth and softness, and decided I could catch up onmy Olympic knitting when I got home. I didn't really believe it would snow so much--but we spent lots of time digging out on Sunday. Good exercise! I was sore for 2 days afterwards...but it was a great time.
Here is my blue sweater at this point.

Now I'm home, and back to knitting my other sweater. Progress so far...not much. Today it was warm and sunny, and I had to knit a bunch. Luckily my hands are tolerating this so far, but RSI lurks around the corner so I have to be careful. I'm wondering if I can put some mitered squares in it somehow, so that is my project for today. Wish me luck!

Knitting Olympics

Well, it is in the last few hours of the big day! I was frantically trying to figure out what would be worthy of knitting for the Olympics. I've signed up to represent Team Wales due to my Welsh background, my level of Wales and also my infatuation with Brenda Dayne of the Cast ON Podcast ( www.cast-on.com ). Over the last few weeks I've been swatching yarns, collecting patterns, obsessing about what to do ,and dithering. Finally yesterday, I made a date with my friend Benedicte ( www.thesalonseven.com )to go to a local yarn store that is going out of business and having a 25% off sale. this yarn store is a huge store which has been in business for 85 years so it's kind of sad and bittersweet to go digging through their inventory and load up on great yarns, but someone's got to do it and help them out!! Oh dear; I spent way too much money but I got some beautiful yarn which I think will be just perfect for this kind of project. I came home, wound up a few skeins and finally I'm ready to cast on. I think this will be my fourth diagonal sweater, and I probably won't be a with finish it by the end of the Olympics but heck it's worth a try. The yarn is a beautiful, and quite expensive hand dyed Merino UNIKAT. Here's a picture. Well I'm off to the races!!

I'd be happy to send you the pattern.It's $10, and you can use Paypal to send it to my email address jeri.riggs@verizon.net, and I'll send you a pdf version. Email me!

Barbara McKie,a nationally known quilter and one of my dear friends, offered to beta-test my Diagonal Sweater pattern. Didn't she do a marvelous job? The sweater turned out gorgeous, and fits her perfectly because the pattern is written to allow for customization in every dimension. So,you can use any gague yarn and needles and knit to your own measurements! Bravo, Barb!

Back of the sweater showing the bias stripe patterning. If you would like to knit your own version