What I'm learning

Marilyn over at the Knitting Curmudgeon has challenged us Knitting Olympians to prove why joining 4,000 people in a time deadline isn't just sheep like behavior, resulting in nothing but progress reports.

So here's what I'm learning so far.

1. I like knitting fair isle, even more so when it's small and intricate rather than chunky yarn like my earlier fair isle hats.
   
2. How to keep my tension even, particularly tricky when some colours of yarn are much thinner/stickier than others, which are thicker and more fluffy.
   
3. How to follow a fairly complex colour chart, without losing my place or row
   
4. That working in ends as you go makes for much quicker weaving in, and that weaving the ends in every day is a lot less intimidating than leaving the ends to accumulate for a while.
   
5. How to knit steeks - and, pretty soon, how to cut them
   
6. An appreciation for generations of fair isle knitters who created these garments without the help of Addi Turbos, on really long double pointed needles.
   
7. That none of my teddy bears will be big enough to model the sweater when done! (And, because of the way the sweater is designed, with really low armholes, I don't think I can find a small child with the correct body shape either! Though it would probably fit very badly on Oscar)
   
8. To trust Matt in his choice of colourways. I'm actually really liking the browns and blues now.
   
9. That I can be a fairly productive knitter, and there is more time for knitting in a day than I'd otherwise have imagined. So "I don't have the time to start a big project" is no longer a valid excuse.
   
10. That I enjoy feeling connected to other knitters around the world. The deadline and finishing isn't as important to me as the process, and creating something beautiful that otherwise might have languished at the back of the cupboard for another 6 months.
    

Not too shabby for halfway through the games, eh? Still to come: cutting steeks, picking up a neckline and sleeves.

So now you've sat through all that rambling, here's the obligatory progress photos. Front and back, taken inside and outside today, while there's actually some sunshine here in Royal Oak.

I'm about 14 rows from the top of the sweater. When I reach there, I join the shoulders, knit some more ribbing for the neck and cut the neck steek. Then it's on to the sleeves. Not bad progress all in all. You can see the armhole steek stitches showing up quite clearly in both pictures, and, if I'd actually taken more time to read Matt's directions, I'd have outlined both ends from the beginning, and used blue (background colour) rather than brown. Oh well. It shouldn't make too much of a difference in the long run.

And now I'm going to see if I can't get another 3 or 4 rounds in before church this afternoon. I wish all other Olympic knitters a productive weekend!