Olympic Update – taking your advice

So first of all thank you guys so much for your reassurance that my yarn looks ok! You’ve made me feel so much better about this little experiment. Also making me feel better? The way the swatch came out:

Me likey.

Before I could even pause to blog the swatch I cast on and started the third event of my Fiberman – the knitting. Most of the weekend (except for Friday night – then we went to the Feast with my brother to help him carbo load for Pedal to the Point. He rocked that btw. Both legs. So 150 miles in one weekend. Pretty awesome accomplishment if you ask me. Oh and if you want to donate his website is here – no pressure, though.) was spent happily like this:


Yes that would be Madden in the background. Matt recently hooked up the 360 to the internets and since then has been thoroughly enjoying beating the crap out of his buddies in various games. Also I’m not sure that last picture accurately shows the cuteness that was happening there:

Dexter cuddled his little head into the ball of handspun and fell asleep. Completely adorable. Anyways! Check out all I have accomplished:

That’s the entire body! It knit up super quick. Mainly because the yarn I spun came out to be much bulkier than worsted weight. So I ended up doing some math and adjusting the pattern to be knit on 10’s at a gauge of 3.25 stitches / inch. Anything would go quick at that gauge.

I think the math is working out ok so far… and honestly, I’m really liking the yarn now.

I had some issues with pooling at the beginning so I ended up winding up the other 4 oz that I spun and alternating on every other row. That seemed to solve the pooling issue:


I know I have plenty of yarn left to finish the sleeves but not enough to do the ribbing for the collar and sleeve edges. I haven’t decided if I want to do those in a commercial yarn or more handspun, though. I think a contrasting collar would be nice…

So I’m going to go stash diving and see what I come up with. Part of me is eying the remaining fiber that I have yet to spin and thinking, hmmm… I kindof want to overdye it with the same dye solutions to make fiber that’s maroon with green bits instead of green with maroon bits and use that for the collar. That would mean I might not make the deadline of next Sunday, though…. Decisions, decisions.

Hmmmm….