Tomten Jackets.

So!  I finished the Elizabeth Zimmerman Tomten Jackets!!!!!

I had to.  Because I'm pretty sure that if I didn't summer would never arrive.  Ok it sounds crazy.  But follow my logic here - You know that phrase "the baby won't come until the knitting's done?"  It's just one of those old adages that people like to say... that seems to be completely true.   I think that's what's happening now.  Summer can't come until the knitting is done.  It's the only explanation for why it's mid May and the kids are still wearing footie jammies to bed.  So I focused and finally did all of the finishing work on these.  And I am SO happy with how they turned out:

SERIOUSLY.

I took the kids to the park for a little photo shoot.  This was back on May 1. And right after that we had quite the warm spell.  Even got out the water table for a bit:.... Aaaaand then the cold came back.  And I had to (again!) dig through the attic to retrieve more warm clothes for the kids that I had put away (again!) BECAUSE WHY ISN'T IT SUMMER YET OMG.  Is anyone else stuck in the wardrobe change out that never ends?  Just me?  Moving on.

So now I figure that summer won't come until the knitting is done and blogged about.  That has to be it!   Because otherwise it makes no sense that today is the first day of summer vacation and it's barely going to hit 60.  So here we go:

 

Tomten Jackets for the brothers:

Pattern: Tomten by Elizabeth Zimmerman from the book Knitting without Tears.

"Tomten is the small Swedish elf who specializes in good deeds, and your child will resemble him strangely if you put a Tomten jacket on him or her." - Elizabeth Zimmerman in Knitting Without Tears.

Seems Legit:

My kids totally look like little elves in these:

The pointy hoods!  I love the pointy hoods.  It is the CUTENESS:

 I actually made the blue one for my little guy and the green one for The Dude.  But!  Kids only grow in one direction.  So I upsized everything.  So the Dude is wearing his brother's sweater and The Girl is wearing The Dude's.  Sounds confusing but basically each kid is wearing a sweater meant for their younger sibling:

Meh.  By fall they will be wearing the right sweaters.  Until then I think the Girl is rocking it:

Timeline: I started the Blue one WAY back in August of 2013.  The Green one was started in Feb. as part of the Ravellenic Games.  Both were completed at the end of April 2014.  So this was a 9 month long project. WOW.

HE WAS SO TINY!!!!!!!!

Modifications: Basically none.  It's a modular jacket so it's super easy to modify to make bigger or smaller following her directions.  The blue one starts with 112  stitches and is modular from there.  The green one starts with 128.  For both of them I picked up a button band around the entire edge and around the hood.  I think that gives it a nicer edge than just the garter stitch.

I did add in the slip stitch faux seam on the top of the sleeves on the green one.  The directions are in the Brooklyn Tweed Adult Tomten version.  I think it gives the sleeves a bit of detail and structure not necessary in the smaller size. 

 

Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted for the gray.  It is deliciously sheepy and wooly and everything you want a sweater/jacket to be:

Then I used Patons Classic Merino for the blue stripes.  The Green is Cascade 220 that was left over from The Dude's Green Hat.  I had juuuuust enough to finish it.  Like I was cutting off long ends and spit splicing trying desperately to make it through the bind off without having to buy another skein.  My knitting group was quite amused.

Notions:  The zippers were just basic zippers bought at JoAnn.  I dragged both boys there one day with the intention that I WILL FINISH THESE TODAY. .... and bought non-separating zippers.  YEAH.  I would say that I'm an idiot but in all fairness I was wrangling two small boys in a JoAnn Fabric.  That I made it out alive at all is a success story.  I ordered the actual zippers that I needed online once I got home and realized my mistake. 

The verdict: LOVE.  Unabashedly love.  The grey sheepy goodness!  The pointy hoods!  The zippers!  The garter stitch!  These are classics that my kids will wear for years.  And then will get passed down to someone else because they are always going to be in style.

Yay Swedish Elves!!!!!!

And as an extra fun bonus picture here's the not yet finished Tomten's with a sweater that I made for their little cousin. 

Someday I need to get a picture of all three boys in their sweaters.

Ravellenic Games 2014 - Opening Ceremonies.

So!  The Olympics are underway!!!

Cake I made for our opening ceremonies gathering.  It's super handy that M&M's come in the colors of the Olympic Rings...

And I don't know about you guys but basically all I want to do is watch the games.  Especially with the new commentators:

Johnny Wier!  Love.  Tara Lipinski!  Hate.  But mainly because she stole the gold from Michelle Kwan and I"m still a bit bitter.  16 years later. WHATEVER.  And I"m still waiting for Sal Masakala to make his big appearance.  He's my fav ever and when I found out that he was no longer doing Xgames it was sadness, indeed.  Until he got the Olympic gig. 

So how are your Ravellenic Games projects going?  Thanks so much for all of the input on mine!  I finally decided on this:

A Tomten for the Dude.  I listened to all of your advice but when Pam said that if I can knit guys socks I can knit a sweater it kindof clicked.  Because man socks are about as many stitches as a guy sweater.  And that's way more than I can commit to for these games.  Plus we have a big, BIG roadtrip coming up so socks in The Road Ahead colorway will be all too perfect.

A sweater for this little dude, though:

Progress headed into day 2 of the competition.

Tough but not impossible.

I am also planning on taking the advice of Angela who told me to finish up the little guy's sweater so that I have a clean start.  YES.  Good idea.  So my Olympic events are as follows:

Knit the Dude a Tomten in the Sweaterboard Cross.

Finish the Little Guy's Tomten in the WIP's Dancing.

Although I might pull a Sean White and punk out on my secondary event.

Also I thought it would be fun to do a Link Up like I did for the last Ravellenic Games.  I love following everyone's projects on all of the social media!  Especially Instagram it seems.  I keep clicking on the #RavellenicGames hashtag and ooohing and aaahing over all of the amazing proejcts people are working on.  So much talent out there!

Ravellenic Games Social Media Link Up:  

1.)  You can link to any social media site except for Ravelry.  So your blog, twitter feed, a podcast, facebook page, vlog, instagram, whatever.

2.)  You can link up THREE of your social media sites! 

3.)  Please follow/like/subscribe to at least a few other participants in the list.


Also I plan on posting this link up at least one more - possibly two more times before the games are over.  I'd love to have a co-host.  Let me know if you have a blog and are interested!

Let the Games begin!!!!

Redemption

So as much as I despise the Bob dominated coverage… I have to admit that the 2010 Olympics were the Olympics of Redemption.  2010 was the year the Bode Miller finally got his gold.

The similarities between us are a bit striking. In 2006 we were both cocky – thinking we could easily cruise to victory, partying the whole way. We didn’t know how hard you have to fight to make it to the top of the podium.

And we both ended up with a DNF.

Tempting II. It almost defeated me. I eventually achieved victory, though. Or on Rav here: Tempting II

This year we returned. Refocused and determined. Now parents our partying days are mostly in the past.

I wanted the gold so bad I could taste it.

But the whole point of this project was to knit something epic. To challenge yourself. To compete at a higher level.  So I chose to knit something that I honestly didn't think was possible in 2 weeks. Something classic, something pure: An Elizabeth Zimmerman seamless yolk sweater with an Icelandic inspired colorwork pattern.  You can't get more entrenched in knitting than that.

And after staying up way later than I’m going to admit more times than sanity would dictate I have a finished, blocked, photographed sweater:


In 17 days.


That is Epic.



That is what the Knitting Olympics are about.



That is capturing the spirit of the games in yarn.


That is a gold medal performance.

I don't know. I was following what my Photographer told me to do.

The specs:
On Ravelry:  My Olympic Sweater
Pattern: Combo of the Hela short cardigan and an Elizabeth Zimmerman percentage sweater
Yarn: Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran. Blend of merino, silk, and cashmere. Total luxury.
Colorway: Venitian. With bits of quartz and cream
Mods: Um yeah. Knit the whole thing do a different gauge. Added in 4 short rows at bust for shaping.
If I could do it again: Would probably add a few more short rows, would add a few more rows of seed stitch to the bottom to keep it from rolling. Wouldn’t attempt it in such a short timeframe.
Verdict: WIN. GOLD. YAY. LOVE. HEARTS and BUTTERFLIES and  FLOWERS and SUNSHINE.

So I have enough yarn leftover to make the baby her own version of this sweater…. Should I do it or is that cheesy? I kindof want to do it just so that I can knit this chart again:

Hmmmmmm…..

Two Things

1.) The Destination Yarn trunk show at Stash Style is tomorrow:


Of course there are all of these reasons to go:



Plus Chagrin is BEAUTIFUL in the snow:

1. Icy Falls, 2. february 26 2008 331, 3. Popcorn Shop, 4. NIKON D90

The falls are basically right across the street from Stash Style. You should come check it out! I’ll be there from 11-5.

2.) My Olympic Sweater is knit up to the yolk:

I started the colorwork last night and barring any unforeseen disaster it looks like I have a solid chance of finishing. Fingers crossed!

And with that my YoGabbaGabba amused baby time is over... Hope to see you tomorrow!

Something the swatch was good for

So the Big Fat Liar Swatch was good for something (other than taking away about 15 hours of my life that I’ll never get back)… it gave me a really good concept of what the colorwork was going to look like:

And honestly I was kindof meh on it.   I just didn’t like it as much as I thought I was going to. Problem is that this yarn is discontinued. It’s Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran – a squisy butter soft blend of cashmere, merino, and silk – and I bought it years ago when a local yarn store went out of business. Also this yarn has a very different feel from anything I’ve got in my stash (probably the cashmere. Don’t usually work with anything that luxe) so it’s not like I could just throw in whatevcer.

To the Internets!

After a bit of digging I found some of what looked to be a decent colorway on ebay and took a chance.

My colorscheme went from this:


To this:

Much better.

The result is subtle – but I like subtle:

Sleeve 1. V3.0

It took me 3 tries to get going on this sleeve. The first time I rounded up from the pattern repeats and started w/ 42 stitches. WAAAY too big. The second time I rounded down and was happy with the result at the cuff. Then I increased every 7 rounds and created a sleeve with about 3 inches of negative ease. Sexy. So I ripped that back and increased every 5 rounds and was finally happy with the result.



Last night I finished the second sleeve. Sleeve 2 also took 3 tries to get started. Once b/c I forgot the seamless join. Once b/c I’m apparently unable to count to 34. And one more time because I forgot to do the seamless join AGAIN. I blame the wine.

I’m about here on the body:

I need to decide what I’m going to do for bust shaping, knit about 3 more inches, join everything, knit the yolk and finish it.

I have 6 days.

Impossible? Probably. But I’m going to try for redemption* anyways.  And if I skate clean I might just make the podium.

*Has anyone else noticed how redemption seems to be Bob’s fav. Buzz word these games? It always seems a bit like a backhanded compliment. Like “well they won gold this time… but last games they SUCKED.” Shut up, Bob.

The story of a swatch

With an Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater the whole thing is based on your measurements and your gauge swatch. It’s all math from those 2 elements. So I knew I needed to get them right. Plus this is for the Olympics. This is for Glory. There could be no “good enough for government work.”.

So instead of a normal swatch I knit this:

Just a simple baby hat. But it’s knit in the round – my gauge might have been different knitting flat. Plus I used part of the colorwork pattern for the edging just to make sure my gauge was constant for that part, too.

5 stitches and 7 rows per inch across the whole hat.

When I cast on I was confident that the sweater I was knitting would fit me perfectly.

Confidence angers the knitting gods.

The first weekend went well. I knit and I knit and I knit and I was through the waist shaping and getting very close to thinking about the arm. I was easily on track for gold.

Over confidence really angers the knitting gods.

When I finished the last increase row of the waist shaping I held up my sweater to my almost finished Heather Hoodie to compare the shaping. The hoodie fits me great (just needs ends tucked in and buttons bought and sewn on and it will be finished!) so I wanted to compare….

I believe my twitter stream probably sums up what I found best:

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK my gauge swatch was a dirty liar and my #olympic sweater is 10 INCHES TOO BIG.

10 INCHES too big.

10 INCHES.

Sob

Apparently the swatch hat is a dirty liar:

Pictured: LIES. and Adorable.

It knit at a gauge of 5 stitches per inch. My sweater knit up at a gauge of 4.25 stitches per inch. Which over the width of the whole sweater added up to 10 inches in difference.

Really the only appropriate reaction is to curse as much as possible, whine to everyone on the Internet, and then cry into a big glass of wine.

After that I frogged the whole thing and restarted:

I’m further than that now but I feel like one of the Figure Skaters who screwed up the very first move of their short program. In all likelihood I won’t make the podium. I know it, everyone else knows it, but I have to go through the rest of the moves anyways.

The Knitting Olympics

So Today starts the Olympics. Also the Knitting Olympics. Where knitters all over the globe will challenge themselves to knit something within the 17 days of the games. I am knitting this:

Only not this. I’m using the charts from this sweater but I’m putting them onto an Elizabeth Zimmerman Seamless Yolk Sweater.

Which means it’s worsted weight, a pullover instead of a cardigan, and I’m doing a pile of math.

This will be my first colorwork sweater, my first EZ sweater, &my first seamless yolk.

Let the games begin!!!