I got a medal – Yay and hooray!

Doesn’t it just look like the coolest thing?

Knitting life feels somewhat without a purpose after the Olympics. I’m having a hard time concentrating on one thing at a time. I still have to finish the second sleeve of the Lopi lace sweater, but it is going slowly… oh so slowly. I had a great idea for a secret project and after planning it all out yesterday I went to the yarn store today. While there, I was seduced by two balls of variegated lopi in green tones. I have seen it in the corner of my eye for a while, and today I couldn’t resist. When I came home I was superexcited to start the new secret project but realized I would need the needles which are currently in the Lopi lace sleeve. I further realized that if I would take them out, chances are I’ll never finish the sleeve! So I played wise. Did I continue knitting the sleeve? No no no no, I cast on for some lopasokkar (Lopi socks) in the aforementioned variegated Lopi. I figured I needed an easy project because I’m training to stop looking so intensely at what I knit while knitting. I need to be able to knit while reading (such as for the finnish exam, which btw is on friday not today) and it would be nice to actually see things on TV and not just listen to what people are saying (especially in shows where people just say silly things, and there are alot of those!).

I’m playing it a bit by the ear. I have one pattern for lopi socks, but I want a rather different type of sock, so I basically only used the stitch number given in that pattern. I’d like to do a short row heel, a method I just learned, heehee newbie (or I think it’s called short row heel!). In the other pattern the heel is just made by knitting with different yarn some stitches, knitting over with the working yarn and after finishing at the toe, pick up those stitches and knit a heel. Like with thumbs, you know. But that’s not fancy business is it? We wants fancy heel.

The sock is knitting up really fast but it’s a bit tiresome because it’s knit very tightly, putting some strain on the hands. I like it, the colorway looks nice and it fits snugly. I have had some store-bought lopi socks in the past, but they have each and every time been too big for me, which is quite annoying. It’ll be nice to have ones that fit.

And while this went on, I did see parts of a movie. More training is needed however.

When my mom was here, she was apalled to find out that I don’t have an iron, so she bought me one! When Frank and I split up he got the iron because I never iron. Anything. I prefer wearing clothes which don’t need ironing. But I admit that it’s very important when you knit. The iron my mom bought me is really simple, cute and old fashioned looking. It was put to good use yesterday

(not to worry, I did use a wet towel in between)

After blocking, I spent over an hour sewing the shoulder seams. I’ve never done it before, so it took some time figuring out. I ended up backstitching it as other methods didn’t work out, partly due to the lace pattern. It is probably not the best sewing job in the history of knitting, probably very far from it, but at least they’re sticking together.

I have been bursting of energy today. After waking up early, I finished sleeve number one

then I did the dishes, prepared for the class I’m teaching tomorrow, vacuumed, watered the plants and did two loads of laundry. In general I’m rather lazy with housework and I really don’t like having to spend my free time on it. It wasn’t always like this, back in the days I used to enjoy cleaning my own apartment, probably because it was nice to have an own apartment to clean. Now, having an apartment is quite normal and the realization that I’ll have to clean it to the day I die is too much to handle. Every time I clean I am so (sickly) proud of myself, “aaah, what a great job you’ve done Sigga”, and I honestly feel that now that I’ve done it so well, I’ll never have to do it again.

I have to admit that I haven’t been watching the Olympics too much. Winter sports are not that big in Iceland, and we never win anything at the Winter Olympics. I did watch the icehockey game between Finland and Russia and was really glad that the Finns won (their big and powerful neighbor). Now I’m watching the icehockey final between Finland and Sweden (their other big and formerly powerful neighbor) and rooting like crazy for the Finns of course. I’m cheating a bit, because I watch the games on the Swedish national tv. The reason is that I can understand the Swedish commentators, whereas with the Finnish it’s perhaps a word a minute or so.

It’s funny that during the Finland-Russia game, the Swedish commentators were really excited about how well the Finns were doing, and they repeated constantly how impressed they were with how well the Finns played. Now it’s a different story, they hardly say one positive word about the Finnish team! And they sounded so sad these two times that Finns have scored (and super excited when the Swedes made their two goals). In the intermissions I do switch to the Finnish national tv for some “hyvää Suomi” action and interviews with Finnish players.

During the game I’m picking up stitches for the neck, all 195 of them. I’m about halfway through.

I don’t think I’ll finish the sweater today, but I’m fine with it. I just remembered that I have an exam in Finnish on tuesday and I really should do some studying.

My teammate Cassie has finished her Olympic project and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Congratulations! It’s been alot of fun being on a team with her. Maybe we can repeat it for the next Knitting Olympics!

Oh no, my optimism was premature. I woke up at half past ten (I went to bed rather late, bad bad me) and felt so lazy that I just surfed around the world wide web and drank coffee for two hours, before realizing that Oh my god I’ve got to knit. Since I was feeling lazy, blocking was out of the question and instead I sat on my skinny ass on the sofa and finished the rib on the second sleeve. Then I continued with the first sleeve and now I’m about one pattern repeat into it, which is just 16 rows.

In the afternoon I went to try and find a zipper for the Lopi cardigan I finished a while ago. Finding a zipper for this one has proved to be quite a bit tricky, due to many mistakes on my behalf. After cutting the steek, but *before* doing the crochet edge, I took the sweater with me to find a zipper. I then bought a 55 cm zipper and was rather happy with it. Then I did the crochet edge and of course it was shorter than the edge of the sweater, since you do these things a bit tightly. I promptly went back and exchanged the zipper for a 50 cm one. *Then* I washed the sweater, and when I laid it out to dry, I stretched the edge a bit so that it would lie flat. Naturally its length increased in the process! So here I am with a 50 cm zipper which is a bit too short, but the 55 cm one is too long. Unfortunately for me, these are standard lengths and anything in between is not to be found in the shops I’ve visited. Darn.

This unsuccesful zipper trip wasted about half an hour of good knitting time, despite my best efforts to make it as quick as possible. If you happened to be in the Helsinki metro this afternoon you would have seen a knitter with a crazy gleam in her eye, running up and down the electric stairs and knitting obsessively everywhere possible. On the way back I was annoyed by two rockers who apparently do not know that you should, no matter what, not stand idly on the left side of electric stairs. Especially when an olympic knitter is in a rush. In that situation I proved that I have been living in Finland for too long. Instead of poking my finger in the rockers back and saying “anteeks” (sorry) with a hint of annoyance in my voice, I just stood there looking annoyed and hoping fiercely that my annoy-vibes would pierce through the back of his skull. He should know.

During the trip I managed about 4 rows of the sleeve. I only live two metro stops from the city center. But there’s plenty left of today, like, 7-8 hours or so. Darn that I’m hungry, eating takes so long.

I’ve been working on the lopi lace sweater. Not too much, since my mom came over to Helsinki for a visit (which was great!), and I got the flu. But it’s all happening. After reaching the oh so deep v-neck I was forced to knit back and forth for the long long remainder of the body. I seriously oppose to back and forth knitting, for the simple reason that I am probably the slowest purler in the universe. Next time, if there ever is a next time, I’ll definitely steek it. Steeks rule big time. I was getting so sick of purling in the end that the only thing on my mind was that the day I’d finish the body would be the happiest day of my life. Strangely that wasn’t the case. It doesn’t help that I have about five sweaters in my mind that I’m dying to start! Therefore it is in a way good that the knitting olympics are going on. I’m SO motivated to finish the freakin’ sweater by sunday you can’t believe it!

This is what it looked like yesterday evening

Yay, almost done! This is what it looks like right now

Yay! Really almost done. I’ve got it all planned out. Tomorrow morning I’ll block (aka iron) the body and sow the shoulder seams. Then I’ll finish the cuff (rib? english?) on the second sleeve and continue with the first one. When that’s done I’ll knit the v-neck rib and the second sleeve, and finally block the sleeves and sew them to the body. Doable in the weekend? Heck yeah! (I’m secretly hoping to finish it tomorrow, it’s good to be optimistic, right?)

Oh, and it looks like I’ll be escaping Europe for the first time in the end of may. I just paid 620 euros for a flight ticket to San Fransisco (and back again) which to me is a real bargain – it just so happened that Icelandair had an offer on flights from Helsinki to San Fran! My parents have planned a trip to visit my brother, who’s studying at Berkeley, and I decided to join them. Apart from investigating California, we’re going to rent a car and drive up to Seattle, where my mom used to study back in the 60’s. I’m really looking forward to it! Especially the yarn shops. Isn’t everything bigger and better over there in the New World?

Hoooray!

After truly making an honest try to modify the leaf motif to knit it upside down, and realizing that it was no simple matter, which was probably the reason why it was knitted top down in the first place, I admitted defeat. I therefore cast on for the collar, and knitted the yoke top down. Of course this means some serious grafting business

After a nice sunday walk with mom, I started with about 5 meters of yarn and a needle

I can only say I am grateful that I for some strange reason enjoy grafting, although 120 stitches is asking a bit much. I just think it’s really cool that you can graft pieces together and it really looks like it has been knitted in one piece. It’s a bit like magic. After the major grafting, there was the minor business of the underarm stitches, which was quickly accomplished and voilá, I present to you the lace leaf pullover knitted in the round

and me wearing it (picture courtesy of my mom)

I’m really looking forward to wearing it. It’s a bit warm, being bulky 100% wool but hey, that’s what deoderants are for aren’t they? ;-)

Despite having to prepare the talk for the seminar today, I naturally stole some time for knitting in between. I’m too obsessive to let it go! The talk went quite ok, although I think I bored my friend Markus to death. This seminar is from the mathematics department, and being physicists, Markus and I are not exactly great enthusiasts when it comes to proofs or any other mathematical details that don’t concern us, if it works we’re content (well, at least I, it just sounds better if I assign these feelings to Markus as well!). My talk was pretty much more than one and a half hours of proving two statements. On a blackboard (greenboard actually). With chalk. My hands were white afterwards. Although I did see peoples faces turning paler and paler as I went on and on, more than half of the guys are mathematicians and as such rrrrreally interested in this type of stuff. I don’t know if any of you watch Conan O’Brian, but I could only picture him playing a nerd in this situation, clapping his hands! Isn’t it beautiful when a physicist laughs at the nerdiness of mathematicians?

Anyhoo, knitting. I finished the ribbing of the Létt-lopi sweater and started the lace. It’s a nice simple pattern which is easy to memorize. I’ve now done 17cm of the body and I only have 8cm left before the v-neck starts (which means I’ll have to knit back and forth, darn!). Here’s a peak

and for a little bit of lace detail

I’m really looking forward to finishing it and wearing it! I am also a bit proud of myself because I think I have reached a new level of knitsmanship. I can now officially fix mistakes on the go. Just tonight I noticed I had made a mistake two rows earlier, an eyelet was in the wrong place. Without a trace of fear in my heart I just locally unravelled down to the mistake and friggin fixed it! (Ok, I only started knitting last summer, things are slowly being learnt!) It feels so good.

Oh, and it looks like my mom might be coming to Helsinki in the weekend. Her colleage was supposed to go to a meeting here, but she’s feeling a bit ill, so my mom might step in. Isn’t that great?! She’ll be staying with me of course, and she’ll bring loads of goodies from Iceland such as the Lopi book nr. 25, cd’s, and most importantly lamb. For eating, not spinning ;-) (not that I spin)

I cast on for the second sweater and did some 2×2 ribbing. Man it’s slow compared to the 9mm heaven! I spent over an hour getting 4cm. I didn’t do gauge swatch beforehand since I’m using exactly the same yarn as the pattern calls for and following it completely. I know it’s no garanty, but gauge swatching is about the most boring thing I can think of. Besides, I have a feeling that I knit a bit tighter in general and I reckon it’s ok if the sweater turns out a bit on the smaller side, in my opinion it should be like that. So this is what it looks like

Hahahaha! Don’t worry, it does stretch alot and according to my measurements it stretches to the right size!

Tomorrow I have a talk in this seminar course I’m taking so I probably wont have too much time to knit today. How sad.

We being me and my other self. So, this is the original leaf motif:

This is what happens when you turn the chart upside down (or more accurately, rotate it by 180 degrees):

Finally, this is where you get after spending >2 hours trying to figure out how to knit it upside down, having almost no experience in lace knitting:

Phhhh… this was the air going out of me. After two fun fun fun hours of frogging and reknitting I am slightly proud that I actually managed to get the thing to look rather like two leaves. I’m still not content enough to use it. I think I’ll now cast on for the lace sweater and leave the figuring out business for the weekend.

At least it’s proving to be a challenge!

It looks like I might finish the lace leaf sweater tonight. This is where I was at yesterday evening

It seems that the pattern with raglan sleeves is indeed working out, hooray! Of course the pullover doesn’t really look at all like Teva Durham’s loose-fit design, but hey, I like it! Usually tight fits suit me better. The only problem with the bottom up knitting in the round is that the lace leaf at the collar wont be the same as when it is knitted top down. All the stitches which in the original version would look like raindrops are upside down and look like balloons now (this was the only way I could think of describing it!). It doesn’t seem to matter all that much and as long as it looks like a leaf, I’m pretty happy about it. One positive thing, at least in my opinion, is that I can continue the lace holes on the right sleeve all the way to the collar. That’ll look cool.

I have decided that my olympic adventure will continue with this nice Létt-lopi pattern which I found in my mom’s collection during christmas

My bet is that it’s from the early 80’s, but then again I’m crap at guessing such things. I still remember my mom’s sweater, it was the cardigan version in white color. I’m making the deep-V neck version using this beautiful red color, which is a much deeper red in reality! Flash really washes out colors.

Originally I didn’t intend to use létt-lopi (traitor, traitor!). It seems rather weird to use a scratchy (but durable and very warm) wool for a lacey, fragile pattern such as this one. After work today I went to my local yarn shop to look for substitutes and didn’t find any which fit my budget. I did find supersoft merino yarn which had the exact same gauge as létt-lopi, but at the sight of the price tag I almost fainted, 7.90 euros per 100g skein. First I thought there was a possibility. I need 400g for the sweater and 4*7.90 isn’t too bad. Then I noticed that this snobby ball of yarn contained exactly the same length of thread as a 50g ball of létt-lopi, meaning that I would actually need 8 of them. Hmmm… 8*7.90 = too many euros for a graduate student. So létt-lopi it is, which is of course more appropriate considering which team I am competing for. Go team Iceland!

P.S. I do plan to use a trick that a member of my knitting mailing list tought me. She washes lopi garments in hair conditioner to soften the wool! Isn’t that a cool idea?

P.P.S. The pattern has one BIG problem. The sleeves have to be sewn to the body! *Shudder*

I spent most of the opening ceremony writing up the pattern for my olympic project, since I forgot it at work, silly me. I think the new version is even better than the first one, so perhaps it was a good thing.

Despite it being rather late when I finished the pattern, I simply had to cast on and knit a bit before going to bed. I mean, after all it was THE day to cast on. So that’s what I did, and I finished the rib on the body. This is how the pullover looked when I went to bed:

Yesterday I knitted a bit more and had a terrible realization. This pullover is knitted with bulky yarn on 9mm (US13) needles, which means that it knits up really really quick (it’s a bit scary, because it eats skeins like a hungry wolf. I’m on the fifth already, out of 10, and getting worried that I won’t have enough). Since I’m doing it in the round it’s going to be much faster than the original version as there is no finishing to speak of. Despite spending rather little time knitting yesterday I finished the body, cast on for the sleeves and did the rib.

Ok, so now I’m worried that I’ll finish it during the week and it won’t have been an olympic challenge at all! This is assuming of course that my pattern modifications actually work out, if not I’ll naturally have to frog and rethink and redo so that it might take a while.

But just in case, I’m secretly planning another sweater which might join my olympic challenge! Let’s see.