My Olympic Project

Hi friends. I can’t believe that the Olympics are almost over. What a wild ride so far. After hearing about an “Olympic project” during the last Olympics, I decided to go for it this time. So after hearing about the Olympic challenge again on The Yarn Garden’s Feature Friday Facebook video, I decided I would start the Liva Cardigan by Amy Christoffers. I purchased the yarn and pattern back in September. And since it was quite a bit of yarn and a cardigan that I wanted to knit for myself, I felt it was the perfect time to get it out of my stash.

I actually purchased 9 balls of this yarn as I wasn’t sure I would need 8 or 9. This is the same yarn that I used for the Marit shawl that I made for my Mother in Law.

And this is the cardigan. You can find it on Ravelry here. I fell in love with this cardigan when I saw it at a trunk show at my local yarn shop. So a few days before the Olympics Opening, I started “training” for the big event. And when I say training, I mean swatching, LOL

The recommended needles are US size 8, but I had too many stitches for gauge. So I went up to a US size 9 and was still 1 stitch off. So after talking with the Head Gardener at The Yarn Garden and getting some helpful hints on whether to swatch again and needle size, I decided to go with the size 9. So I was all set to go the day of Opening Ceremonies.

To start I had to make 5 mitered square blocks. 3 of these squares will form the back of the cardigan and the remaining 2 will be for pockets. This is my first time making mitered squares and I enjoyed making them. The pattern was well written and I didn’t have any problems. Well, a little with the center diagonal where the decreases are. I just had to remember to give a little extra tug. I love the way the squares look. The Topaz yarn makes them look a bit wonky. The yarn goes thick and thin throughout, so to me it makes them look lumpy. But like with the Marit shawl, they will look better with blocking.

So I stitched 3 of the blocks together for the back and picked up stitches for the left side.

So this is as far as I have gotten. Last night I separated the stitches for the sleeves and to do a 3 needle bind off, but I had one too many stitches and I didn’t have a set of size 9 DPN’s for the sleeves. That called for a quick online purchase and then I put all of the stitches back onto the main cable. So, I will not be standing on the podium on Sunday, but I really didn’t think I would get this cardigan finished in 16 days. But the Olympic challenge was a good reason to get it started. I would like to finish it before winter is over, so fingers crossed.

So that is what I am up to. Do you have an Olympic project going?