Knitting Olympics: My Fall from Glory

This post is long & has a lot of pictures. Apparently I have quite a bit to say regarding this adventure!

For those of you (few) who read my blog & don't knit or don't have a crazy knitter in your life let me explain the Knitting Olympics. The idea is that the knitter challenges him/herself to knit a project in the time of the Olympics. Cast on as the flame was lit and cast off by the time the flame was extinguished at the end of the closing ceremonies. The event is 17 days long and the idea is to push yourself like the Olympic athletes do but you are allowed to determine what project(s) you want to work on.

The buzz for the Ravelympics over on Ravelry started a few months ago. I thought the idea was a neat one when it was done two years ago for the Summer Olympics. The team names & event list are incredible. The Ravelry Team has done an amazing job of hosting this event! For me though it was overwhelming. Work was kicking my butt and my shoulder was causing me pain so I didn't really want to commit to a team and then be a source of disappointment because I couldn't get my project done.

The Knitting Olympics actually started with The Yarn Harlot in 2006. The Ravelympics morphed out of that amazing project. On February 10th Stephanie announced that she was again hosting the Knitting Olympics. As I read through her post on the announcement I started to get excited. I knew it was crazy for me to even consider this project as the Olympics started in two days. The Athlete's Pledge made me giggle and affirmed my commitment to this adventure.

I wish I could find the quote that convinced me I needed to take this challenge. I've been all through the Yarn Harlot's posts but I just can't find it. Let me try explain. I didn't want to "join" anything official - even sign up for the Yarn Harlot's list because I was so afraid of failing and I didn't want one more thing to disappoint me. The words that the Yarn Harlot wrote that resonated with me read something like "...even if you don't win you won't know unless you try". Why was I giving up without trying? I took a moment and stepped back and looked at how hard things had been (leaky roof, never ending winter, difficulties at work and constant shoulder pain) and I thought to myself...just DO it for you Sara. Challenge yourself, prove to yourself that you CAN do this. I was committed & I signed up that day & I started swatching the next day.

The project I chose to knit was the Flair Cardigan by Wendy Bernard at Knit and Tonic. That is right, an adult sized sweater in 17 days. I purchased the yarn for this last summer while we were in New York to make this very sweater as a gift for my sister. Since Hillary's birthday is in May so I thought this would be a great time to knit this - the gift would be done months in advance. I knew finishing the sweater would NOT include putting buttons on. I did not want to put buttons on until my sister had tried the sweater on so I could place the buttons properly.

And so my Knitting Olympics adventure began.

02/12/2010 - The flame was lit at about 11:01PM CST so cast on and knit the first 10 rows of the pattern before heading to bed.

Here I am, ready to knit now that the flame was lit.

Progress the first night.

02/13/2010 - Great progress - through row 44 (that is 34 rows knit)! I completely forgot to take a picture of how far I got....but it doesn't matter, just keep reading!

02/14/2010 - Valentine's Day set back. When I measured my gauge it was wrong. I adjusted my needle size. Problem is I went the _wrong_ way. I dropped to a 6 when I should have gone UP to an 8. The sweater was way to small. I ripped back 46 rows (over 7000 stitches) and started over. By the end of the day I'd completed up to row 50 (reknit over 9200 stitches). The sizing looked MUCH better so I'm glad I ripped and started over.

The morning started here:

And the day ended here:

02/15/2010 - 0 rows knit. After knitting all day the previous day my shoulder was painful, I was 3 weeks behind in my year in pictures posting so I walked away from knitting.

02/16/2010 - 10 rows knit.

02/17/2010 - 11 rows knit.

02/18/2010 - 11 rows knit.

02/19/2010 - 0 rows knit. Friday night here, no idea why I didn't knit. I imagine I was simply to exhausted.

02/20/2010 - 37 rows knit and this is where I finished body of the sweater. Huge push on this Saturday. I stayed up late but got a lot of work done! This left 2 sleeves and the neck edging to knit.

02/21/2010 - 8 rows knit. My afternoon with this project started in tears, yes tears. I decided to make some progress so I picked up stitches around the top of the sweater to put the seed stitch border, which included one final button hole.

And this is where I stopped. Even though there were 8 more days for me to finish this challenge I just stopped.

The sweater was not going to fit properly - it is too short. The pattern reads "when body, measured from underarm to needles is 7.75" it says to start the 1.5" seed stitch border making the sweater only 9.25" long. I added 3 extra inches and it was still too short. I realize it is supposed to be a cropped jacket but the 12.25" doesn't make it waist length on my sister who is 5'2" tall.

I had to stop I don't have enough yarn to make it longer AND knit the sleeves which are pretty necessary on this jacket..

This is entirely my fault. I purchased yarn for the pattern 9 months ago out of state so I cannot get more in the same dye lot. I did not read the pattern nor look at the schematic (both beautifully done) before buying yarn. Had I done this I would have (hopefully) caught that it would have been too short & bought more yarn.

I've decided to send the sweater (sans sleeves) to my sister to see 1) how it fits 2) how long she'd like it and 3) if she even does like the style. Once I hear from her I'll decide which way to go.

So. I attempted. I tried. And I failed but I'm okay with this. I'm walking away from The Knitting Olympics with my head held high. Like Lindsey Vonn I entered the Olympics with an injury but I was also ill prepared. It was my fault that I didn't read the pattern and account for modifications.

Despite all this there is one thing I know: I could have knit this entire sweater in 17 days. I knit through the pain and the snow and the tears. I ripped out over 7000 stitches and reknit them in one day. Before I stopped knitting there were 2 days that I didn't knit a stitch and there were still 8 days that I could have continued knitting. That is 10 additional days and all I had left to complete were the sleeves.

This may be cliche, but I don't really care.

I may not have won but I tried. I do know that I could have won my gold medal had I been better prepared. I'm glad I took this challenge and look forward to trying again when the Olympics come around.

I will forever be in awe of The Yarn Harlot who won her gold medal for completing The Whistler Sweater...what story, what a saga, what a win!