Hot $h1t! I did it!

Check me out! I did it!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, not only did I /finally/ complete my Olympic-cum-Turtle KAL sweater, but I also managed to overcome Second Sweater Syndrome and complete its companion.

Well well well, wouldja lookit that?


And how about that?


Whoa, look! There's another one!


And the reverse side!


And this is the best picture I got of both sweaters in action. It's strangely apropos - both boys heading in different directions, Henry at top speed. This is my daily challenge, just dressed up in hand-knit sweaters.



Pattern: "Prepster" from The Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits
Yarn: "Candy Cane" from Sandy's Palette, purchased at Wisconsin Sheep & Wool back in 2005. No colorway names given. Roughly 8 oz went into each sweater.
Needles: US6 and US8 Denise Interchangeable Circs
Modifications: On the green sweater, absolutely none. For once in my life, I followed a pattern exactly as written. On the blue sweater, I kinda fudged up a slightly larger size, seeing as my children are giants-in-waiting. I added 4 sts to the front and back panels, as well as adding about an inch in length. I knit the sleeves as written, trusting the additional shoulder width to be sufficient to compensate for the extra sleeve length. Oh, and technically "Prepster" includes a hat, which I decided to skip.
Models: Ben in blue, Henry in green

(If you want to see the beginning saga of the green sweater, which was my official Olympic sweater, you can check it out here. The blue sweater, like most second-born children, had its infancy go virtually unnoticed. Poor thing.)


I loved working with this yarn, which I have come to believe is from the same base yarn as Scout's Twist yarns, and thus is a great worsted weight merino wool with one ply that grabs up more dye than the other plies, and thus you get a pretty cool effect from it.

If you look close, you can see on the blue sweater how those four measly sts on the front and back panels made it suddenly pool like mad. In fact, if you look really close at that picture of the back of the sweater, you can just about pick out where I made my gut check and decided I was not about to rip back the whole bit of back panel I'd completed, but would instead just start alternating balls of yarn every two rows in order to make the pooling stop.

Pics were taken at my in-laws, three days after Thanksgiving when it was a completely insane 64 degrees out. Sadly my camera batteries were low, and so I wasn't able to actually take pictures when Ben started to do goofy things like lean backward against the chilly concrete stairs, and then pause and give me this look like, "Oh yes, I'm soooo comfortable. This is completely natural. Everyone does this. Can't you imagine just how relaxed and at ease I'm feeling right now? The cold concrete wedging between my lumbar vertebrae, my head at an awkward angle just over the edge of the stair above, so if I relax my neck I'll brain myself.... Admit it, you're jealous. You wish you could feel this casual and calm in such an awkward position. If you were wearing this sweater, you would."

It would have been perfect for a Rowan spread, I swear.