Yarning Along, and thoughts about Olympic Knitting

So here we have a swatch.  It is intended to be a swatch for a hypothetical Olympic knitting project, more of which later.  But I don't really like it.  It's made from my stash of reclaimed thrift store sweater yarn, plus the white is my homespun.  But I think it looks too ... '70's.  I was too tired to go to knitting night at Starbucks on Monday and so I asked Steve for his opinion, and he could see the validity of that complaint.  And while I love doing colorwork and I am generally adventurous with combining my thrifted yarns, I am just not wanting to do this particular combination.  So, I will maybe spend some time working up a swatch in a different assortment of yarns, with a smaller needle size, and rethink.  I feel like I need a fresh new knitting project for the Olympics, for reasons that are not logical at all.

On the good news front, I picked up my interminable argyles last night at Tertia's choir concert and am almost ready to turn the heel on the second sock.  That is encouraging progress after so many months of stalling, and it would be the logical thing to do to make finishing the argyles my Olympic knitting project.  But I do not knit logically.

(last week's photo of the argyles ... too lazy to take a new one).

The pattern I am currently in love with and wanting to cast on is a free Drops pattern.  There are several things I would need to do to make it workable, I think.  Number one, it needs to be knit in the round.  On smaller needles than 6's, I think.  And I need a totally new color combination.  I'm currently thinking about a chocolate brown for the main color, with hot pink, mint green, and a color to be named at a later date.  The Drops patterns are kind of confusing, but I've read enough Elizabeth Zimmerman to "unvent" a few of the issues in them.  I think I can, I think I can!

I know I'm not energetic enough to crank out an entire Nordic sweater during the 17 days of the Olympics, so I'm thinking I will do a provisional cast-on at the base of the yoke, knit upwards through the yoke to the neckline and bind off, and call that my goal for the Olympics.  Citius, Altius, Fortius!  But not the whole sweater.  After the yoke is done, I'll start from the provisional cast-on and knit downwards, divide the sleeves and body, and when it's all done, steek it and knit on some buttonbands.  Simple, right?  But first I have to swatch and decide on the colors.  My reason for wanting to do the yoke first and then knit the rest of the sweater top-down is to conserve yarn if necessary.

Oh yeah, what am I reading?  Well, I found the last Tom Clancy, Command Authority, on the "lucky day" shelf at the library and am working on that, as well as various things on the Kindle.  There is also Seven Men by Eric Metaxas, and This Town by Mark Leibovich.  All in all, especially with the cold winter weather, I'm feeling like staying home and reading, with maybe a little knitting for a change of pace.  Usually in this space every week I report on my quilting progress, but that hasn't happened at all this last week.