Ravelympic Knitting - Part 1

River Forest Gansey
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

Well, friends, I'd left of blogging for a little bit, there, because I was pretty well sidelined with the actual knitting. Rather than the writing about it.

But seeing as I have a moment free, here, I thought I would toss up the happy endings of a couple little Ravelympic stories.

The first is my River Forest Gansey.

I have been wanting to knit a sweater for my son for quite some time now and the Ravelympics always seem to be the perfect time to do a little sweater knitting. I'm not quite crazy enough to think I can manage an adult sweater (yet), but knitting for a child seems completely do-able. Last time I managed a cute cardigan for my niece and this time I thought I'd knit for myself, vicariously.

I picked this pattern out of Handknit Holidays. I may have to pick up a copy of the book for myself, because the one I used is a much "loved" copy from our local library. There are a couple of patterns in it I would really like to do, and I think I might knit another version of this sweater as well. It's written in both child and adult sizes.

The yarn is Debbie Bliss Rialto and I can't say enough good things about this yarn. It's a cable ply yarn with a crazy number of singles (which I didn't fully dissect to count, but there are a LOT). It is incredibly bouncy and has fantastic stitch definition. It is also superwash and thus perfect for knits for children. I already did a sweater for my nephew out of the same yarn, but in gray.

I also love it because I bought a whole bunch on a crazy sale ;)

The sweater is an easy knit. The basic pattern repeat is only six stitches and four rows so it is simple to memorize. The trees at the top aren't that hard either, and the pattern was pretty easy to follow as written. I did not purposefully do any modifications. However, it is possible that I knit the sleeves in a smaller needle size by accident. Woops. I'm not re-knitting them, now!

The only reason I suspect this is that the body had a lot more "give" in it. I blocked both the body and the sleeves to the next size bigger. The body had plenty more stretch and probably could have gone even one size larger. But the sleeves were a bear to get blocked big enough to match the body. I still managed it and everything seamed up a treat.

I've managed to wrestle the boy into wearing the sweater a couple of times already, and it handles washing well. It still fits after a tumble dry, although the sleeves are a bit short. That's not all bad, considering how much of a mess he's prone to get into!

Some basic stats:
Pattern: River Forest Gansey by Jolene Treece
               from Handknit Holidays
Size: Small (25" chest)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Rialto, approximately 4 1/4 balls (488 yards)
Needles: Size 5 and 7