Ravelympics: Day 1

So, believe it or not, I've actually got a decent start on this! I'm already worlds ahead of where I was for NaKniSweMo, but we won't talk about that.

I had my pattern all picked out.

I bought the appropriate amount of yarn.

My yarn is wound into balls. (hehe, balls...)

I swatched. Well, sort of. (okay, now this is sounding familiar) I knit a bit and it was coming out too small, so I'm knitting the next size up and it should be fine. I hope. Gauge swatches lie, anyhow.

I cast on during the opening ceremonies last night, and got a couple of hours in. I've put in a couple more hours so far today, and while it is driving home the fact that yes, I do knit slow as hell, I'm actually making decent headway on this. I'm about halfway through the raglan increases, whee!

Also, Malabrigo is soft and squishy and I think I never want to knit with anything else ever again. I loves it, even if it is kind of a pain in the ass to switch skeins every couple of rows. Most of the balls look like they're pretty close to the skein, but I have one that's sort of lighter and one that's noticeably darker despite the fact that I sat in the LYS for fifteen minutes comparing skeins of Burgundy and trying to pick the five that matched the best. I started with the lightest and the darkest in the hopes that the garter section would help to further disguise the dissimilarity in color, and it seems to be working so far.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this progresses well. I'm hoping to be done with the yoke by Monday, then done with the torso by the following Monday, which would leave me two days each for the sleeves, and two more days to do any finishing and blocking. When I first started, I thought there was no way I'd actually finish it in time, but now that I've got some amount of it done, I'm feeling optimistic again!