Knitting an Icelandic Sweater

This past July/August, my parents went on a trip to Iceland to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary (wow!) as well as my Dad's Retirement (yes!).  We always miss them alot when they travel.  I look forward to their trips with dread.  My parents not only help alot with my kids, but I talk to them (or text) them, sometimes multiple times a day.  When they are away, I really notice the silence.

As I write this they are currently off again visiting a warm weather destination.  The silence is filled with comfort this time as I've cast on an Icelandic sweater kit they brought me home as a birthday gift from their trip last Summer.

The yarn itself is Icelandic, Lettlopi, comparable a bit to Cascade 220.  The original kit colours had the main colour as black which my Mom switched out to an awesome yellow/lime green (pictured on the left).  She switched out a couple other colours for me as well.

The sweater is knit from the bottom up, and has been an interesting project in sweater shaping and sizing.  I cast on for the womans small size, decreased to just above a childs 8-10, then back up again to somewhere between that and a 10-12.  My arms are crazy long, so in order to acheive the right length I think I have to knit the men's large.  Ha ha.  Other than the bottom which had some colourwork it has been round and round stockinette.  I think it's all the math calculation which has me working on this so fiercely.  I keep wondering "will this actually fit?" and have tried it on twice just to be sure.

I'm currently sitting at 37cm and have to get to 42 in the body before I switch to the arms.  This sweater saves the best for last.  All that awesome colorwork is waiting for me.  Must knit faster!

Out of some stockinette boredom today I skeined 4 of the darker balls to give them a pre-wash.  I also added some conditioner into the mix to see how much it would soften up the yarn.  Amazingly the yarn hardly lost any dye at all, but I'm still glad I checked.  It would be alot of work to knit this all up then have the dark colours bleed.

I'll keep posting progress photos as I go along!