Being a somewhat indifferent knitter who tends to stick to small accessories, I finally took the plunge this year and entered the Ravellenics. This is the reincarnation of the original Ravelympics, run by the fiber art social media site, Ravelry. The Ravelympics were very popular until they came to the attention of the International Olympic Committee, who felt it was an underhanded attempt to make knitting an Olympic sport and told Ravelry the name couldn’t be used. Guess the gods who sit on Mount Olympus have the copyright.
Anyhoo, the outcome was use Ravellenics and everyone seems (so far) to not be able to find a copyright violation.
The Games are held during every Olympics and are simply a fun way for knitters, crocheters, and other fiber artists to organize and complete a project during the time they watch the Games. I don’t actually watch the Games because I can’t stand the drivel from the broadcast booth. I also would like to see other competitors than those from the USA. But, you don’t have to watch the games to participate in the Ravellenics, so this year I took the plunge.
My main entry, the King of Confidence sweater:
I realized afterward that the thing I liked best about this was the yoke design. The pattern sizing is HUGE, so if you think you want to make one, you might want to refer to a basic bottom-up, round yoke sweater pattern and substitute this yoke. It is worked in repeats of 10 stitches, so would be easy to work it into a different pattern.
Also, while the pattern calls for the body to be worked in commercial yarn and the yoke in handspun, I did work the entire piece in handspun. The body is a 50% Shetland wool, 25% silk, and 25% angora bunny fur blend that I mixed up a couple of years back and had carded by Spinderella’s. It was spun on an Ashford Traveller with a jumbo flyer and bobbin, and let me with huge skeins. The body used one and one-half skeins and I have lots left over. The yoke was a braid of blue-faced leicester in a color way called “Tiger Lily” that I had picked up at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Show. I used exactly the entire skein. The original pattern called for a round neckline, which I’m not thrilled with, so I kept adding on and had enough to make a mock turtle-neck.
Where the sleeves attach to the body is a bit wonky, so I will go back and let these seams out and rearrange things a bit. The pattern was very unclear on attaching sleeves and seem to assume the knitter had done this before.
In any event, for all the fiddling with size, I was happy with the way it turned out AND finished during the time frame of the Ravellenics. The sweater just wants wet-finishing and blocking.
Here is the back view:
The Wool Merchant's Daughter 
Well done, on the sweater and the finish! Your colors and handspun are beautiful.