Mary Ann Stephens' "Vancouver" by Dale of Norway

All three of my sons play football,  so I’m a very busy spectator, this time of the year.  Vancouver is the perfect project for my purpose – simple enough that I can blast through the stockinette portions without missing any action on the field, yet interesting enough at some points to make it appealling to a geeky knitter like me (or you, perhaps?).  And, it gets me into the Olympic spirit…even if I am just lollygagging on the bleachers.

I’ve read the pattern through and it seems pretty straight forward.  However, there are little things here and there that I thought I’d mention to you; things I’ll tweak a bit in mine that you might want to consider, too.

First, as always, we need to consider what needle sizes we’ll use.  Patterns really never tell you this, they merely suggest a starting point for testing as many needles sizes as you find necessary until one of them finally gets you the precise, indicated gauge.  Really, these needle size suggestions in patterns, although a standard step, are really misleading, at best.  I think there could be many more happy FO’s if we entirely did away with needle size suggestions in patterns.  If you want to end up with a sweater made to the specified dimensions, try various needle sizes – not merely the suggested size – out in your own, personal knitting tension until you find the right ones for you.  (Hint: I’m using different sizes.  I might even use a third, different size for the stranded work, too…we’ll see!)

Obviously, my yarn color is different, too.  Had to be! (BTW, that’s Daletta “mist” 2425 you see there.  Nice, huh?!

I’ve also made one minor change in where I put my markers, but I’d like you to consider it, too, for I think it makes things a good bit more foolproof.  I know it will save me from a fair bit of frogging!  The pattern has you place one marker right in the middle of each side.  Actually, with the ribbed panels going up the side, it’s super easy to see right where the middle of each side will be.  The real issue, to my mind anyway, is knowing immediately when to switch from stockinette stitch to ribbing and when to end the ribbing and revert back to stockinette.  It would really be nice to know that in real time, rather than several rounds after I goofed! Rather than use one marker at each side, I use two – one on each end of the ribbing.  Plus, I color code them – red (ok, magenta) means “Stop the stockinette!”, green means “Go back to stockinette!”.   And, dahlink, I just know you love my high-end stitch markers, yes?!