the Olympic Pilot Light is on

Ok, i'm willing to admit that i may have taken the "challenge" part a bit too far when i chose St. Moritz as my Olympic knitting project. My "it doesn't look that bad" attitude is fading now that i have the delicate yarn and tiny needles in my hot little hands. Yeah, i've knit in two colors before; a Lopi sweater many years ago... clearly i didn't quite appreciated the difference between 3 stitches/inch on #10 needles and 6 stitches/inch on #3 needles. *gulp*.

But i'm ready for the challenge. I'm actually excited. I need the kick in the ass. I always enjoy the process. So much so that i rarely finish projects. I get bored and have more fun thumbing through old knitting patterns or planning another project and don't have the drive to finish things. I'm also not a competitive person. I don't think i'm going to get stressed out if i am unable to finish the sweater, but i really want to try!

My two-pronged training regimen:
1) Get the fingers flying by jump-starting an old challenging UFO. Enter my Beaverslide Dry Goods Blue/Green Aran. Even though the front and back are completely done, i pushed it to the bottom of the knitting basket 2 years ago and never even cast on the sleeves. So i did just that over the weekend. Hot damn, i love this yarn! I don't know what my hangup was. As soon as i started the sleeve, i fell back in love with the sweater. Sleeve in progress:


2) Like a good little academic academic, i'm doing background research. I went back and read every word that Wendy wrote about her St. Moritz. I'm scanning archives of those who've completed it, and eagerly following the near completion over at Fuzzy Noodle. Big thanks to Marcy-Blogless and Cath, who gave me a couple of really good tips last sunday at while we were at Claudia's. I'm also re-reading the many cool tutorials about two-color knitting and steeking that are available on the web. Here are a few:
Fair Isle 101. great pictures and descriptions!
Two Color Knitting from the Socknitters group.
Knitty article on steeking written by Wendy.

i welcome any other suggestions or ideas for required reading!