Dale of Norway Whistler for Mom

I’m not sure that I can do this project justice in a blog post, but I’ll try.

Years ago, when I was knitting on Steve’s Le Massif sweater and working at an LYS, my mom asked me to knit her a Dale of Norway ski sweater. She’s done quite a bit of cross country skiing and liked the iconic look of the Norwegian ski sweater. Of course I said yes, both because she’s my mom and I’ll knit her whatever she wants, and also because I enjoy knitting ski sweaters but have little interest in wearing one myself.

Mom knows her way around ravelry, so she dug through the Dale of Norway archives and settled on Whistler, the 2005 Olympic design. She wanted a versatile color combination that would work well with jeans, so she chose shades of blue. As Steve said as I was finishing the sweater, it just looks like my mom!
Just as I’ve told anyone who’s ever been impressed by me knitting these designs, a sweater like this one is more a test of endurance than anything else. It’s not especially difficult knitting (though you do have to juggle some large charts), but there’s a whole lot of it! And once you finish the knitting, it’s on to the finishing.

Despite having steeked and finished a few sweaters in the past, I still underestimated how long the finishing work would take on this sweater. One reason for this was that this design isn’t nearly as knitter friendly as Le Massif. There were more rows that required me to carry three colors of yarn, and I had to do a lot of duplicate stitch–I think it amounted to around five solid hours–before I could get to the actual assembly of this sweater.
I do believe that all of that hard work pays off in the end. Dale of Norway sweaters are really beautiful, and my mom was pleased with the finished piece. She loves the way it fits and tells me that it’s much more comfortable than she expected. Steve finds his ski sweater to be too hot, but Mom is able to wear hers without overheating.

Pattern: Dale of Norway Whistler
Yarn: Dale of Norway Falk 11 skeins #5744, .5 skein #2642, 3.5 skeins #1293, 2.5 skeins #3743
Needles: Addi Turbo US 1, 2, 3
Made for: Mom
Timeline: 25 December 2013 – 4 January 2016
Modifications: added length to sleeves, omitted rip cord at hem
Worst Part: hours of duplicate stitch
Best Part: the surprise on Mom’s face when she began opening her gift and realized the sweater was finally finished

Special thanks to my mom for her patience while I knit this sweater and for modeling for photos.