Olympic entries

I've picked a few projects for the Knitting Olympics. I guess I have to commit to a complete list soon. Here is what I'm thinking about...

Opptuna: This is a baby/child sweater from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton's Noro Knits 2 book.


I'm going to make it out of some bits of Kureyon that I have leftover from my Klaralund sweater from the same book. It's the yarn on the left in this photo.


This should make a nice warm sweater for a baby in need.

I also plan to use some of this yarn to make a child's sweater.

I'm thinking of the child's placket neck sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I have 4 balls of the Cotton Tots in pink, shown on the bottom. That's 800 yards. The pattern's largest size, 8-10 years, calls for 7 skeins of Koigu Kersti, for a total of 798 yards.

However, the Kersti gauge is 21 sts/in, and my yarn calls for 20 sts/in. I can't quite figure out if that means I will have leftovers, or not enough. I think it means that I might run out. So, I think I'll go for a size 6-8 instead, as I know I'll have enough yarn for that one!!

I feel like 2 kids' sweaters doesn't sound like too much. But I guess 2 sweaters in 2 weeks is still quite a good challenge!

I might have to alternate back and forth between projects, since the winter weather combined with knitting in cotton seems to dry out my hands quite a bit. Any ideas on a good moisturizer? I've tried Eucerin, Aquaphor, body butter from Sephora, Vaseline Intensive Care lotion, and straight vaseline petroleum jelly. All of them work for a few minutes, but don't help in the long run. My right thumb (where I pinch the yarn to throw my stitches) is the worst. My skin has gotten dry and started to peel off just under the nail, as I was knitting a cotton baby sweater yesterday. Any ideas??