Sunday, February 26, 2006

Last quest for the Gold ...

As of last night I was ready to throw in the towel. I was so upset after knitting up 320 stitches around the front & neckline TWICE and still tearing it out a third time ... I couldn't even take a good picture of the blob I had before me. This is what it looked like thru my river of tears tho.


Disaster had struck!!

Can you see the hole in front of my finger? Well that's not the only one... I won't show you the rest and make myself break down in tears again. This is not good! Got to find a "fix" or I'll have to give up. Throw in the towel ....[But what about my cheering section ... my fans, family & friends? They've had more faith in me that I had in myself. How can I let them down? Never mind the lose of my sanity.]

Okay, be calm and blindly go to the sewing room.... stitch down the steeks so that further unraveling doesn't happen. [I learned my lesson ... next time if the steek is longer than an arm hole, machine stitch before crocheting or just machine stitch. This was also Baby alpaca and not as clingy as Wool. The directions didn't remind me of this. The designer SAID I could crochet the steeks. She lied.]

Like I said ... I learned my lesson.

I must go on for the gold ... So I got up at 4:00 am this morning and completed the bands of 320 stitches along the fronts & neckline before Noon. Here's a pic of the inside back neckline tacked down with the herring bone stitch. Okay... I can do this ...

I rolled the crappy side steeks under and stitched those down with yarn. Can you see what I did in this picture? Any major problem here? No? Okay, good. This is the inside ... who's going to examine it in detail anyway? Well maybe Paula would, but nobody else would right. Well maybe the whole S&B group at M.I.T. But nobody else!~



Okay so here's the finished result.

I had 15 minutes to go and I never sewed buttons on so FAST in my life. Once it's dry, I'll take a picture of me wearing it. I only did a quick block on it for now. I'll do a more complete block later. But I want to wear it tomorrow. Well, if it fits of course.

This is it... I'm done.!! And guess what? If it wasn't for this CRAZY Knitting Olympic idea, I probably would have given up when I ran into this major ordeal that I did last night ....

But NO, I went for the Gold instead! ... Updated 2/27/06 below with my picture.

7 comments:

JulieLoves2Knit said...

It's glorious! You did it - I like that crochet the steeks part - never done that. It really looks great and just think of all the compliments you'll get. Next time the steeks won't seem so intimidating!
Congrats!! Great job!!

Shelley L. MacKenzie said...

Yay you did it!!! Sorry you ran into a bit of bad luck for a bit...but you over came it and went on to shine!!!

Anny said...

Kudos for sticking with it and pushing through. It's totally about mental preparedness and strength at Olympic calibre knitting and YOU DID IT, BABY!!!

And it looks great. Congratulations!

FemiKnitMafia said...

Oh Rhonda, I'm so excited for you!! It looks marvelous. You had me really scared there for a minute, but I'm SO glad it worked out in the end. Congrats!!!

Nadira said...

Yay, Rhonda! Your really pulled through, and it looks wonderful.

Shelley L. MacKenzie said...

Hi Rhonda. You asked where I got the pattern for my cable scarf that I did for the knitting olympics...I got it from here:

http://helloyarn.com/irishhikingscarf.pdf

JulieLoves2Knit said...

Hey - go get your medal - they are so cool!!!