but – you know, screw the rules – I am so sooo close that I can taste it and a little rule about when to stop isn’t going to make me lay down my needles in defeat. I’ll cross that finish line – even if I’m the last one on the road, wading through the sea of discarded paper cups, past the finish line ribbons ripped, hours ago and now flapping in the wind. I will complete this project. I will complete it well, and resize it to fit my son for I will be damned if after all of this fun he can’t wear the thing.

Actually – from what I’m writing it sounds like I’ve had an awlful time doing this – but it’s been really fun. The best has been designing something from scratch – from just an idea and actually seeing it manifest before my very eyes. This is much more satisfying than following a pattern actually…though I admit, I’m limited by my technical knowledge of stitches and of math – but, that is something that will change and improve with time and with experience. I feel like I’ve learned so much from this project and have been emboldened (sp?) to create more of my own projects – perhaps some a little more daring that this.

I wouldn’t mind a jumper though – it IS pretty damn cute – I have to admit.

anyway – nicely done! It was such a perfect movie to knit to. By the way – have I ever mentioned that the first time I actually got back into knitting since childhood was through a dorm-mate at Mills College who was 5 years my elder, pre-med and a bartender at Bimbo’s in San Francisco – by far, one of the coolest women I knew at the time – anyway – she insisted we watch “Speed” and I was hooked – still, my personal favorite is Hitchcock for knitting thrillers – but Red Eye was comprable to Rebecca or Rear Window. Not in cinematic or photographic quality – don’t get me wrong – but rather in intensity and by far, one of the most bad ass revenge scenes by a woman in a long time – without that fucking Disney corny – “oh – I’m a one-liner pseduo-feminist who really DOES need the man to save me in the end” –that’s a whole other topic dear reader —

anyway – my point being, I got a shitload of knitting done last night – all the while with my trusty knitting pal – L who is by far the most self-underrating knitter I know besides my mother. She’s sitting there sewing her piece together with great skillful skill and is so polished and consistent it’s a wonderful thing to watch. The best thing is that she is always up for knitting and as a bonus her husband and mine are friends – so it works out well for all of us.

So. back to the knitting – I’m almost done, I think I can do it – I’ve got one more day and really – I’m not ashamed to say – I have not watched one moment of the Olympics.

I’m exaggerating – I watched curling – just a little bit.

….does that count?

My best efforts to suceed have been waylayed by life. The obstacles that accompany it’s movement forward have been intervening despite my intentions to finish my project by the 26th. Money has been so tight that we finally cashed out our change box in the basement and fortunately D was wrong in his prediction that we had around $40 – it was more like $125 – which bought groceries and digital photo paper and sleeves for me to sell at the local art walk this thursday. Our friends have been rallying around us as well – C and L have babysat for free, K is taking thursday so I can sell my photos while D plays in his dart league and the gals of Frock & the DIY Lounge have been more than generous letting me use the lounge as home base the night of the art walk. It’s a long story – but suffice it to say that we have some financial commitments that are sucking us dry – mainly a house that has been on the market since last July when we moved up to the NW, on which we pay a second mortgage each month until said house sells. how do we do it you may ask? I do not know.

on to happier thoughts…

so – as you can see, things have been moving along at least – what you can’t see is that the torso of the jumper has ended up being too short for A. Like, 4 inches short. All I can think of is that when I wrote down in my instructions “work until the peice measures 10″ I meant from the base of the armhole and not from the top – so here I am with gussett and one leg worked and soemthing totally useless to me once it’s done ’cause it just doesn’t fit.

So…here is my plan and it’s just crazy enough to work I think. I will perform a sort of ‘surgery’ mid torso and since I have individual rows of color beginnning and ending on the same side, I figured I can rip out one row while placing the two adjacent resulting live stitches on needles and once complete, can work from the top portion down, one or two entire sets of color rows which would add either 3 or 6 inches – however many I choose to do. Then….and here is where it gets tricky – I need to rejoin the live stitches from the bottom with the ones just worked on the top – I figure that I can use the kitchener stitch to join the two parts.

we shall see what happens. My strategy is to finish the jumper first since I’ve been so busy and wont’ be able to work on it again until this weekend right before the deadline on Sunday – I just hope I don’t run out of yarn.

So far I’m done with the gusset and am presently working the right leg. The stranding of the colors is bugging me though – there must be a way to clean up that one side where the stripes don’t match up.

i’ll post more later.