I was feeling guilty for wanting to start some new projects while I still had so many to finish, casting about for my October UFO Resurrection, and realized that I had neither finished up September's, nor had I written about it! Time to remedy that.
In early September, I pulled out this project, just about a year after I had last made a stab at finishing it. It is the Fericy top from Bouton d'Or Number 82 (a spring collection, but printed in December 2004). I had bought the pattern book and a different yarn than called for back in March 2005, because the original yarn had already been discontinued (don't you just hate that?!). DD Nikki had picked out the pattern and it looked straightforward enough, in fact knitting the front and back fairly flew. Then, I derailed myself by making two different sleeves (as in, they didn't match) and had to make a third to figure out which was the correct version). By that point, winter had set in, so, being the seasonal kitty that I am, I set the pieces aside for warm weather... I mean, she probably wouldn't be wearing it anyway, right? Last year, I had managed to set in the sleeves, but when I tried it against her, she informed me that it wasn't going to fit since she had gained so much weight... not entirely true, but enough to discourage me, as she had gained 10 pounds while living over in Chico. I put it away and hoped that she would lose a bit and that I would finish up in the spring. It didn't help that all the yarn I had left over to sew up the seams with was this tiny bit...
I know there's nothing but the wood grain for scale, but trust me on this... the leftovers were alarmingly small.
Last month, I looked at the pieces, did some of the sewing and was disgusted enough by the instructions to fold it away and pursue something I liked better. Bad attitude. I also thought even more highly of some of my knitwear-designing friends. They put hours of time into writing several pages of highly readable instructions, while I was faced with one cryptic paragraph about finishing this thing. Ugh! Eye surgery intervened and so the top sat in a bag in my office while the pattern book was stuffed into the bottom file cabinet drawer next to the computer the past month.
I decided on Sunday that sometimes you just have to suck it up, get tough, and get finished. I told myself that I couldn't start ANY thing more until Fericy, and October's UFO Resurrection were both DONE.
I am relieved to present to you a finished object, the Fericy top...
done in Lana Grossa Point
I need to go shopping with DD for ribbon to thread through the diagonal rows of holes in the front, but otherwise I am done... and not sure that DD will pose for a photo shoot, so hung the top up for this picture.
The yarn was splitty, even down to the last sewing, and the pattern was poorly written, but it IS very cute. And pink. And done.
I would feel bad about my attitude, except for feeling good about making something for DD besides a hat.
The last time I knitted anything resembling a garment for her was this knitted yoke for a toddler-sized dress that she wore incessantly each summer while she was four, five and six years old.
Guess it was time for something new....
