Monday, February 27, 2006

Failure Is Always the Best Way to Learn

That's a line from one of my favorite Kings of Convenience songs. You should check them out, they rock my world Click here for their website.

Anyway, as you probably suspected, I did not get the gold, not even the silver, and not even a bronze (we'll forget about how there are no other medals besides gold). I wanted it so badly. Here's where I was at 2pm today:


2 PM and most pieces were finished.

I say most because I still have to do the neck. However, at 2PM I still thought I had a shot so I was scampering (yes, scampering) to finish. I started seaming things together and weaving in ends. I finished all that at around midnight, Blowing by the deadline. If this were a 30 mile cross country skiing event, I didn't even come in 7th. Not only was I not good enough to get gold, I also wasn't good enough to get in the top ten. I kinda feel like what I imagine Bode Miller feels like right now. I think slighted is a good term for it. So this is what I've got right now:



It looks done right? Well, I still have to add on the 10 cms of neck. Then that's it, it's done. But if I stared at the purple any longer, I was going to go insane.

If Bob Costas were here, he'd be grilling me. It'd go something like this:

Bob: That must be surely disappointing for you, putting your working project on hold to try to knit this all in 16 days. How are you feeling right now?
Me: Well, Bob, not great. You know I put all this effort into getting this project done. I picked something I thought would be a challenge, but that I was pretty sure I could do in the allotted time and it just didn't happen. I feel pretty dejected, led astray and disappointed in myself as an Olympian.
Bob: Can you tell us a little bit of what happened out there? You know, it looked like you had a solid thing going and we thought you had it all together until the end right there.
Me: Yeah, I got tripped up a little around the sleeves. The pattern was written while the designer was on drugs and I have no idea what she meant me to do for any part of the sleeve cap. At first, it looked like it was done, but I had to go back and use time I would have used on the second sleeve to re-do the sleeve cap and it just put me in a bad position. I'm glad I got to recover though and use up the time that I had left over wisely. You know, I really felt the olympic spirit there for a bit. I was down and out and thought there was no way I'd make it, but I had to keep going because it was in the spirit of the Olympics. I'm not a quitter by any means, but were it not for the Olympics, I probably wouldn't have knitted so feverishly today and sewed all those seams with such determination. It's times like these (sniffle) that make me love the Olympics and make me feel like a real competitor.
Bob: We'll see you around in 2010 then for the Vancouver games, then?
Me: Oh no question about it, Bob. I'm really aiming for gold in 2010.
Bob: Well thanks for joining us here today.
Me: Thank you.

The sleeve I finally ended up making did actually work. I tried it on while one sleeve was attached and it looked OK. It felt like the sleeve might actually be a bit too big, and I'm not so sure it flattered my figure, but I'll leave that to the Stitchn' Bitch girls to decide on Tuesdsay.

Time to start on the next list of projects I want to do. The embossed leaves socks are going to be travelling around with me for a bit until I get the rayon/metallic awesome yarn wound into a ball. Can we take another look of that skein in all it's gorgeousness?


I'm drooling with anticipation. I really need a hipscarf too because it's sooo helpful when belly dancing to be able to tell when you're moving your hips accidentally or not. I might need to get more coins and I definately need some jump rings. I'll be taking a few more shots of that yarn before I turn it into a ball though because it looks so gorgeous there. It almost looks too good to knit with, but I don't play with those rules when the yarn is as expensive as that was.

I'll post a list of projects I want to do soon, but I think I'll post a more broad list of things to do now that the Olympics are over on my livejournal (link can be found on the sidebar for anyone that cares).

4 comments:

MUDNYC said...

Jenn you are so funny. I love Bob Costas interview. The sweather looks great, can't wait to see it on you Tuesday!

Anonymous said...

Jenn what about the 2008 summer Olympics? Perhaps the summer games would be better as there is usually less knitting in summer garments. Assuming that you would chose a bulky gauge. The sweater looks great though.

Claudine

CityMinx said...

the sweater looks awesome! I want one!

Melissa said...

you did a great job for your first sweater! so you didn't finish the neck - big deal! You took the challenge and stuck through it til the end. i'm sure you'll finish it up soon.