FO #5 Veil

I feel like I finished Veil a million years ago. My life has been moving at warp speed lately, and I have the ailments to prove it. Friday at the eye doctor, I was told that I definitely did NOT have pink eye, like I'd thought (the good news! I'm not contagious!), but instead, by wearing my contacts on the plane down to Florida and throughout that weekend, I have somehow dried out my eyes to the point that my contacts were sanding down my corneas, and that if I didn't stop wearing them, I would soon not be able to see at all. So now, I have to wear my glasses for a month (the bad news... I hate hate HATE wearing glasses for extended periods of time. But I guess I would hate being blind more, so...). Oh, the month of May. How you're already screwing me.

Other non-knitting related things that are afflicting me:
1. My second assistant of the year is leaving to go home to Los Angeles. Her last day is May 21, so I have to recruit and train yet another one. Please, send me your recently graduated, unabashedly nerdy youth, preferably if they like history and want to turn that interest into a shitty-paying job in publishing and the chance to meet crusty professors at hotel bars across America.



2. My birthday was April 24. I celebrated with the aforementioned trip to Florida and apparently an attempt to blind myself. While down there, I attended a reunion of a dance club (does that ever actually happen?!) that I used to drive an hour to go to every Friday night in HS. It is all part of the nostalgia tour that is 2010. (My 20th HS reunion is later this fall. I'll see all you Yellow Jackets at home!) Anyway, my sister went with me (she's on the left up there), and we met Spanky and some other friends in Orlando for about three hours of dancing before I couldn't take it anymore. Did you know you can still smoke in bars down there? By midnight, I'd inhaled my share of several packs of cigarettes and sweat more than I thought I even could (some yahoo forgot to test the air conditioning--how one overlooks a tiny thing like that down in FLORIDA escapes me, but there you have it...), and we trucked it back home, stamina not being what it once was, and all.

3. I desperately need a hair cut (see picture above), and I get all kinds of cranky when it is out of control, so I've been in a funk for a few weeks now. Coupled with the glasses, this might be enough to send me around the bend. My hair dresser better have some good ideas. I go see her next Friday.

4. And one knitting related item: I'm sort-of in between projects, and that too is adding to my unease. I don't like it when I have no direction, and right now, everything is conspiring to run off the rails.

So, now that the litany of complaints is aired, let's get down to business, shall we? This little number was supposed to be something I could wear with tank tops in the summer to go out, or with a dress, as pictured. In fact, I'll wear it, but I haven't since these pictures were taken, so perhaps not often. I think I have lingering resentment because of the fit.



Project: Veil
Yarn: Berroco Seduce, 7 hanks, wine color
Needle: US 8--I think this was knit on Pony plastic straight needles, which may have been one reason I hated knitting it so much. Slick yarn, slick needles...



Notes:
This project was why I bought the Nora Gaughan volume 2 booklet to begin with, and why at last year's Super Bowl sale at Knit-a-Bit, I bought all that Seduce, when common sense told me I would hate working with it. The wine color was so pretty in the skein and the finished garment so pretty on the really really pretty model that I thought OF COURSE that I would look just like that when I was done. Famous last words, eh?



Not that it is significantly different on the surface. I'm sure you can see the similarities. It is just that in real life, I can't raise my arms past my elbows while wearing that shrug the same way the model is wearing it. It is extremely uncomfortable. I do wonder now though, if it is just the unforgiving nature of the yarn, and that if I'd made it in a wool yarn, as some of the other people who made it have done, if I would be more comfortable in the garment, as it would stretch a bit. As it is, the garment has drape, oh yes, enough drape to slide off my (admittedly narrow) shoulders and not stay put anywhere. Also, one thing you don't see, is that the garment weighs a lot too. It's heavy.



If you read Nora's notes to the pattern, she says that originally, they'd had the lace bit up top, but thought it looked better the other way. I beg to differ. When I put it on with the lace part up top, I can move my arms. It's magic!



Of course, upside down, it looks better open, but at least I don't feel like I'm wearing a straight-jacket! Oh, and in that last picture, you can see the gathers I had to make when sewing the lace piece to the stockinette piece. I did the stockinette piece long before the lace piece was finished, and I really think that the weight of the yarn made the piece stretch considerably in the interim between that piece being done and me finally finishing the interminable lace rectangle.

My overall judgment is that the piece is still really pretty, and I did end up with something resembling the photos (although beware--12" for the armholes is really small! I would make them at least 15" if I were to make this again), but the lace piece took forever to knit, and there was a lot of sewing up to do at the end, just to end up with something I wasn't really happy with. I chalk it up to a learning experience, really, especially the need to consider the yarn chosen and the qualities therein--is it going to work for the project? Why was that particular yarn chosen--what qualities does it have that the designer wanted to showcase? And most particularly, is that kind of yarn/project going to fit into your lifestyle/wardrobe? Why are you making this? These are questions I need to start asking myself about the projects I undertake. By thinking a bit more about them in the beginning, perhaps I can head off these types of experiences.



But all's well that ends well, and it does look pretty with that dress, which is what I'd originally intended. Now I wish my hair still looked like that and we'd be in business!