Victory in Blue

Finished! Finished! Finished!

I love it when I complete something and not only have the finished object but love the way I look in it. This little top is a victory for me in more ways than one! John helped me out with the picture taking... if you want to see one of his attempts to be a little more artsy...click here

The first victory, of course, is just being completely satisfied with the way this turned out. So often there's some niggling little thing that bothers me, or the fit isn't quite right. But this fits wonderfuly, the Porto Cervo feels great against my skin, and there's nothing that bothers me at all. I was a little worried that the eyelets for the laces would be a little too revealing, but it turned out not to be a problem at all. It's even comfortable to wear some supportive underthings with this top -- something that not all little knitted tops seem to be built for.

The second victory has to do with me and how I feel about myself. This time last year I weighed about 35 pounds more than I do now. I'd just had a doctor's visit where my blood pressure looked like it was creeping into the high range (hypertension runs in my family) and I spent two weeks in Hawaii avoiding my image in the mirror when I was wearing a bathing suit.

When we got home from Hawaii, we got to see the results of my dad's adventures with Weight Watchers. He looked fantastic and he claimed it was easy. Before long, John and I were doing it, too. I got down to my target weight during November... I was ecstatic about getting into size 6 clothes and being able to wear almost everything that I wanted. But, being winter, I didn't really get a chance to do any "showing off". This little top is one of my first pieces of "show off" clothing. I'm certainly not the model in the Filatura book (unless you're talking to John, who had lots of nice words for this knitted garment) but I am pleased with myself.

With summer approaching, I kept telling John "you've got to take me some place warm so that I can wear a bikini"... We're taking a little vacation during the week of the 4th of July. When John asked me where I wanted to go I jokingly said "How about the French Riviera?" Last week he found out that we could use our frequent flier miles and spend a week near French food and Meditteranian beaches. So now I have more motivation for completing my second tank top and I guess I'll have to go shopping and find that bikini.

This really is a great little project -- you can enjoy a lovely cotton yarn that knits up quickly. It's obviously a fast-to-knit item so the gratification is almost instantaneous. It gives you a chance to try some crochet, and use those crochet hooks for something besides picking up dropped stitches. I also thought the pattern was well written and easy to follow. All in all, I really had only one problem with this project...

This is literally all the yarn I had left over after knitting, seaming and adding the crochet edge. I'd say that Filatura cut this one a little closer than they needed to.