When do you give up?

Or do you?

I have finished the left and right front panels on my Celtic Cardigan. I have also knit the entire back, joined the side seams, managed to graft the knot-work at the back of the neck and joined the shoulders and collar in place.

The knot in the center of the back looks amazing! It worked fabulously and I'm thrilled I finally found Continuous Cables and bought it. However, I can't seem to photograph this yarn to save my life. It is so dark I just can't figure out how to get enough light on it to show the detail without washing out everything. Either the pictures are so dark everything is lost in shadow, or they're so bright you can't see for all the light bouncing off every single stitch in the project.

I love knitting at my gym. They have a nice lobby with huge picture windows and a couple of chairs right where all that wonderful light spills right down onto your work. Even on an overcast day there is some of the best lighting available. It gives me enough time to wind down from my run and for my daughter to finish up at her preschool. It's perfect. As I was working the last of the knot-work up the front and extending it so it would go around the back of the neck, one of the women with which I frequently chat came up to look at the project in progress. She looked over and admired my work and then very kindly clucked her tongue, shook her head and informed me, "I think it will be too small." We debated this for a bit, mostly because I've been a bit concerned the whole time while working it. I chose the Medium over the Large size with some trepidation. It's right on the edge for me, but I have lost a lot of weight and am still loosing more.

Her comments spurred my efforts to seam everything I had done together and try it on. I finished this afternoon and tugged it over my shoulders. I fear she was right, but it's so hard to say. I haven't washed or blocked it at all yet. It could stretch out a little. Maybe. My yarn is alpaca, but I did strand it with lace-weight merino to give it a little extra "memory". There is a lot of give in the knit cloth I could exploit, but it doesn't hang with any positive ease right now.

I'm down to three-and-one-half balls (out of ten) of the alpaca yarn, which is just over 300 yards and I fear I will run out before I finish both sleeves. I fear the whole thing is too small, even after some judicious blocking. I just don't know if I should back out of this project now, or see it to its very end, be it bitter or sweet.

I think I'll persevere, but boy, am I ever nervous!