The 75% Point of Despair

In every project that I do on a deadline, I hit what I think of as the "75% Point of Despair." It's the time I get close to the end of the project, close enough that I can start to taste what it will feel like to be done but with the finish line far enough away that I despair I will ever reach it.

The worst part is the certainty that the project I happen to be in the midst of is the biggest pile of crap ever knat upon. Every unevenness in tension starts to alarm me (should I have gone back and redone that part of the waistband?), even little inconsistencies that the rational side of me knows will block out (that little voice whispers insistently: but what if they don't?!). I start thinking of all the other ways I could have done it -- a different edging, a contrast color, a new stitch pattern. It looks too plain, or too tarted up. I am convinced my gauge has been thrown off no matter how often I measure it (it's hard to make progress when you check gauge five times per row). I think of the stuff I see in books or magazines or on Ravelry -- a Norah Gaughan here, an Eunny Jang there -- and shudder at the thought of my crappy project just a click away from those masterpieces. I look at it, its unblocked, sad mass of stitches cowering meekly under my scowl, and know that I just don't have enough time to redo it, even if my dissatisfaction were rational and I could figure out its source.

I'm around that point now, and I'm working with someone whose work I have long loved and who could make a paper hat folded from newspaper look like Chanel's best creation. (No pressure there.)

So I'm very happy that I will be greeting someone special at the airport tomorrow,






in time for a meet-and-greet Friday evening and a lace class Saturday at Loop. The 75% Point of Despair hardly ever lasts, but even if it tried, how could one possibly stay mired in the depths of despair when Franklin's coming?