maybe some of you are familiar with Elizabeth Zimmermann. she is a wonderful old timey knitter ( i am not sure if she is still alive) that wrote the classic "knitting without tears". i made her tomten jacket for Mary when she was a baby. somehow i really missed the boat with the gauge- it was supposed to fit her at two years old. you can see her here at nine still fitting into it. before i was confident that i could stick with a project i would do anything i could to avoid ripping out my work, in fear that i would get discouraged and never finish. this sweater is a case in point. i saw that it was getting kind of big, but i pretended that it was going to be ok, anyway. well, in the end it was. Mary has been enjoying this sweater for about four years. the yarn is leftover donegal from my collection, and the blue trim is a vintage skein of boucle that was a present from a past employee.