I have a confession to make. Here it is: I loooove starting new projects. Finishing? Not so much. All the gals in my knitting group are impressed because I always seem to be working on a new project. They think I'm just flying through huge shawls and ambitious colorwork projects. So, this post is by way of a confession: I am much more of a starter than a finisher. Let's take a tour of my UFO drawer, shall we?
Above, you see what I think of as my "tier one" projects. These are project that I'm actively working on and will probably finish before I die. We'll go clockwise from the bottom left. First, you see the lovely shawl, Rendezvous, by Lily Go. I'm knitting this in Waterfalls, a three-ply laceweight yarn from Creatively Dyed. It's a testament to the stimulating nature of this pattern that I've gotten as far as I have despite the first step being "cast on 450 stitches". I mostly work on this project at my knitting group, so progress is slow but steady.
Next around the circle are a pair of handspun socks made from Abstract Fibers BFL. This project got stalled when I started thinking about designing some kind of charted pattern for the leg. I'm still thinking about that, but probably I will just give up and finish in plain stockinette.
Third is the Knitpicks "East Meets West" satchel. I'm not totally sure what I was thinking starting this, but the kit was on super sale and I couldn't say no. I'm about 75% finished with the strap piece. I think the bag will be a present for my mom, if I can finish it by May. Bonus: I now have like thirty balls of Knit Picks Palette, and there are definitely going to be leftovers, so I can make another bag or some crazy mittens or who knows what.
Fourth is a plain triangular shawl of handspun silk 3-ply. I started it mainly because this yarn was burning a hole in my pocket. Honestly, this project has been inactive for a while and may be slipping into tier 2.
Tier 2 mainly consists of glorified swatches, and pretty much exemplifies my relationship with Kauni Effektgarn: I find it hypnotically beautiful, but I just can't seem to find the right project for it. Anyway, Thing One here is a mosaic cuff in Malabrigo Rios, left over from my Octopus Mittens. Is it a sock? Is it a mitten? Who knows. It's not really clear that I have enough yarn to make a pair of anything, which explains why this project is stalled. Thing Two is about my fifth attempt to do something with that ball of rainbow Effektgarn. I think I intend it to be a baktus-style shawl, but the colorwork pattern combined with the edge increases is incredibly fiddly to knit, so I stopped. Thing Three is a mosaic sock, again with Kauni...not sure about this one at all. And Thing Four is...hexapuffs! So many hexapuffs. I am tired of hexapuffs. Screw you, hexapuffs.
And, lastly, tier 3. Tier 3 is about mistakes and bad choices. In the upper left, you see a handspun Shipwreck shawl. I got through the center medallion all right, but the outer section sapped my will remarkably quickly. So many problems: a bad interaction between yarn and beads, plus the fact that the beads are supposed to be placed "randomly" (making every stitch a decision point), plus the fact that knitting "k2tog, yo" ad nauseum is incredibly dull...yeah, I stopped after about three rows.
Next is my attempt at Tiling Fish, in the very odd Noro Nobori yarn. I didn't have much of this yarn and...yeah, I'm not sure where I was going with this.
Then comes Alchemist Socks. I skipped the gauge swatch, and that was a dumb idea. I discovered they were too small when I got to the heel. I've stolen the needles for another project, so...these are probably dead meat.
Last but not least is a Lutzling baby sweater in Abstract Fibers Miro. It looks OK, doesn't it? But unfortunately I discovered when I went to add the button band that I had somehow dropped a stitch on the very front edge, which dropped to form a series of sloppy loops in a very bad spot. I suppose it might be fixable, sort of, but...I dunno, the baby got born, and that was that.
So, that's only, what, twelve things? Not too bad. How many skeletons do you have in your closet?
oh my.. I have fits of startitis, but usually after about a month or so I get frustrated and either frog everything I'm not going to finish or just hide all my other yarn/ needles until I've finished the stupid project.
ReplyDeleteSome projects just don't want to get finished.. I always pick the wrong yarn for a project and keep knitting for a while, even though I'm really not very happy about it.. (I usually end up frogging in the end..)
at the moment there's two very large projects I can't seem to want to finish and one semi-large one.. Now I want to cast on for a sock.. :P
Oh dear, let's see. My tier one, things I've knit on in the last month, has a sweater for me, mittens for Julia, and a scarf for me. Tier two has a platypus hot water bottle holder (I've knit the whole body, and the beak and tail! I just need to make four feet), most of the body of a sweater for Peter (which I cast on, hmm, more than five years ago. Despite this fact, I'm not willing to demote it to tier three), and the fabric currently on my loom (which is on my porch. My unheated porch. Which is why I haven't worked on it in a loooong time). My tier three includes Kauni Effektgarn (my original plan was to knit fifteen feet of narrow random lace interspersed with garter sections, then braid it all together and call it a crazy scarf. Seriously, what was I thinking?) and a ropey white aran yarn that I wanted to make a cabled scarf out of, yet somehow thought it wouldn't come out looking like a fisherman's sweater.
ReplyDeleteThe true skeleton in my closet, though, is not the UFOs, and it's not even my enormous stash -- it's the yarn I have specifically marked for a project, a lot of it is already wound, and it's just waiting for me to get to it (EG: fractal hat; coastline mittens; colorwork skirt; mobius scarf; black and blue sweater; another squares hat; another honey cowl; etc.). And instead I think up something entirely new to knit instead.