The Dog Days of Summer

This has been the longest knitting slump ever. All summer, I’ve been knitting this:

Pink scarf in progress

It’s a pink scarf for my friend Jen, that I was hoping to have done in time for her visit IN MAY. So much for that! I take the scarf with me absolutely everywhere, but over the last few weeks it’s only made it out of my bag a few times. I took it with me to dinner at the pool tonight, and I got THREE WHOLE ROWS done. Whoop-dee-do. I really need to find my mojo and get this project done! I had such good intentions. Don’t I always?

The sad truth is that my UFO pile is at least three times bigger than the pile of things I’ve actually finished. This has me wondering at times if I even like to knit! Oh, I know I do like knitting, but am I passionately in love with it? I don’t know. Probably not at the moment. I need to find a project that really excites me and makes me want to finish it. Heck, some projects even have road blocks to getting started! Such as:

• The Lace Yarn Sampler Shawl from Knit Picks. It’s even purple, people! My most favorite color. What’s stopping me? It’s knit on two strands of each yarn throughout, so you can drop one and add another color, one at a time. So it blends nicely. Cool idea! Except I don’t have a yarn scale and the idea of winding two little balls out of each hank seems like a pain in the butt. Stupid, huh?
• The Girasole Blanket by Jared Flood. I got some beautiful Eco-Alpaca to knit this in. It is SO soft, and so pretty,and I got it on a discount! But that ball winding thing again is getting in my way. Why oh why do I find ball winding to be a chore? Because my kitchen table is always a cluttered mess, that’s why. I seldom have enough room anywhere for my swift and ball winder to be set up. Sigh…
• The Tam of Doom. I don’t know why I call it that. But I never got past the cast on before having to frog. I’m trying to learn Tubular Cast On and I messed up. I will get back to this…someday.
• My conscience. This is my biggest roadblock of all. I have so many UFOs, so, so many, that really, honestly? I have no business starting something new. There’s a pink scarf to finish after all, and my February Lady Sweater, and let’s not even talk about last year’s abandoned afghan. It was for a sick co-worker. The co-worker is well now, thank goodness, and the afghan is just mocking me. It’s in my active project bin, snickering. Can you hear it?

Sigh.

Listen to this article

My UFO Hall of Shame…

These are the ones for which I have evidence, anyway…

• My first cabled poncho was made from Alafoss Lopi–can you say itchy? I was a young knitter and didn’t know better. Plus I didn’t know yet how to make mirrored increases and so my increases look yucky. Rhoda says I should felt it a little and make it into a bag. Maybe I will… someday.
• Clapotis #1–I made this with a kettle dyed yarn and even in the same lot the color variance is huge. I should have varied the skeins more as I went but I didn’t and now all I have left is the yarn that doesn’t match. Sigh.
• Alison’s Poncho–This is my most shameful UFO to date. I am so regretful that I didn’t finish it but I may yet one day. It’s huge, so hard to lug out and work on. Ponchos will be 10 years out of fashion. Worse yet? This was a gift. And the recipient knew about it. And the yarn was expensive. Sigh.
• Cables and Eyelets Baby Blanket — by Nancy Hearne. I started this one for the baby of a former daycare teacher of my son. Kept losing stitches here and there, and lost my mojo.
• Clapotis #2– I started this skinnier one a couple of years ago when my dad was dying… knit on it a lot in waiting rooms. Can’t finish it.
• Latifa — I like this one, I really do. But I made the first ruffle with too small of a needle and it’s too puny for my taste. I just need to take a pair of scissors to the ruffle and well, you know…
• My son’s “Thomas and James” scarf — Mommy guilt! I’ll finish it this year. I must.
• Cables and Eyelets Scarf — Too much of a good thing maybe? I fell out of love with this project.

There are many others started but not completed. Quite a few that for whatever reason, I never photographed. Someday I will dig them out.

Many of my UFOs are projects that I have no intention of finishing at this point. Do I keep them? Or throw them out? What about the unused yarn that went with each of those projects? What’s a girl to do?

Sigh…