Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Of course UFOs exist!

After reading Knitting Daily for the past little while, the whole discussion there about unfinished objects made me think about my own UFOs. I thought it might be a useful exercise for me to list them all out so I knew just what the heck I had going.

1) The Dollar and a Half Cardigan from the Spring 2007 Interweave. I think I started this one somewhere around July, and so far I've only knit the back. I need to get moving on this one. I believe the yarn I'm using is Telemark, from Knit Picks. I'm knitting them on my size 5 Lantern Moon rosewood circulars, which I just love.

2) Yet another multi-directional scarf. I'm using that Cherry Hill yarn that Adrienne sent me many, many moons ago on size 3 bamboo needles. I kinda wanted to make it for autumn, so I could have a transition scarf before the weather got cold enough for my Clapotis. But the weird weather was so warm up until last week that I didn't need a scarf, so I lost motivation for really working hard at it. And the all of a sudden it got cold, and I had to break out the Clapotis! Ha ha!

3) A lacy scarf/throw made out of Blue Sky Alpaca's organic cotton. I made one of these already for a friend, and have since decided that I wanted one too. I've almost finished one skein and will be moving to the second one soon.

4) Duh. How could I forget that crochet blanket. My current major project considering babies don't really wait for the gifter to finish. 'Nuff said on that one.

5) Remember those blue socks that I was knitting using magic loop and two at a time? Well, the cord on my needles wasn't quite long enough to do magic loop AND two socks comfortably, so I moved one of the socks to some dpns and have been working on that. Still haven't gotten to the heel yet. Really, I fail at this.

6) Remember that disastrous green sweater that was all messed up? Still haven't frogged it or fixed it.

7) Long ago, I started a shawl out of some Shimmer from Knit Picks in the Morning Mist colourway. This has been sitting for so long now that I'm thinking of frogging it. But even if I did, what would I do with the yarn? It's this lace weight, variagated stuff that doesn't really lend itself to much except a shawl. I think I just don't like working with lace weight, or relatively fine stuff, so I keep finding other things to do instead.

And that would be my list of UFOs. Just looking at it kinda makes me feel like I've been totally failing at keeping up with my knitting. Somehow, I need to really keep my motivation to finish rather than getting distracted by the newest, pretty object.

3 comments:

Adrienne said...

Oh, the UFO discussion! I actually answered the survey and said that I only had one or two UFOs, maybe I'll talk a bit more about the subject in a post of my own, like exactly WHEN something goes from WIP to UFO status, which is an issue that is certainly up for debate!

Wow, you've got a lot of stuff on the needles! Not as much as many folks do of course, but I can see that listing them all can make them seem overwhelming.

It seems like you are not a fan of the finer sock/lace weight yarns in general, huh? If you don't like working with the stuff, then definitely don't! Knitting should be fun and not a chore. I'm sure you could always find the yarn another home, or you could hold the yarn doubled and make something more substantial....

Karen said...

Actually, your point about WIP vs UFO is a good one. I just kinda lumped everything that isn't an FO as a UFO. Stuff like the baby blanket is still progressing daily, so maybe it doesn't really count as a UFO?

And the problem with the finer stuff is that I love the way it looks when you knit lace with it. After a nice blocking, it always looks awesome. I'll probably give that lace shawl another go on some bamboo needles and see if I like the way it feels more. Sometimes knitting it on metal needles is too slide-y.

Adrienne said...

I am a die-hard wood/bamboo girl (metal needles hurt my hands), so I don't really have much experience with the slideyness of metal needles. I do agree though that if there's one time you want your needles to have a good grip on your yarn, it would be while knitting lace. =P