UFOs

The beginning and the end are the best parts of knitting. Looking through the pattern libraries on knitting sites, imagining my next project, is my favorite way to placidly unwind after a mentally exhausting day. Three fabulous and semi-local yarn stores breathe life into my daydreams as I see and touch all of the beautiful colours. There is no such thing as yellow yarn to a knitter; instead, there is candlewick, daffodil, hayloft, gold, gilded, autumn gold, cornfield, wild mustard, birch heather, shades 28, 91, and 121.

I also love the end, especially the joy that comes with making a poorly written pattern work, successfully using a new technique, or just finishing a project which required a monstrous amount of time and energy. There is very little as satisfying as throwing a finished piece in the tub for a good soak, blocking it on my wooly board or dressform, and tromping through the fields on the farm to get the perfect snap!

In the middle, however, the plain, old work of knitting round after round of stockinette stitch can stop me dead in my tracks. Even worse, I get unintentionally derailed by the delight of a new yarn or a new pattern. My lack of self-discipline often means that my plan to just purchase and stash a new yarn gives way to winding. If only I stopped there, but usually winding means swatching, followed by casting on. By then, I've found the progress that is so easy to spot in a new project far more tantalizing than the progress I can no longer see round after round. So I keep going, and BOOM! my WIP has morphed into a UFO. 

This weekend, the November weather turned, and it feels like snow is on its way. Mother Nature's stark reminder that 2014 is winding down has me also thinking about my personal goals for this year: 12 completed sweaters and no UFOs in my project library. I currently have three unfinished objects...

 Kate Davies's Stevenson Sweater

Merecedes Tarasovich-Clarks's Driftwood Tee and Cecilia Fiore's a_simmetrie  

With 45 days to go, I think I'll be a wee bit short of my sweater goal for the year, but I'm not giving up on my UFOs!