A Finished Object and an Unfinished Object

At last the promised finished item. But first, what is unfinished?

Last weekend I completely frogged my new year project. The yarn was a gradient and I carefully (or so I thought) chose a pattern that would not only look good in a gradient yarn but would also use up most of the yarn. After all that is the point of a gradient. The pattern I chose said yardage requirement 822 yards of laceweight; I have 870 yards. But I got to the bind off and still had third of the skein left. I debated a long time about adding rows in different pattern; looking through my pattern books multiple times but I decided that would take away from the pattern. I also did not want to lose 1/3 skein of gradient so frogging happened. Which was really unenjoyable as the yarn has a halo and is not easy to undo.

I do like this pattern and will make it again when I find the right yarn - drapey but not a gradient.

Once the yarn was back into a ball I cast on a new project - Fruit Cocktail. It seems that this is more easily adaptable - I hope so.

And now for the finished item. I was so excited that I actually finished something. It is amazing that I have got to March before finishing anything. Although an unexpected trip to the UK meant I didn't finish anything in February.

I have already shown the yarn which is sooo pretty. And this is what it became.

It is so light and beautiful and I love it. And it's finished even if I didn't quite finish it in February.


You can see the first Starshower I made here. I like that one too.

Where’s the Knitting?

Last time I said a project was blocking and another was close to being finished. So why is this another sewing post? Because I made the block before completely finishing the project that was blocking. Yes I sewed before sewing in ends and a project is not finished until it is blocked and all ends sewn in. (Yes all two of them.)

In February I talked about a block-a-month. As I had been away I could not make March’s right at the beginning of the month but I made it the first free day I got so that I did not fall behind. Although I would like to use stash as much as possible, I bought two fat quarters for this square – for the background and the green stems. This block was labelled as foundation paper piecing which I had not done before and I thought was rather fun. There were a couple of mistakes in the instructions. One was minor; it said to cut one stem although you needed two; but the other was to trim the squares to their post-seaming size not pre-seaming. As all these blocks are going to be different sizes, it wouldn’t have mattered but the other pieces of background had been cut to the bigger size.

I’m enjoying making these blocks each month. OK I know I have only made two. Knitting content will happen next post but in the meantime I have set up a new account with KnitMeter so that I can show off record how much I have made.

What Happened To February?

I should have finished projects but nothing to show – yet – I am soo close. Verdon and my New Year’s cast on would have been finished but I had an unexpected trip to the UK. I decided rather than take nearly finished objects and new yarn I would just take new yarn.

But which yarn and which projects? I had been given some beautiful pink variegated yarn which I had already decided would make a beautiful Starshower.



I considered changing the lace pattern but decided a trip was not the time for changing patterns. I started it on the flight and finished it on 2 March so even if it had not needed to be blocked it still wouldn’t have been a February finisher. But it is blocking as I write this so I have a finished knitted item this year. Yay.

The other yarn I took was yarn I bought a year ago. At the time I did not have a pattern in mind but when I saw this pattern I decided it was perfect for my yarn. I bought another skein of the grey on the Yarn Crawl and my plan is to work the pattern until I run out of yarn.

Now I am back from my trip, what project should I work on? (I don’t even want to think how many I have on the go.)Although it is tempting to continue working on my new cast on I am close to finishing Verdon as I am on the decrease rows so that is what I worked on this morning when I was awake too early thanks to jet lag. Can I have it finished by the end of the weekend?

On the plus side, despite no finished projects, February was a good month for stash reduction. I sold three balls of yarn and gave one to a friend and received a skein of yarn. So stash is down.