Taking a break from a post I am writing about my latest finished object to quickly throw in a post about my WIPs.
A couple of things happened recently that made me smile and frown about my WIPs. Firstly there was the finish of a baby blanket that I had started in August last year. Because it had lace knitting on every row, it was not a project that could be worked on all the time. Although I did make it more of a priority (after another gift) as I wanted to finish it before the baby was bigger than the blanket. Not only finishing this gift made me smile but now the only projects older than 2023 were my long term projects.
But I started something new at the end of last week and that is what caused the frown. Not the project itself but the realization that I had too many projects that required concentration. I like one really easy project and one that requires concentration and all the others fall somewhere in between. They may take a while to get finished as I am not working exclusively on one project (unless there is a gift deadline) but since there has been the WIP knit along in the last quarter of the year I have mostly been finishing projects in the year they are started.
At the beginning of the year I started a shawl. This was an Advent shawl that I had first cast on in 2018 when the pattern was published, but I made a mistake and realized I would not have enough yarn so to the frog pond it went. But I still really wanted to make the pattern. I decided one of the yarns I was given in a stash clear out would work perfectly and I wasn’t going to put off the cast on any longer and 1 January 2023 it went on the needles. The pattern requires so much concentration that I can have music on but no words while I am working on it. I really want to get this finished by Christmas which is doable if I work a few rows each day.
The recent cast on was a Tunisian crochet project. After receiving a set of hooks for Christmas 2021 and working with my friends on a project, I wanted to do more Tunisian crochet. But what? Especially as I am limiting the number of shawls I make. I chose a cardigan pattern and it, too, was going to be started on 1 January but with all my other January cast ons – gift, charity, etc, - I decided it would be better to wait. As our make along last year started on 14 February, I thought it would be fun to start this Tunisian project on 14 February but I also knew I wouldn’t want to be interrupted when I started it so I started it on the 12th when I actually was home alone!
So why the frown? This new project requires concentration. Not to the same level as the Advent shawl but still not a mindless project. I could put the Advent shawl aside and work on the cardigan but I don’t want the shawl to go over multiple years but I also want to finish the cardigan and wait, there’s another project that needs a mention. Last July I started a shawl that was my Pi shawl project with the aim to finish in March this year. Entirely achievable if I worked on it and didn’t start other things. I last worked on it in October of last year. And if I am going to finish the Advent shawl and the Tunisian crochet cardigan then I am going to have to ignore the Pi shawl. Which will be a shame as instead of a nine month project it will be a one year and nine months project.
In the meantime here is a picture of the baby blanket. It is shown on the blocking mats as this shows the pattern and colours the best.
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