Not a completer finisher

Hello, Woollydaze here… 

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I love planning a project, I like doing a project, and I’m terrible at finishing a project. I lose interest just before the finish line and wander off, looking for a more interesting race to run.

Yes, the tractor rug is still under my bed. No, the drop stitch scarf isn’t finished.

At the moment, lying around the house in various places, I have various unfinished bits of craft work:

Some have been a WIP for longer than others. The most extreme of this bunch has been on the ‘to do’ list since roughly 1994. I’m determined to finish that one in the next few months, because it’s going to be a gift. For a baby. Who will not appreciate it for his or her 18th birthday.

My cold office cosy cardigan has suffered from this fate, only I’ve done the unforgiveable and started to wear it before it is finished. It was so close to being finished. I washed it, blocked it, sewed it together, tried it on, and decided it was too short.

Since I had spare wool and it’s not a precise pattern, I picked up the cast on stitches and knitted downwards for a few rows. I then bought some bias binding to sew into the seams to define them because the edges were a bit sloppy. In the process of buying the bias binding, I managed to find some ‘perfect’ buttons that were soooooo much better than the buttons I had originally bought (which were acceptable, really, just a bit plain).

I sewed in nearly all of the bias binding, and didn’t do the last tiny bit. I pinned it in, then took it out again when I wanted to wear the cardigan.

I discovered a problem with the ‘perfect’ buttons, all to do with the fact that I had bought three then WoollyDaze Too had reminded me that it’s wise, particularly when buying expensive ‘perfect’ buttons, to have a spare. The extra one I bought was clearly not from the same tube as the original three.

 In the past few days I’ve made an extra special effort to sort all of this out and officially finish this cardigan. So here it is:

Ta-da!

The irony is that the temperature in the office for the past fortnight has been hovering around the 24 degrees Centigrade mark, so really I should be knitting cotton summer tops.

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