Beginnerland
The Half-Finished Project: Gold Mine
Dear Kay,
It’s funny: after finishing an epic project, sometimes I just stop knitting. Like: that was plenty. That was a lot.
I’ve had time to pause, to reflect, to fix dinner for a change—time to notice that I have many, many bags around the house that seem to be filled with half-finished knitting projects.
It’s like the La Brea Tar Pit of knitting around here. Tote bags oozing up from the depths, from millennia long past.
Of course, idle hands are the devil’s workshop, or at least a waste of perfectly good hands, so when I opened one of the Totes of Forlorn Projects, I just about lost my mind. How could I go another day without knitting something?
Back at It with a Vengeance
Hello Bottom Line Pullover! I love you like a baby!
Where have you been lo these many moons?
There is nothing more gratifying than to discover a sweater that lacks only a couple of sleeves. It even had the Field Guide right there, with the sizes circled and everything. Needles in place. GO TIME!
O! You spinach-colored wonder!
What happened that I forsook you?
This is such a good project for the run-up to MDK March Mayhem 2020.
It’s a design by Isabell Kraemer, who was the Champion of MDK March Mayhem 2018.
After she took the laurels for her Humulus Sweater, Isabell created designs for MDK Field Guide No. 10: Downtown.
This Bottom Line Pullover makes the most of Jill Draper’s color-shifting Mohonk Light. You’ll see 101 Bottom Lines on Ravelry—so much color inspiration over there.
It’s a simple top-down pullover in Mohonk Light, a fingering-weight yarn by Jill Draper that we have loved for a long time.
We just received a giant new shipment of fingering weight Mohonk Light, and also its sport weight cousin, Mohonk. Jill Draper has a way with color that we admire, so it’s always a big deal when we get a new batch of her color explosions.
Love,
Ann
It’s so beautiful… I think I’d even wear it without the finished second sleeve.
I made mine with short sleeves. Love it!
I love being inspired anew by a forgotten half finished project. I had the same thing happen from one of last year’s March mayhem sweaters, Tuilieries by Julie Knits Paris. After several months relegated as a Back Of The Closet Project Bag, I pulled it out a couple weeks ago and realized I couldn’t let another season go by without wearing this beauty. I also feel downright thrifty for using yarn I already own. One more sleeve to go!
As always, I love your writing. Hope you’re feeling perky again soon. We knitters are here for you and the rest of Nashville.
That spinach color!!!!! Absolutely gorgeous!!! I smiled when I read the line – “It’s like the La Brea Tar Pit of knitting around here. Tote bags oozing up from the depths, from millennia long past.” – I have the same thing in my house!!!! Thanks for validating!!!!
Me too. I count 5 forlorn project bags that are in my line of sight right now. And yet I am browsing for a shawl pattern for my daughter’s Halloween wedding……black dress calls for a dazzling accent piece!
I smiled in recognition at the projects in tote bags all over the house. I have mine corralled in the bedroom but I sure had me some projects there. One of them was a cardigan needing only three seams, two of them two inches long. Woo hoo! I put it aside one April when we had a warm weekend and my thoughts turned to summer projects. Got everything seamed and am now frantically working in ends – it is supposed to be in the 60s on Monday. Yes, here in NYC where the coronavirus is also putting in an unwelcome appearance.
Your bottom line is beautiful!
“Domestic archeaology.” Thank you for validating the pile of totebags, and for the phrase of the year.
What a great expression! “Domestic archaeology”. Cool, and I intend to use it. A lot. Thanks.
In exchange, I’ll hand over one from my father-in-law, “tilling the clutter”, along with dark admonitions that when the last empty flat surface is the floor, it’s all over.
Kermit’s face is so expressive! It’s clear he is thinking: “IF YOU PUT IT IN MY SUNBEAM, IT IS MINE!”
I have to tell about my half-finished projects. A few years ago (22 to be precise), I lost my husband. He was the 9th death in 3 years. It seems I lost a part of me and didn’t realize it until recently. That said, since then I have been collecting numerous “kits” always bought on sale. Recently I came out of the fog and decided since I was now really retired and feeling better and have my wits about me again, I needed to get back to being me. So here is the thing for today, you refered to your half-finished projects as the La Brea Tar Pit. I just counted mine, not including knitting, I have 91 projects in the works. So I am right there with you. And yes, I am back to being me. Time to get busy again.
Inspiring! Mine also lacks only a sleeve. Time to finish!
Hurray for spinach green! And nearly-finished products! And Kermit! Finally, I can’t wait for March Mayhem!
Several years ago I came across a similar ‘gold mine’ of an unfinished sweater for my husband when he was in law school in Memphis. (At the time of finding the relic, he had been in practice 30 years). I had purchased the yarn at a department store (Goldsmiths). The reason for the initial abandonment was yarn insufficiency. All it lacked was completion of the second sleeve and a crew collar.
I decided there was enough yarn for the sleeve, but the collar was iffy. So with a consult with my LYS (Haus of Yarn) I purchased suitable yarn in a pleasing, slightly contrasting color
On to the sleeve – of course it wouldn’t be a lovely stockinette, oh no. Windowpane. So I dove in, matched the knit pattern and sleeve construction and even had enough of the original yarn to knit the collar. This was about 10 years ago, and he is still wearing the sweater
Moral: maybe some sweaters or other projects are destined to be completed in long, disjointed stages …or miracles do happen.