Procrastination – the cure for UFOs

(That’s UFOs as in UnFinished Objects.)

We’re putting the house back on the market this week, as planned. This meant that the new agent’s photographer needed to take pictures. In a rather desperate attempt to avoid cleaning and tidying, I picked up my old Cardigan for Merry to finish it off.

I started making this cardigan before my son existed. He’ll turn 4 this year. Last year I got a little bit of motivation to work on it and I got the 5 pieces seamed and all the live stitches on one needle ready to do the hood. Then I lost my motivation again.

Earlier this week I moved the bag this UFO has been mocking me from. Later that day I had a brainwave. I didn’t have to knit the hood! I could just finish it off and cast off. I checked on Ravelry and a few other folks had done this, so it became the new plan.

When I started knitting away on my live stitches, I realized that one of the reasons I hadn’t finished this was that it wasn’t quite right. When I was seaming, the back and sleeves went together well, but the front didn’t come all the way up the sleeve. In a sudden moment of clarity I realized that I could continue knitting on each front separately & joining it with the sleeve until it all matched up. 16 rows of tiny tense knitting on 2.25 mm needles later, it all matched up. Then I knit a few rows even, did my purl turn row, and knit a hem just as I’d been instructed to do for all the other pieces.

I don’t think I’ve done this much sewing and finishing on any piece I’ve worked on in well over a decade, but I love this little sweater.

It needs a good wash and block, but I want to try it on an 18 – 24 month old first to make sure nothing needs changing. It’ll wait for its proper owner at a later time. And I’ll be on the lookout for the right toggles or buttons. Perhaps that search will take another 4 years.

In this bout of finishing, I also managed to complete the brother-in-law scarf I started just after Christmas. When my sister got another scarf from me he remarked that he didn’t have a “Natalie scarf”. Once I darn in the ends and wash this, he will! It’s Fast Forward (again) using 2 skeins of Cascade 220 superwash and I only had about 11g left at the end.

Oh, and I test knit a Blomster hat for torirot and Z. seems to have appropriated it. This is really a good thing because while I like the hat, this shape looks awful on me. It was a fun quick knit and I liked playing with the colours.

And the picture-taking of the house? That all went off well and I didn’t really need to spend all weekend cleaning. So my procrastination worked out well this time.