Guest Author - Marjorie Colletta
Autumn may be the best time of year for finishing things. In addition, you can get a jump on holiday gifts. The weather depending on where you live may be more conducive to knitting and maybe you have a few wee projects that need finishing. I certainly can relate to works in process, unfinished objects (UFO), and procrastination, in fact my family claims that when you look in the dictionary under procrastination my picture is there. However it is possible for these three things to work together.
Start with pulling out all of your unfinished objects. Now look carefully at each one and evaluate what needs to be finished on each and try to decide if you even want to finish them. For the projects you have that only need, a cuff, a half of the front, one more sock, fringe, a zipper, a reworked armhole, another sock, etc. (lest you think I’m joking about procrastination these are all from my own project basket and there are a few more) consider pulling one out at a time and using an idea from the forum in Knitters Review and work on it for 10 minutes each day. Every day. It will surprise you how fast these UFO’s become finished objects. And the added bonus might be that some of them will become presents for the coming holiday.
The projects that need more than just a bit of work can be worked on in the same way, just 10 minutes a day every day and they will be moving toward completion. These projects can also become gifts if you have lost that loving feeling toward them, but cannot stand to take them apart.
Finally the projects that you have in front of you that you know in your heart of hearts you are never going to finish, is it time to either rip them out or give them to another knitter to finish? There is no reason to keep them as they are. There is probably someone out there who will finish them and enjoy them and truly appreciate them, and free up space for your other projects. Both literally and figuratively, meaning you will have more physical space and more mental space since these projects will be truly out of your sphere of influence.
Routinely going through your stash of projects will give you an opportunity to evaluate where you want to go as a knitter, see if you have projects that can be finished and given as gifts, finished and enjoyed by yourself, or just given away.
