Unfinished

We knitters have an acronym for a project that has been hanging around for a long time without being finished, and often, not even being worked on.  The term is Unfinished Object, or UFO for short. Sometimes I feel like I'm the Queen of UFOs, although I know that there are knitters out there who have many, many more. After all, I've only been knitting for three years...

This summer, I decided I needed to get serious about those UFOs, and I've come up with a plan (and a spreadsheet) to work through them by either finishing or frogging them.

Project number one on that list is the Antoinette vest, a Noro pattern designed by Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton that I cast on for in 2008. I love the yarn, Noro Iro, but the miles and miles of seed stitch were too much. In addition, the few project notes that I saw on Ravelry indicated that the vest only looked good on the very thin, young model in the pattern book and did not look good on real, honest-to-goodness women. As a result, this:

became this:

I absolutely love the colors of the Noro Iro, so I plan to knit it into a garment that I like better.  And there will be NO seed stitch!

Shortly after Christmas last year, I spent a torturous afternoon teaching myself how to do Judy's Magic Cast-On, so that I could do the homework for Cat Bordhi's toe-up sock class I was registered to take at Madrona in February. I finally mastered it, and got the toe cast-on, so I decided to keep going and knit a pair of plain vanilla socks with a gusset heel. When I finished the first sock, it didn't fit well, and I absolutely hated the gusset heel. (Give me a slip stitch heel anytime!) As a result, today this:

became this:

This yarn has been soaked in wool wash and is now hanging up to dry.  I plan to re-skein it tomorrow and it will be knitted into another pair of socks in the future, most likely cuff-down with a slip-stitch heel next time.

It hasn't been completely Frog City around here, however. I'm also working diligently on a newer UFO, the She-Knits (Sharon Dreifus) Samantha Bag, which I started as part of a mystery knit-along last fall. I got busy with Christmas knitting and dropped this project a few weeks after I started it and I've only picked it up in the last three weeks. I have now knit all six of the outside pockets and only have the inside pockets, the decorative cord and the strap to go. And of course, felting. I should be able to check this UFO off my list before the summer is over. Here is a sneak peek:

I'll keep you updated on the progress of the UFO project over the next several months. Just because I'm knitting or frogging UFOs does not mean that I'm not casting on for new projects. Watch this space soon for more on those future UFOs—oops, I mean works in progress!