Wednesday, January 2, 2008

New Year, New Focus(es)

While sitting around the brunch table yesterday morning (ok, early afternoon), we all shared what we hope to accomplish in the next year. Call them resolutions if you must, I prefer not to.

One of my big ones was to become a finisher. I love projects. I'm addicted to starting new things. But I really need to be more focused about finishing the projects I start. This morning, Dawn over at Crochet Compulsive blogged about the subject. Gee, thanks for the reminder Dawn!

So, here's my photo-less confession of the things that I need to $%*! or get off the pot about.

#1 - Mom's Christmas present, a filet piece I've been working on since about 2 days before Christmas. I'm on row 28 or 29 of 50, so it's close. And I have been working on it, sporadically. The goal is to finish it this weekend. Since it's a chart, it's mostly a sit-in-front-of-the-computer project. Just means I need to spend more time there.

#2 - Mom's poncho. Yeah, I started it, got several rows done even. Then Christmas came and I got to be drowning in the sea of dishcloths and it got put on the back burner. But I have all the yarn for it, so I really have no excuse. So when I'm done with #1, this is next. Though this is a spread-out-in-a-pet-free-room project, so maybe I can train myself to work on it for an hour each night before bed.

#3 - My shrug. I hate to say it, but I think this one is toast. I free-handed it, which was the first problem (oh why oh why do I hate patterns so much?). The second problem is that I used LB's Chenille Thick & Quick. Really chunky yarn on already really chunky arms - not a pretty sight. It's a cute idea - fingerless gloves that turn into sleeves, which are then connected to each other by a strip of three granny squares - but the yarn was just not right. I don't even think I'm going to bother frogging this one. It might just disappear into The Void.

#4 - The hook case for my bamboo crochet hooks. This is in progress, and is doing pretty well as a take-along project to carry in my purse. Freehanded, again, but turning out nicely. I just need to stick with it. This is my travel and at-work project.

#5 - Socks. Horrible, ugly socks. Made with really cute yarn (lime green with multi speckles, fingering weight acrylic I think?), but with the way wrong hook and pattern. Definitely frog-able. I'll revive them into better socks with a different hook size and different pattern, but in their current state they're not going to work.

#6 - Nancy's Mickey Mouse afghan. Annie's going to have a cow when she reads this, but I need to scrap and start from scratch with this one. I went though a phase where I was in love with LB Homespun and started it then. Now I've burnt out on it and don't want to touch the stuff. This is going to join my shrug in The Void, and I'll re-group. But not until I've finished #2.

#7 - My Hoodie. This needs more yarn, since I ran out. Well ok, first I need to FIND it. Then I need to buy more yarn and work on it. This comes after I've finished #2. But before I re-start #6.

So that's it, I think. I have two scraps, a frog, and three WIPs. One computer WIP, one travel WIP, and one spread-out WIP. I'm not going to allow myself to start anything else until I finish these three! But don't worry, I have plenty of things to tackle when these are done!



...Well, unless I make something up quick for the Swap

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