Monogamy

Ok, I’m going to admit something here.  I’m not proud of it.  But…we all have our flaws, right?  And this is mine…well…one of them anyway.

I am not monogamist…

…as a knitter.

I have been having multiple affairs with several projects.  At the same time.

(What were you thinking?)

If you follow me on Instagram or on Ravelry you will notice that I have many more cast on projects than finished ones.  Yes…I am easily distracted by fabrics, yarns and new patterns.  I already covered this in a previous blog post that you can read here so I won’t go into all the details of my distractions.

But, something I have discovered about myself is that I do so much better working on one project at a time.

You see…even though I started this blog post by saying I was NOT a monogamist knitter…that is exactly what I NEED to be.

I know many knitters who work on several projects at the same time.  They’ve got a pair socks in their take along bag, a big afghan in their basket beside the couch and a sweater and a shawl both half done.  Yeah…that’s my story too.  But…the problem with this, for me, is that I can’t seem to get any of them finished.  I just don’t know how those other knitters do it.

At the end of 2016 when I looked back at the projects I had completed I was really disappointed.  For the amount of projects I had cast on you would have thought I had more than two finished.  But nope, just two.

This year, I have been concentrating on doing just one project at a time.

The first thing I did was to review the projects I had cast on last year and didn’t finish.  I then made a list of the projects I wanted to complete in 2017.  Some were new projects and some were the cast ons that didn’t get finished last year.  (And I think some of those cast ons will be frogged.)  That really helped me to get a clear picture of the things I wanted to make.

After making my list I put them in a rough order that I would like to complete them. (You can see my list in the sidebar to the right.  Just scroll down a bit.)  Again, this is a rough order and not written in stone, so I can feel free to change them around if I feel like it.  This has really helped me stay focused (my word for 2017).  Since I now have a clear picture of the projects I want to get done this year I’m not going to Ravelry and looking at patterns or searching the forums and Instagram for KAL’s.

Right now I only have one project on the needles.  Well, technically two but I’m not really counting my 52 Weeks of Blanket Bliss Afghan because it’s only one little square a week.  I have been faithfully knitting on my Fading Into Hogwarts Shawl and making good progress.  Oh…and I already have an FO this year.  I finished the Reyna Merry Christmas Down On You Shawl that I had been knitting for my son’s girlfriend for Christmas.  (Yes, it was for Christmas and no, I didn’t finish it on time but you can read about that here.)

So…my point of this blog post is really just to toot my own horn and say how good I’m feeling about my progress this year.  We all need to do that occasionally, right?  It’s only the middle of January and I already have a finished object and I’m well on my way to completing a second.  The Find Your Fade KAL ends March 1st and I’m feeling very confident that I will have finished mine at least by then, if not before.

So…how about you?  Are you monogamist?  Or do you work on several projects at the same time?  I’d love to know your knitting strategy.  Also, what projects are you wanting to complete in 2017?  Please let me know in the comments below.

 

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