2014 UFO roundup

Happy New Year!

So, we finally made it to 2015. How many of you are asking for a hoverboard for your birthday this year?

Before I dive into a new year of posting, I thought I’d take a look at my unfinished objects from last year. For those who weren’t around this time last year, I wrote down on separate slips of paper the names of projects I had begun and abandoned at some point with the goal of pulling one new slip each month through 2014 and then completing that project. Some I finished, others never saw the light of day.

This should be a familiar little collage. We’ll go row by row.

1. The rag rug — slip wasn’t pulled

2. The crochet gingerbread house — Finished! Well… more or less. It got a brief mention on my December 14 photo post. This little gingerbread house pattern was featured in the Crochet Today “Crochet Gift List” special edition from winter 2011 (presumably, since this is a “best of” collection, it was published in a previous issue at some point). The photo in the magazine shows the little house with about 500 more “candies” on it than mine.

Aside from being an overall better photograph, theirs is about 1000x more ornate than my sad little house. I do have intentions [suppress your snickering] of adorning it with all the additional candies, but it just wasn’t happening this year. However, I’m still counting this in the “finished” column because it is, technically, put together. For those who wondered, the four walls of the house were crocheted together at the edges. Then I had to slip them over a cardboard frame made-to-measure (I used an old oatmeal box). The roof — also glued to cardboard — is then placed on top. The icicles do the double duty of looking purty and hiding where the pieces meet. For now, the gingerbread house is packed away with the rest of the Christmas decorations, so it’s as done as it’s going to get until after Thanksgiving. And, whenever I do stick on the rest of the candies, I promise to take a better picture.

Ok, back to the UFO graphic.

3. Peasant top blouse — It gets an X because it was a major failure. I pulled the slip, I tried to make it work, but I could have fit myself and two of my children inside this thing. Onto the scrap heap!

4. Rainbow afghan — Well, I worked on it, so I’m giving it a yellow check. Sort of a provisional check mark. I made more granny squares, but I ran out of yarn for the green (and final) round of squares. I wasn’t in a position to buy more yarn for this project, so it is stuck in limbo for the time being.

5. Wheat sweater — never pulled the slip. This is one I actually want to get finished before this winter is over. It sure would be nice to have another sweater to wear.

6. Axl doll — never pulled the slip.

7. Purple sock — never pulled the slip. I am really, really tempted to just pull the whole thing off the loom and start over (there wasn’t that much on there) because I don’t remember what I was doing when I stopped working on it two (or three?) years ago.

8. Stuffed animal dress — Finished! And blogged!

9. Embroidered wool baby booties — Finished! And blogged!

So, five out of nine projects were addressed in some way or another. That’s not a terrible showing, I guess, but I was hoping for better from myself. I think my crafting goal for this year will be stashbusting, mostly in the fabric realm. I have yards and yards of fabric that was purchased with garments in mind and have just never gotten around to sewing them. I could have a pretty nice wardrobe if I’d just sit down and do it! My yarn stash needs busting of some sort, but most of what I have there is a leftover hodge-podge that doesn’t readily lend itself to much of anything. I could populate an amigurumi jungle, I guess. I dunno. We’ll see what I do with that.

January is already looking swamped, project-wise, so I’m predicting that it won’t be until at least the end of February before I pull another UFO slip. How do I get swamped? A few different things — I have a couple of “commissions” that I need to tackle; needs within my own family arise (e.g. Konik needs new mittens; I promised a new skirt to Granota months ago, etc, etc.); also, there are always things to be repaired (and frankly, I’m not so good about getting to those). The good news is, I should have plenty of things to write about! The standing question is, will I find the time? Stay tuned to find out.

December 14: Handmade

Now here’s something you probably thought I had forgotten about. Never fear, I’ve been slowly working on it.

This crocheted gingerbread house was one of my many UFOs. Now it’s a mostly-finished object. It still needs additional “candies” on it, but I haven’t made those. Again, Baby Sprinkaan has affected my ability to craft. Track with me: The little house stands about 7.5″ tall, so the candies are quite small. Little items like that are easy to misplace. Baby Sprinkaan is an expert at finding tiny things that the big people have lost. And then he eats them. So the embellishment part of the project is on hold. Maybe I’ll add a few new bits every year?

Putting the plan into place

Happy New Year! We’ve been in the new house for two months now, baby Sprinkaan is 6 weeks old, we made it through the holidays and life is beginning to settle into a more predictable routine, which means I can — fingers crossed — get back on here on a more regular basis. Earlier last week, I began going through my sewing room in an attempt to bring some order to the chaos. I’ve still got more work to do to get it organized to where I can find things easily, but in that process, I made a shocking discovery. Shocking, I tell you! Ok, maybe only to me.

A room of my very own!

Whilst cleaning, I came across several UFOs. That’s right, the dreaded UnFinished Object. I’m not surprised that these UFOs exist (I am a procrastinator, after all), just that there are so many of them. I found things I had completely forgotten about. So, in the interest of accountability, I’m posting them all here. Well, I say all; there may yet be undiscovered specimens.

Here’s the story of a lovely lady who can’t seem to finish what she starts

From the top, going left to right:

1. Rag rug. I even posted about this back when I started it and then promptly got bored of it and stashed it away. It’s wound into an oval purely for visual purposes because it’s much easier to see it as a rug this way than as the mile-long fabric braid that it actually is. The braiding is complete, as far as I’m concerned, now it’s just the awful task of hand-sewing all that mess together.
2. Crochet gingerbread house. It doesn’t look like much, but all the actual house pieces are there: roof, front, back, and sides. I just need to finish all the candy features and assemble the thing.
3. Beige peasant blouse. I started this last spring with the intention of it being a sort of transitional maternity top. That was effective. Again, all the pieces are there, I just need to finish the embroidery on the yoke and sew it up.
4. Rainbow granny afghan. This is probably the biggest undertaking out of all these projects. I hate weaving in ends and granny squares produce a lot of ends to weave. Multi-colored granny squares make me question my sanity for deciding to embark on this in the first place.
5. Front of a sweater. This sweater has a name — it’s from my knitting board book, but I can’t find the book yet and I don’t remember the name. At any rate, the front of a sweater doesn’t do me a lot of good without the back and sleeves.
6. Axl doll. Another naked Axl. I started out all gung-ho on this after I finished the dolls for the girls, but then was struck with ennui when it came to sewing more tiny clothes. The thing is, I did all the hard work the first time and made little patterns so that any subsequent dolls wouldn’t be such a pain, but, eh.
7. Knitting loom sock. Remember when I made Konik the little striped socks that he loved and wouldn’t take off for three days? Immediately after that, I began making a sock for myself. And then more interesting things came along… I actually haven’t gotten very far on this one at all and, to tell the truth, can’t remember which pattern I was using. I may end up taking it off and doing something else. We’ll see.
8. Bunny dress. Rana and I had started a little sewing project together to make her favorite stuffed bunny a pretty little dress. We were on a roll and then we missed a few days and a few days turned into a few months.
9. Embroidered baby booties. You want to know how shameful my UFOs are? I began these booties when I was pregnant with Konik. He’s 4. I need to get a move on if any of my own children are going to actually wear these. Sprinkaan, you are our last hope.

So here’s my New Year’s Resolution of sorts: for the next year, I will choose one of these projects each month and bust it out. Originally I was just going to randomly pull one from a jar, but obviously, some of these have a little more urgency than others, like the booties for example. That one will have to be the first… just as soon as I finish the little sweater I’m knitting for Sprinkaan. Maybe after that I’ll go with the jar idea. For some reason, it feels more likely that I’ll actually do these if I feel like it’s a surprise and not an assignment. I will (again, fingers crossed) be making other things during the next nine months. These items are, with the exception of the doll clothes, my “armchair crafts” — the things that I can work on in the evenings after I’ve put the kids to bed and just want to sit quietly. Even with the new baby, I’ll make time for daytime projects. So, when I begin one of these UFOs, I’ll post about it and you all can pester me hold me accountable throughout that month to make sure I finish it! Deal? Deal.

So you want to crochet a Nemo fish

Since the inception of this blog, I’ve been surprised and amused to find that my most popular post by far is “Crocheting Nemo” from way back at the beginning. Rarely a day goes by that someone doesn’t read that particular post and I see in my search terms people desperately looking for crocheted Nemos. The pattern was originally published in a Crochet Today! magazine from the summer of 2009. It’s a difficult issue to find any more, which means that there are apparently legions of distraught crocheters the world over wondering how to crochet their own Nemo fish. And, in their search, they land on my blog. I hope some them stick around to read more, but unfortunately, it’s not my pattern, so I can’t share it here. I can, however, offer a balm to all of these forlorn crocheters:

Crochet Today! has reprinted the Nemo (aka “Flippy the Fish”) pattern in a special crochet gifts issue that is out right now.

I bought this issue because of the adorable little gingerbread house (which I am currently working on. If completing just one side of the house can be considered “working on”). But, rest assured, Flippy/Nemo is in there, along with a lot of other cute little animals and crocheted toys. So, go crazy folks, go crazy.