Most knitters have unfinished projects, many of which have been exiled to the closet for one reason or another…quite often because of a mistake made, the call of a new yarn, or it got put down and now you can’t figure out where you are.
But I have decided that this could be the year of the WIP (work in progress) and I could have something to show for myself at the end of the year.
Looking around my studio, I could identify 3 projects, and felt good that my “downsizing” of my stash before we moved included at least 5 or 6 things that I ripped out and gave away the yarn. Three isn’t bad. A good goal. And, I have also made a pact with myself that I won’t start on a new project until these are done (or at least one of them is).
I also have been slowly cleaning out our “guest room.” The reason I have placed it in quotes is because it doesn’t have a bed, and if you wanted to stay there your best bet is laying a few blankets on top of the boxes.
But then I came to the bottom layer of a box I thought was just some handmade scarves my mother had woven for me, and low and behold, below were bags of yarn and obvious WIPs (or Works Abandoned, more like it.) One I have no recollection of starting, and another I remember, and also remember stopping because I was stuck. The latter would be a good one to finish, however. A very light-weight pullover with Gansey designs that I began well before I knew much about Gansey construction. The issue now is that there are no real instructions. I designed this one myself, and there are cryptic notes but no actual directions for what I was supposed to do next. Problem 2 is that I’m not sure what yarn I was using. There are some candidates, but at the moment I’m not of a mind to try them out.
The final one was started when I was in Iceland. I’m thinking that was 10 or 11 years ago. It’s a rather plain sweater with minimal color work designs that I now think are hideous. The back is done and both sleeves nearly done, while the front sits waiting for a decision on the color work. I think I will try to find a 3-color pattern that I like better, and it will go only above the ribbing. That ripped back easily, so is actually ready to go. It may well sit until fall as it is getting warm for knitting wool.
The last one I will mention is one I actually am working on right now. It is a lovely design by Fiona Ellis. A lacy cardi with a pleat in the back, and it’s being knit in a wonderful Malabrigo red. It’s actually calling to me at the moment because I made an error in one of the lace panels about 4 rows earlier, so it already has had those 7 stitched dropped down for re-knitting. And there we have it. The reasons for drifting into WIP insanity. Mistakes that were ripped back and not fixed (landing them into a nearly endless time-out), designs that make me wonder what I was thinking at the time, things I designed but never finished writing the instructions for, and rather nice pieces that somehow ended up at the bottom of the pile. Mind you, these are only the newest WIPS to be unearthed, and these added to the ones I was expecting to work on have just about thrown me over the edge.
Oh, and there also is the Gansey I started after I learned about gussets, etc. It was paused because I needed to get a longer set of needles, or an additional set to have fewer stitches per needle. And of course, while it has been waiting on the too short needles, stitches are now hanging in space from 3 of the 4.
Thus we have all of the ingredients for a knitter’s descent into panic, or knitting insanity as I think of it. It goes along with the often quoted saying, “so much yarn, so little time.” You also have to realize that I have actually purchased additional yarn since I got here, as well as fleece and roving. That in and of itself should give you an idea of my highly questionable state of mind.
I have a friend, who also is an incredible knitter and knitwear designer (Amy Herzog) who wrote a piece for a book about knitters stashes – that large collection of yarn that takes up a closet, or in my case, a room. She doesn’t have one. I find it almost impossible to believe, but I am beginning to think she has the right idea. Her process is to conceive of an idea, choose the best yarn for the design, and then knit. When she finishes, she is ready for a new project, but has no piles of yarn waiting and none of the “what was I thinking?” that goes along with some of the yarn in my storage bins.
In some respects I have improved (even without formal therapy) and have lightened my load considerably. Before the move I off-loaded 20+ years of undisciplined yarn buying on my Wednesday knitting group. I have no idea how many kilos of yarn that represents, but it is about 6 times the amount I have now. I think is overwhelming. I probably have about 15 pairs of socks and 40 sweaters-worth, and that’s without including the 4 (now 7) I was planning on (WIP year may become WIP decade). And, I haven’t included 2 that I haven’t figured out what they were going to be, and 1 that just got ripped back because Bruce decided he doesn’t want that sweater after all). I think if I actually had gotten to 10 WIPS, I may well have lost it entirely and chucked that entire collection in the bin. Who is going to wear this stuff?
From the BBC in March this year, “Cheap and easy to pick up, knitting can help to fight addictive behaviours, from nail-biting and doomscrolling all the way up to helping people struggling with street drugs. The only side-effect? Too many scarves and hats.” Here is where I think they have missed an important additional side-effect…the addiction to buying yarn.
After all, the display of colors, the amazing tactile experience of handling the yarn, rubbing it against your face to see if it’s soft enough to wear next to your skin, the beautifully knit sweaters, hats and socks that adorn the walls of the shop. Resistance is futile difficult. There is a little written about knitting addiction, and I found this particular story compelling…and a little bit scary.
“I turn to my knitting in times of crisis. This might sound like a constructive thing. After all, I’m creating rather than destroying, right? Wrong. I say that I’m addicted because I am. I can’t function on a normal level without my knitting bag at my side. I can’t sit still in class or on a break if I’m not knitting. My head hurts, I sweat, I get jittery if my hands are doing nothing. And it gets worse. I skip classes to go to yarn stores. I come back late from breaks at work because I needed to finish just one more row. I already have one knitting tattoo and another planned. I pay my rent late because I spent my entire paycheck on yarn. My boyfriend’s half of the apartment is slowly being taken over by my stash. My life isn’t complete without knitting. I bought two spinning wheels so I could spin my own yarn. I think that if I ever lost a hand or arm due to an accident I would probably kill myself because I couldn’t knit…I’ve admitted to myself that I have a problem, but most people see knitting as simply my hobby. It goes so much deeper than that and I feel like I finally needed to say something.“
I feel for the young lady who wrote this post on social media. Having gone through periods where I didn’t knit at all, I think she probably will even out in time. I also expect, for someone who is gathering an unwieldy stash in her apartment, she will find that the uncontrolled purchasing of yarn will lead eventually to WIP insanity. The cure of course, is just to rip it out and give the yarn away. Granted, that isn’t easy either.
Some psychologists have asserted that knitting is an inexpensive hobby, a good way to reduce stress, and a tactic of keeping your hands busy as a method of overcoming an addiction, such as biting your nails. Clearly they aren’t knitters or they would realize that good yarn can cost $20-30 a skein, and quite a few, more than that. Inexpensive? Perhaps so compared to hard drugs. And in many respects, knitting can be just trading one addiction for another. As the writer above pointed out, the addiction starts with the knitting itself. Then, with the addition of yarn retail therapy adding a whole additional level of complexity to this particular psychosis, we enter an additional addictive realm. It’s just a bit overwhelming.
Still, I would much rather buy yarn that many other things, so at least in that respect, it is a limitable addiction. And, if I’m lucky, will actually result in a garment or two I can wear.
So until next time, keep calm and craft on.
Afterward
I may have spoken too soon about the Icelandic yarn and sweater pattern. When I started re-reading the pattern I discovered that I hadn’t actually been knitting that pattern as written, and had no idea why. The sleeves were to have been knitted in the round, and I had done them flat. The front and back had different ribbing. Who knows what was going on in my mind? It has been ripped back and rolled into balls, so it no longer counts toward the backlog. One down, many to go.
I’ve been trying to pull projects out of time-out bags, but realizing why I put them aside. Every Wednesday, someone is asked what yarn they are using for a given project. The answer is often “Not sure, Sara yarn.”