Finishing and Frogging

I joined a group on Ravelry.. I kinda mentioned it the other day…  and  I encourage my friends (especially those suffering from Startitis) to join in… it’s a nice bunch of folks over there at Finish or Frog It.

Here’s the rules …

1. On Friday, take a moment to evaluate your knitting projects.
2. Decide if you can either finish something or frog it.
3. If you finish a project, post a picture on your with the Finishing Friday button below. If you have a blog – link to this group so others will know about the Knitalong. If you don’t have a blog, add the FO to the projects section.
4. Tell us how it feels to have finally finished this project and let us know how long it’s been on your UFO or WIP list.
5. If you frog a project, and you have a blog, post a picture with the Frogging Friday button below. Link to this group so others will know about the Knitalong. Post a picture to the projects section and be sure to select “Frogged” as its current status. Maybe you’ll even put a picture of the frogged yarn in the your stash and share it with the group. Will you wash it? Will you dry it?
6. Tell us when you started it. Tell us why you fell out of love with it. Tell us how you plan to re-purpose the yarn.
7. I have officially started this Ravelry Group called Finish or Frog It. Post your pictures here, add a comment to the appropriate discussion thread (Finish or Frog) or email me or leave a comment with a link to your post so I can keep track of whose finished and whose frogged what. PS – for those not on ravelry – they can also email me at majorknitter at yahoo dot com or comment on my blog http://www.majorknitter.typepad.com.
8. I’ll have a monthly prize give away for the random Finished O and the Frogged O.
9. There is no requirement to either finish or frog an item every single Friday. Friday is simply a benchmark to remind you to reflect. Go at your own pace. Once a week; once a month; once a quarter or even once a year. Use Friday as your incentive or reality check.

For my first Friday post .. I want to get everything out of the closet and airing out… so to speak… so I will list ALL of my projects… YIKES…

First… here are the WIPs (UFOs) I highlighted in my Ravelry (plus a few I haven’t even uploaded there)…

1. Snowman Hat for Rosalie
2. Snowman Hat for Emmett’s Best Bud
3. Vine Lace Scarf for Lace Knitting Class
4. Reader’s Wrap for Bella aka ME
5. Ravenclaw Trapped Bar Scarf
6. Dobby for Rosalie
7. Hamster for Emmett
8. Kitchen Bag for Me
9. I Love Edward Socks
10. My Eskimo
11. My Underthings
12. Carlisle’s Cabled Hat
13. Chewyghan
14. Esme’s Crest Bag (Design)
15. Peppermint Cloth
16. Rosalie’s dishcloth afghan
17. Alice’s Dischloth Afghan
18. Alice’s boa scarf
19. Emmett’s green fuzzy scarf
20. Halloween Cloth (Ball band)
21. Alien Hat
22. Odessa for Me
23. Hemlock Ring Blanket
24. Pomatomus Socks
25. Cabled Scarf
26. Bus Scarf (Design)
27. Blue Linus Project Pattern baby afghan

Wow.. I hadn’t counted them before.. yikes…

and I had these KNOWN to be frogged projects…

1. Baby Afghan – Yellow (bernat Satin)
2. Ribbed Scarf – Blue Cashmere blend
3. Baby Afghan – Peter Pan and Wendy Yarn (white, green and blue)
4. Spring Forward Socks – need to go down a needles size
5. Pink Tom and Jerry Sweater
6. Mid May KAL (ran out of yarn, don’t need cloth that large)

Oh my… that’s a lot to contend with…

Due to the sheer NUMBER of projects.. I set a rule for myself that I cannot cast on anything NEW without first completing an old project…  I’m trying to also add two twists to that rule.. twist #1 – If I am going to cast on something new I must complete THAT project, in addition to one of my other unfinished projects before I can cast on anything else (with the exception of afghan’s).  Twist #2 – Just because I’m on a ‘finish’ roll… does not mean I can cast on that same number of projects… this may sound confusing but, let’s say I finish 3 things today because they were quick finishes that I just put off for one reason or other…  I cannot then cast on 3 new projects.. partly because of twist #1, but also because the goal is to decrease the overall number of WIPs sitting in bags around the house …  Finishing 3 is reward enough for casting on one more new project 🙂

Ok, now that I’ve laid out all my dirty WIPs and UFOs here’s the progress I’ve made…

I have frogged almost all of the projects in my list…

1. Baby Afghan – Yellow (bernat Satin)
2. Ribbed Scarf – Blue Cashmere blend
3. Baby Afghan – Peter Pan and Wendy Yarn (white, green and blue)
4. Spring Forward Socks – need to go down a needles size
5. Pink Tom and Jerry Sweater
6. Mid May KAL (ran out of yarn, don’t need cloth that large)

Yay me!

This may sound silly but I seem to have misplaced the Spring forward sock… I can’t find it anywhere (I’ve been organizing my stash too… so I’m sure I tucked it into some bag… it will turn up soon enough and I will frog it! 🙂 )

As for how I intend to use the yarns…

Yellow Bernat Satin – new baby afghan in mind
Peter Pan and Wendy Yarn – Baby gifts for my cousin due in April
Blue Cashmere Blend – New hat for Carlisle – Possibly Koolhaus, but need to see what the yarn weight requirements are for that project.
Cotton Dishcloth Yarn – No plans as of yet, it’s in the cotton yarn stash bag now

As for the other projects…

1. Snowman Hat for Rosalie
2. Snowman Hat for Emmett’s Best Bud
3. Vine Lace Scarf for Lace Knitting Class
4. Reader’s Wrap for Bella aka ME ** More than half done, but ran out of yarn, checking for more today at AC Moore
5. Ravenclaw Trapped Bar Scarf
6. Dobby for Rosalie **Nearly complete, need to get eyes finished today if possible, again need to get something at AC Moore for this
7. Hamster for Emmett
8. Kitchen Bag for Me
9. I Love Edward Socks
10. My Eskimo
11. My Underthings
12. Carlisle’s Cabled Hat
13. Chewyghan ** Balled the yarn for the finishing of this lapghan, no excuses now!
14. Esme’s Crest Bag (Design)
15. Peppermint Cloth
16. Rosalie’s dishcloth afghan
17. Alice’s Dischloth Afghan
18. Alice’s boa scarf
19. Emmett’s green fuzzy scarf
20. Halloween Cloth (Ball band)
21. Alien Hat
22. Odessa for Me
23. Hemlock Ring Blanket
24. Pomatomus Socks
25. Cabled Scarf ** Can’t find pattern, may end up frogging
26. Bus Scarf (Design)
27. Blue Linus Project Pattern baby afghan

I did cast on one project, a necessary one actually for the class I’m teaching starting next week. It’s 3/4 complete already 🙂

28. Jay is for Jag scarf for Lace Class.

I posted pics of all the projects in my Ravelry projects… I am actually running out of time at the moment so I’ll come back to post the finished objects here and talk about how long they were in my projects etc. 🙂

Rosalie’s Snowman Hat
Started 9/9/08
Completed 1/1/09
sad isn’t it… sheesh.. all that was left from late September onward was sewing on the buttons and the already knit nose!  Pathetic!  She loves the hat though… she’d outgrown her previous one so she needed a new snowman to wear!

Emmett (modeling the snowman hat for his best buddy Edward)
Started 11/30/08
Completed 1/1/09
Not really a WIP that was sitting for long, but it was for a Birthday gift, that became a Christmas gift, and then just a New Year’s gift! Sheesh!

Emmett’s Scarf
Started 2007? at least that long ago… it moved with us to PA from NC!
Finished 1/2/09
Nothing spectacular about this scarf.  Just a garter stitch scarf out of a fun fur yarn that Emmett chose himself.  It’s actually quite a nice fur yarn, super super soft.  It’s not Lion Brand, though right now the name of the yarn escapes me.  I do have one skein left of it so I’ll have to find out what it is exactly…

Alice’s Boa Scarf
Started 2007? at least that long ago, yet another project that moved with us to PA from NC!
Another non-spectacular knit outside of the fact that Alice picked the yarn herself… It’s Bernat Boa in a colorway I’ve forgotten and lost it’s ball band.

Vine Lace Scarf
Started 12/23/08
Finished 1/5/09
This knit is one of the two patterns I suggested for the students in my Lace Knitting Class starting at the end of the month (looks like it’s going to be bumped to February actually).  I want to have both patterns completed and in the shop for viewing prior to the class start date.

The thing with lace projects is that while I’m knitting I feel like I’m slogging away at it forever… but once it’s blocking and I see the finished project… I’m like ‘Why don’t I knit more lace??’

I like seeing it as a total list… and crossing those things off as I go along… 🙂  Let’s see how much more I can cross off by next Friday.