Will I Ever Finish it? Friday

Will I Ever Finish it? Friday

Carol made a comment to me the other day about not finishing my crochet  projects.  Could this be true? Well, there's the blanket I have been making for Daniel, striped and colorful with an assortment of different stitches, the ziggy pillow I am making for Olivia's dorm room, a tea cup cosy I am making just for fun which still needs its ends sewn it, squares for a charity blanket at church which need to be sewn together and edged, and….

Hmmm, maybe she has a point.  So I decided to start a Will I Ever Finish It? Friday post. Maybe having to dig these unfinished projects up, visit with them for a while as I photograph them and write about them, will get me moving on actually finishing them!

Am I alone in this?  Please tell me about your unfinished work so I can feel I bit encouraged and better.


Here's my first Will I Ever Finish it? Friday post:

Carol came over for a visit the other day.  As seems to be an emerging pattern, our time to sit, visit, drink tea, talk over life  and be creative was cut short. This time a massive traffic jam caused by an accident (very sadly fatal for the truck driver involved) delayed Carol in her trip to my house.  Then I needed to make an emergency art supplies delivery to my daughter at college, and another trip to pick my son up from cross country practice.  But we did manage to squeeze in a very quick cup of tea and a lovely lunch with dear friend Liz and her daughter Anna.

During our short visit we talked about possible baby gifts we could make for some soon-to-be-here babies.  We ventured down into my basement and I  pulled out two baby blankets I have never finished.  One is a pieced log cabin quilt (I'll post a photo of it later).  All the blocks have been made, more or less, but it needs to be assembled, a border added and quilted.  Enough time to finish it before the first baby arrives?  Not sure, not sure.

This is the second blanket:

I started it quite some time ago.  Quite, quite some time ago.  It is from a pattern in an old Leisure Arts leaflet, "Make One For Baby".  I loved the colors and the texture!  Wonderful!

It uses a combination of half double crochet, long double crochet and front post stitches.

 So why, with so much love going on for this blanket, did I stop working on it?  Well, as the blanket grew, row by row, the entire thing started to go askew.  It was very quickly losing its rectangular shape.   If I laid it out on the table with the bottom and one side lined up with the table edges, the opposite side was going off at an unpleasant angle!  My photos don't show this, but thats the beauty of cropping.

I remember, at the time, asking Carol, my crochet expert, to help me figure out what was happening.  She was baffled.  We asked Carol's crochet expert, her mom Muriel, and even Muriel was at a loss to figure out what I was doing wrong.

So, with much frustration and discouragement, the unfinished blanket was assigned to a basket somewhere down in the basement. And there it has lived for the last few years.

Carol and I studied it anew this week.  I had hoped that with a few more years of crochet experience we would have diagnosed its ailment.  No such luck.

So the question now is, do I pick it up again, finish it and hope that the powers of blocking will make it at least presentable?  I assume the baby will not have a ruler handy to assess the squareness of my blanket.

Or do I rip, rip, rip and start it again in hopes of a different result?

Or, as Carol suggested, do I take what I have and make it into something else, like a pillow?

Either way, on this Friday, I have to ask, Will I Ever Finish It?

 While you're here please visit out Baby Love Link Party and add a link to a baby item you have finished or are working on.

Happy Creating!
Cynthia

Basket Weave Baby Blankets

     I have been  thinking about possible gifts  I can crochet  for two soon-to-be-here babies.  This has caused me to try and remember what baby items I have already made and gifted.  The very first blanket I ever crocheted (and finished) was a pink, blue and white zig-zag baby blanket.  I remember I bought it as a kit and  diligently followed the instructions.  What a feeling of accomplishment when I finished!  Sadly, it being before the time of digital cameras, I don't think I ever took a photo of it. I can't even remember who I gave it to.  Oh well!  I hope it was used well and often!

Before my first child was born I started knitting a very basic baby sweater for her. I completed the front and probably about 3 rows of the back.  No sleeves. Three children later and it still sits unfinished in one of my yarn boxes.  Perhaps one day, far, far away, I will get it finished for a future grandchild.  Or maybe I should use it as a dishrag now!

When I was pregnant with my last child, my son, I decided that I wanted to crochet his Baptismal gown.  I found a pattern for a beautiful gown, bought the white cotton thread (yes, thread) and began.  The pattern started with the edging around the bottom of the skirt and worked its way up from there. Well, need I say that his gown never got any farther than that edging? What was I thinking to take on such a monumental project while pregnant with two little ones already at home? Something else for the grandchildren?

I actually did complete, and photograph, these two baby blankets.  Both are done in a basket weave pattern which I love.

I am feeling like I want to crochet another baby blanket, in a different pattern, and with a much brighter color scheme.  Time to do some thinking and get inspired.

Can you help get my creative juices going?  Carol and I have started our first link party  and its all about Baby projects.  It's called Baby Love Link Party.   We invite you to add your work to the collection, share your creativity with all of us and get inspired yourself by visiting other contributor's posts!  Please help us spread the invitation by grabbing the Baby Love button in the sidebar and adding it to your post!

Happy creating!

Peace,

Cynthia