The Trouble With Knitting

[ailbhe]

I enjoy knitting, I'm actually competent at it and produce fairly even work though I've never tried anything complicated, I can do it for a longish while without it hurting my hands, but...

... I never, ever finish anything, ever. It's partially that I enjoy knitting but don't like to choose new things to make or own, so when something is nearly finished that's the good bit over with. And it's partially that at one stage or another someone small interrupts me in a yarn-destructive way and I just don't prioritise knitting highly enough to prevent that from happening.

But I'd like to do it anyway, sometimes...

Perhaps I can find a simple round hat pattern. It ought to be ready by autumn if I start now.

Comments

[serene]

I made the mistake of agreeing to make a Dr. Who scarf. This may be the last project I ever knit. I may be 80 before it's done. :-)

[ailbhe]

Heh. How many colours?

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

I always have a million different craft projects going - but I'm having trouble progressing with the knitting because it's kind of BORING. There, I said it. Give me a crochet hook - or a needle and thread.

[ailbhe]

I find the knitting itself - growing items the way they're supposed to look, and using the needles - fairly interesting. It's just the finished objects that bore me silly, when I get close enough that they are potentially really finished.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

In the quilting world, those are known as UFOs - UnFinished Objects that you just can't bring yourself to finish off. And there are definitely people who have a UFO problem. :)

Occasionally I make a list of UFOs and resolve that this will be the year I finish stuff. Sometimes that works.

[dorianegray.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should just knit a never-ending scarf. :-)

[ai731.livejournal.com]

I used to have trouble finishing things, until I got good enough at knitting to knit truly useful garments in colours / patterns that I really liked (stripey socks!) Knitting gifts helps with the finishing for me, too, because there's a deadline to meet.

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

I should post a picture of the hat I just finished. I think it would be very you!

[ailbhe]

Oooh?

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

I am in my PJs now, but it was with this wool:

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

Oh and you would need to join www.ravelry.com to see the pattern (so I suggest you do so now, because there is sometimes a wait to get activated.

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2005/06/easy_rollbrim_k_1.php

I've knitted that one in an evening before now, in chunky yarn on a circular needle with big points. It's quite boring to knit (just knitting, round and round and round), but super fast and looks good!

I too struggled for years with finishing things, but once I found something really small and finished that (a teacosy), I somehow broke the spell!

[ailbhe]

That hat has distinct potential. I wonder where I put my circular needles?

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I think it's okay to enjoy the knitting, without having any particular drive to have or use the finished product. For me, the voice telling me that it has to be useful and that I have to finish one thing before wasting time and money on another is an old unhelpful voice (mostly my mother). On Ravelry, they talk about "process" knitters, people who love to be knitting but don't care about finishing, having, or giving away the knitted things.

I bet other people have better suggestions about the hat pattern - I mostly don't like to wear hats, so I haven't made many. If you want suggestions of other things you might enjoy having/giving enough to finish knitting them, you could look at: cotton dishcloths, things for the dress-up box, anything where there isn't a deadline of a child growing out of it, blankets for bears or dollies. Or, sooner or later, you might have a kid who is interested in learning, and then you have a different kind of enjoying the process - or you find yourself finishing "her" project for her.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

If you do ever want to finish something - squares for a blanket? Always useful for the kids, but also you can make ithe square and then the blanket itself whatever size you want- a 2 x 2 mat for #3, or a 3 x 3 mat, or a 4 x 4 almost-blanket, or a 6 x 5 small blanket, or a 10x10 proper-definite-blanket thing...

(or I may just be obsessed with blankets at the moment!)

[clarahippy.livejournal.com]

I have never finished a knitting project. I am very slow at it (my mum says I knit weird so I don't know if its that) and I frequently get distracted by something else and just put whatever I am doing down for months by which time I have decided to knit something else!

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

I'm the same, with embroidery type things too I enjoy the 'doing' part rather than the making/finishing bit. I positively like embroidery/tapestry with large expanses of one colour so that I can just keep on at it.

Stealing from hobbitbabe upthread a bit I am now going to describe myself as a 'process crafter'. There is a word for me, I like this.

[random-c.livejournal.com]

How about socks? There are many fun multi-coloured yarns that would make, say, the mouse-sock pattern appropriately sized for small people's feet if knitted on smaller dpns, especially if the yarn is a doubleknit or such rather than the Chunky I used for the mousesocks.
As they are toe-up socks, they are easy to try on as you go to make sure they're right and the pattern is easy to adjust.