5.04.2016

Quitting is for Winners

Lately, I have been taking account of many aspects of my life and eliminating the things that don't make me happy. I will spare you the details of my various transitions, but I do want to talk about knitting (something I have neglected on this blog for quite some time.) I went through all of my WIP's and either frogged them and donated the yarn or created a plan for finishing them. One WIP that I have been working on for a couple of years is the Beekeeper's Quilt. I have knitted about 60 hexipuffs and while I really like the idea of creating a blanket with my project scraps, I am no longer excited about the design. I haven't make a puff in months mostly due to the doubt that I will actually finish this project. I spent a little time thinking about what I like about the project- the use of lots of colors, the chance to try out sample yarns in a functional way, using some of my handdyed scraps, and seeing yarn used in old projects again. Then I thought about what I dislike about the project- the stuffed puffs (which where originally something I loved,) the difficulty of making a perfectly symmetrical hexagon, the fact that all of the finishing will be done at the end, and the laundering issues that will come with a stuffed blanket. I've put about 30 hours of my life into this project and now I am calling it quits.

I frogged my hexipuffs and have started a Cozy Memory Blanket instead. The Cozy Memory keeps the things I love about the Beekeeper while eliminating the things I don't like. There are several patterns online (here, here, and here to name a few,) but since it is just a mitered square pattern, I ended up creating my own technique that uses slipped stitches to make a knit ridge up the center. I am still working out the kinks, but am confident enough in my method to move from yest squares to blanket squares.



Shannon from the Soxcetera podcast is doing a knitalong (#blanketblitzkal) through May 31 and I am using this as a personal challenge to get the first 31 squares of my blanket knit with the ultimate goal of 100 by the end of the year. I haven't yet decided on a finished size, but I would like this to be at least a three year project so maybe whatever size it is in 2020. I am also going to try and keep a Flickr album of my squares and the memories (if any) associated with them.

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