How many projects do you abandon?

#1

I started knitting back in… well, I think September or thereabouts (I was kind of off and on at the beginning, because I got discouraged a few times… knitting garter stitch and not understanding why it didn’t look like stockinette was responsible for a lot of that… seems silly in retrospect!).

Anyway… I have started and then abandoned a TON of projects. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve done this! Either I’ve been unable to get the result I wanted, or I didn’t anticipate certain problems… any number of things.

Here’s a very brief list of recently abandoned projects :

Hat for me out of Moda Dea’s Aerie(stopped knitting it when I kept ending up with an extra stitch… then I needed those needles for something else, so it’s sitting needleless in a box)
Camera case (improvised project, I gave up because I didn’t get the body long enough, then when I frogged the yarn snarled up)
Eye pillow by Cat Bordhi (gave this up because I got the yarn and it wasn’t in a ball… it’s now a huge jumbled, disappointing heap sitting on the bookcase behind me)
Hand Puppet
Baby bib

It’s as if I spend hours and hours trying to decide on a project for someone, and then even when I decide, I still am not totally committed and keep thinking of stuff that might be better to make for them. That’s in addition to all of the problems, like the ones stated above.

So, how often do you abandon projects and do you think that’s normal for someone who’s a beginner?

I would get totally bored if I just tried to knit scarves.

Lest you think I’m totally incapable of finishing a project, here is a list of ones that I have actually completed :

first sock (it was too small for DS, so I didn’t do a pair)
Pan handlers for my cast-iron skillets
felted coaster
Shawl for SIL

Geez… I guess I don’t have that many FO’s do I? :roflhard:

Anyway… just curious if I’m the only one who seems to abandon a lot of projects!

#2

The next project you start commit to it and if you run into problems come here to ask questions and resist the urge to give up you will be so proud of yourself and you find some mistakes are very easily fixed. :XX:

#3

the only stuff i have REALLY abandoned are afghans because they are just too boring to me. once i found a pattern that i could easily memorize AND got a bag that would hold it and the yarn, i had no trouble getting the afghan done (it is baby size and technically isn’t done but the knitting part is! :rofling: ) oh and dish clothes… i just can’t see the point since i never make food in my house and paper towels work well enough…lol.

#4

In my first year of knitting (and I am just past my “anniversary”), I had many of the problems you did - particularly with the snarly yarn or with the skeins that need to be rolled. I would get impatient and that would make a bad situation worse. I have learned that even the center pull skeins from LYS or wherever that allegedly don’t need to be rolled - often should be anyway.

Re abandoning projects. I have definitely bought lots of yarn thinking I was going to do xyz and then there it sits because either the project idea was good but the yarn was not, or vice versa. I am sure my local Joann’s hated to see me come, I would buy yarn and then swap it out. I still have many one skein wonders from the past year and need to clean house.

I also started an afghan that I ended up ripping out, and then throwing out alot of the yarn because it was just nasty. Said afghan had one disaster after another. And then once I got past the disaster point, I realized the thing was just butt ugly. In hindsight, I should have bound it off and let Cooper have it. But no, I thought I could recover the yarn, and no it ended up getting snarly and going buh-bye due to overall frustration with the project.

Stick with it. Its a growing experience!

#5

I am actually pretty good about this. I’ve been knitting for about a year, and I have only abandoned one project so far. It was supposed to be a headband for a Christmas gift, but I couldn’t get the right gauge and it wasn’t coming out nice at all. I ended up giving up on knitted Christmas gifts…maybe for Christmas 2006 I will knit some things. I have quite a bit of yarn already for hats, headbands and mittens.

I also have an afghan that I started last February and still haven’t finished. I have finished knitting all 63 squares, but I ran out of the yarn that I need to edge it with, so the squares are still sitting in a drawer. I will eventually finish it. My DH jokes that all I know how to make is potholders. :rollseyes:

My FO list is pretty short, too. I’ve finished 3 hats… one for each daughter and one for me. Right now I’m working on mittens for my daughters. After that, I plan to make something bigger, like a vest or sweater…or maybe I’ll finish that afghan first.

#6

I have a few things, but I wouldn’t say I’d abandoned them. They are just on hold and I DO plan to finish them.

  1. Scarf I started on vacation that just needs more yarn
  2. Scarf that requires concentration that I haven’t wanted to give it lately.

When I feel something is truly a lost cause becaue I’m bored, can’t the pattern right or whatever I frog it and save the yarn for something else.

#7

I try to go back and finish one abandoned project after each FO. If I start a new project and then finish it, then I will pull out an AO and work on it for a while.

But yes, we all have a “hall of shame” filled with AOs.

#8

If I have a project that I don’t like or won’t ever work on again … I just frog it. So many times for me it is about the “process” more than the “product”. If the abandon project is wool … I bind off and felt, Then use the felted fabric for coasters or embellishment cut outs. I even have a half done hat that is a pretty cool bowl now!

#9

I wouldn’t say abandoned but maybe shelved.

I started a Big Block Afghan last year (BORING :rollseyes: ) and I am going to bind it off when I get home–it is now a scarf.

I have Oliver the Teddy Bear who needs to be assembled–I HATE to sew.

I finally finished Block #45 from the Great American Aran Afghan last night.

My goal this week is to finish some of these shelved projects. Cause I’m going to learn to crochet next week.

I think we should all grab an unfinished project and work on it today!! :??

#10

I have more UFOs than there are reported sightings near Area 51! I have decided that this year is the “Year of the UFO” at my house. I am going to try and eradicate at least one UFO per month. It will barely make a dent in what I have, but it will be progress. I made a list of the various projects {and add to it as I come across more} and decided whether to frog them or finish them. I have finished one already, frogged another {to restart it, which I have}, and will be frogging another one over the next few days. I haven’t set it in stone, but I’m trying to finish {or frog} 2 projects {new or UFO} before starting another new one.

#11

:?? You know, it’s strange… I will abandon projects left and right, but never end up with any UFO’s… usually I frog and use the yarn for something else (perfect example - I just got 2/3 of the way through a sock, and ripped it out and made baby socks w/the yarn instead - and I must add, I am much happier with the baby socks!).
There are two UFO’s haunting me at the moment - I am stymied with a sweater (my first, btw) that ended up being way too small… it is bound off, but sleeveless, I’m trying to decide what I should do with it because I don’t care for the yarn. The second is another sweater, for my DS, and the neck is not coming out the way I want… it is sitting in a basket by my knitting spot, being pointedly ignored…
I have a lot of ‘test’ items - ie, single slippers w/no mate that I made just to work out a pattern, but I keep those as a kind of reminder of my knitting progress. :wink:

#12

So far I’ve only abandoned scarves, and those were because I lost interest and, in one case, I discovered that stockinette curls (haha) and I didn’t feel like ripping it out and starting over.

I do have a rather large amount of UFOs that I’m still working on though. But I’ve gotten far enough of a fair amount of them that I’m going to start cranking out a lot of FOs pretty close to each other in the next month or so.

Actually, thinking about it, I’ve really only abandoned projects that I didn’t really want in the first place. The scarves were just things I started because I was bored. The other UFOs I’ve got right now - a scarf I actually like, fingerless gloves, warm socks, sweater, etc. - are all things I either need or really want to have finished.

#13

This is precisely why I don’t even start afghans! I know it would end up abandoned. I only have 1 One Sock Syndrome and that was a self patterning yarn that ended up being too big for me (it was floppy big not too long big) and so I never made the other one. I also have a baby sweater that I found in the bottom of a box that was half started and I had 3 of the 5 pieces finished (back, 1 sleeve and 1 side of the front) and on zip ties so I could graft them later. But remembered that I had finished the other side front and had made 2 left sides and frogged it to start over and never did. I started frogging it (since the baby is now 10 years old!) and it was so dry that the wool kept breaking. Dry rot. Other than that I tend to finish most of my projects. I may have 3 or 4 going at the time, but I always finish them ----- eventually! :smiley:

#14

Honey, I am wayyyyyyy to anal retentive and obsessive to ever abandon anything. I guess I just make sure I pick something I am confident of to some extent, ask lots of ??? of those who know more than I and most of all RELAX when it comes to mistakes. Expert knitters make mistakes too so don’t feel like you are any different than anyone else. My sister is an expert seamstress and she told me once that she usually has to fix at least one thing on ever major project she attempts. Have fun with it, even if it is hard and just go with the flow!

#15

I frogged my cushion cover simply because I didn’t have enough yarn. Unfortunately I only realised this after most of it was knitted, so now I’m trying a hat as you may see below but the ribbing isn’t going well. I know how to rib because the back of my DS’s sweater was done beautifully(not the front though.)
It may have to be frogged again but I like to keep my mistakes so I can see how much I’ve improved.

#16

So far my biggest reason for giving up a project is the yarn! Either i don’t like the feel/look of it knitted up, or it’s so painful to knit with (splitting, fiddly, slippery, too fuzzy etc…) that i can’t stand to work on it!
So i’ve decided i’m a yarn snob and i won’t buy acrylics or cheap wool to wear, and i’ll only use them for toys or the like. At the moment my favorite yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, so soft and springy!
You might find that if you use a yarn you love to touch :heart: , you might finish stuff more easily… Even tho i think many beginners tend to buy cheap yarn (reasoning that it won’t be a waste if it doesn’t turn out) I really feel you have to work out that with the time you spend knitting your item, it’s worth so much more? Say you buy really cheap yarn, then take 40 hours to knit a sweater, that equals a paid working week worth of time! and then you might not wear your hard work cause you don’t like the way it feels! I don’t know if you agree, but that’s my two cents.

#17

I have recently come to that conclusion too since I knitted a sweater in acrylic for my DS then pressed it before checking the ball band (whoops). It was cheapish so I didn’t mind steching it.
Will definately start to buy more expensive yarn. Or knit the stuff I have stashed under my bed.

#18

I have come to the point in my knitting life that if a project moves from active project to UFO, after about a year it is frogged. I just can’t stand the poor little (or big) lifeless carcass staring at me. Or calling to me from the back of the closet. Remember Edgar Allan Poe’s story the Telltale Heart? The sound of it beating just drove the guy bonkers?!

I’ve found that if a UFO sits for too long, I lose track of what I was doing (even with notes) and in my heart, I have moved on to greener pastures. I am no longer in love with the yarn or the project. And, for me, it is often the heat of the passion of the project - yarn lust and the perfect pattern - that motivated me to bein the thing in the first place. Once that is gone, the only motivator left is guilt. Ugh.

So, I’d frog what you can, give away to a fellow knitter what you can’t/don’t want to re-use and start afresh. Maybe a ball winder is in your future - really helps! And, as mentioned earlier, ask here for help/support. We’ve all knitted fugly!

#19

kristie im with you. ive got about three half done projects right now. one is half frogged and my baby was playing with the yarn so its tangled, and i love the yarn too much to give up on it but i dont want to untangle the durned thing anymore. ive got a half done scarf that my dog chewed. i cant finish it, but i cant bear to throw it away. it was my very first. i give it to my son when he wants to knit with mommy (he says “BABY KNIT!” and then moves his hands around fast with the yarn… so cute!)

i have a scarf i got sick of, ive got another scarf im just starting made with amazingly soft debbie bliss baby alpaca that is really hard to make look nice. its like every deviation from perfection is amplified times one million. i want to knit in it though, so im continuing.

ive got yet another scarf in rib stitch for my son but my son yanked out the needle and i cant bear to replace the needle yet again (third time. my son loves to “knit”)\

i did finally finish ONE project. my fist finished project. a scarf of course.

im not a natural knitter. it took me over 30 hours of struggling to “get” the rib stitch. im still not comfy with the seed stitch (and btw, the seed stitch and the baby alpaca do not mix. looks just nasty! i think i need a really tight yarn for something as knotty as the seed stitch)

i just want you to know you arent alone. eventually things will work themselves out and we will have less hiccups and half starts. i have faith.