The finishing pile

We all know I have a pile of shawls to block.  What you may not know, is that hidden in the dark parts, the corners, the behinds of the shelves in this small study, there is a whole other layer of stuff. It is an amalgam of things I don't know what to do with.

Things like an item purchased to be a goofy Christmas gift, that got left behind in the melee of Christmas.  Its been there for several years.  Then there is the a little paper cutter.  It is the second of 2 and I don't even know why I have one of them.  

And there there are a few knitted things that never were quite finished.  Experimental things, things that were close to working out, but that really didn't quite make it.  

When I was cleaning shelves the other day, I discovered an old unfinished thing.  I knit extremely large slippers a long time ago, long before I realized that I had enough miscellaneous Cascade 220 to clothe the world.  It was meant to be felted so it was knit double stranded too. The felting took too long in my machine and the pair was never finished.  All that was there was one very large single sock like foot.

When I sat down yesterday evening to knit on the Icelandic Overblouse, the first thing I did was to count the ridges.  I had 37 completed ridges and was halfway through the 38th.  I was over the moon with joy at this.  I only needed 41 to be at the neck edge!  So I knit and in very short order was there.  Then it was the simple matter of knitting 4 ridge shoulder sections and the Icelandic Overblouse would be done. 

I made it through one shoulder just fine...and ran out of yarn.  I did have a couple feet left, but I was never going to get a shoulder from that couple feet.  And that was when I pulled apart the slipper, the very large, gray slipper which had been meant for felting.  I am really really really glad that I leave some things undone for a long time.  Tickled in fact.  

I had enough for my shoulder, enough for seaming, enough for a  pair of nice winter gloves.  

Shoulder Seam.  Almost verklempt.  

I still have the very long side seams and the sleeve undersides to complete, but this sweater is almost done.  My first sweater of the year.  First for me at any rate.

I wouldn't be in this position if I wasn't a perennial slacker and lazy bones, who tucks stuff behind books and forgets it ever existed.  No, if I wasn't this sort of person, if I tidied up everything after every project, I would be sitting here, waiting for yarn to arrive or I would be out searching for yarn.

Because I am a a lazybones, I am just a person waiting for side seams to be sewn.  And that is going to happen this week.  The forecast is for chilly and this is Canada, where a thick winter sweater is an all season garment.

Who knew there would be something golden about a pile of unfinished stuff?