WooHoo!! Alright, here is the official WIP purge.
So for the most part the yarn is worth saving. But I thought you might like to hear the post mortum of these projects gone horribly awry.
This crazy awesome cool denim yarn
I love this yarn, and I have a metric tone of it. I was going to make a shrug. Was using a great pattern. But truly, I am not going to wear this. At one point, I wanted to make a sweater with an awesome textured design. The thing that is cool about this yarn is it fades like blue jeans, so any texture you knit with it becomes a patina as you wash it, accenting the textures even more. I couldn’t even tell you what the brand of yarn is, got it from my fave discount yarn place ages ago.
Screaming Bright Quality in a Square
I love the construction of this pattern, I also loved that it is a stashbuster. And who couldn’t love the name. It was originally a German pattern, so the name translation is wonky. So, once I finished the back using some of my remnant hand dyed sport weight yarn, I realized I would never wear such a bright colorful sweater. I still would love to make one of these sweaters, it will just have to be not so bright. yarn hitting the freeform and/or weaving stash.
The not quite shrug
I love this yarn so much. And I really want a sweater out of it. Unfortunately I do not have enough yarn for a sweater. I tried a shrug, and HATE how it looks on me. So I will rip back and rethink. I am still hoping that miraculously I will find a smart pattern that somehow make what I have, magically become enough yarn for a sweater. Right…and pigs might actually be able to fly.
The henley that never materialized
It took for ever to knit this sweater to this point for some reason. I was just not jiving with the pattern anymore. I am really not sure I love the yarn either. It is my own hand dyed sock yarn. I may be over dyeing this once it’s frogged.
The meh shawl
Not sure why, but I just don’t want to finish this shawl. I am not sure I remember what pattern this was. The yarn color is lovely, but the base has some kind of nylon in it that is adding a coarse hand that I am not loving at all. May rip it back and make socks instead. I got the yarn from someone on ETSY.
The cute skull caps
I love the patterns( I have no idea where the patterns are they were form a book…not sure which one, not sure if I even have that book anymore), love the way the elastic yarn makes the skull caps hug your head. I look lousy in skull caps. But ripping back will also leave me with yarn that is slowly loosing it’s elasticity (because these projects are THAT old…) Will probably just toss them.
These hats that did not work either
I don’t know whey I keep trying to make crochet hats when these kinds of hats look terrible on me.
I wish this fit me.
I would still wear this today even if it were not in fashion. But alas I have no idea what else to do with it other than repurpose the yarn for weaving. All hand dyed and hand spun by me.
The impossible wool pretzel
This patten is really cool. A really clever design, It is one of the few kits I have ever purchased. However when I started to knit the sleeves, The construction just did not look good on me at all. I think it just needs a minor adjustment in the design to work on my body shape, and am willing to give it a go. But just not with this yarn. I am not loving the colors. I did at one time, but now, no it so much.
Nope, this yarn is still not doing it for me
See I even tried this yarn working a basic sweater, I am just not loving the color way. I mean maybe in my art journal, or a painting I would love these colors together, but not in a sweater I intend to wear.
Another hood I will never wear
I love this yarn(it Noro silk garden) I love the pattern(Of mars) but honestly I will never wear this. It is too hippy cutesy for me. I think it mostly has to do with my age.
Speaking of that Noro yarn
I have been struggling what to make with it. I really do love it and I am so very familiar with working with Noro overall. But for whatever reason I have had bad luck trying to knit up this yarn. I made this awesome potato chip like short row shawl. Was happy as a clam working it up. I would just stop to marvel at how awesome it looked on the needles. But once I put it on, I felt like a circus tent. GAH!! So this goes back into the stash. Not sure where I am going with this yarn.
Mill end crooked sweater
This is the problem with mill end yarn. You never know the quirks it will have knit up. Why I decided to knit on as it leaned hard to the left, I have no idea. I am tempted to rip it back to salvage the yarn for weaving. But I probably will just throw away. I have a bunch of this. I have no clue what pattern this is.
The mill end bag
This is the same mill end in a different color. Crocheting seems to work much better with this yarn. I like this market bag pattern, but honestly I thing I am just going to rip this back and repurpose the yarn for weaving.
Ditto with this bag
And these shawls
And whatever these were
The Swatch blanket
At some point this was a great idea. Freeform these swatches together for a cool crazy quilt looking blanket. It is actually a lousy idea because all these different fibers and densities are making a really wonky puckered blob. And I absolutely HATE weaving in ends. I am just going to toss the whole lot and free up the space in the stash
The Babette blanket
Love the pattern, love the yarn. But I am thinking this blanket will be thinner than I would like. I am going to toss these blocks into the perpetual freeform project. This is a combo of Koigu and my own hand dyed.
The sweater that was not what I was expecting
I had totally forgotten I had started to make this. I really thought a different sweater was in the project bag. I had taken a sweater fitting class a few years ago at my LYS in Asheville. Evidently I had started to rip back the old sweater I thought this was, to try my hand at my awesome new sweater fitting skillz. I am definitely NOT finishing this. This yarn is just way too heavy to be considered wearable indoors. And way too itchy to wear next to skin.
Painting with yarn
This is a sweater I kind of just made up based on a couple of sweaters I love. I like the yarn combo, the style has potential, but truth be told I will not be wearing this sweater. Not sure why, The fit is kind of off for my personal taste. There is some great yarn in there, time to repurpose.
The hairpin lace that just needs to die
I have been schlepping this around for years. Time to admit I will not be finishing this. I want to like it, but I just don’t. It is handspun and can totally be recycled into some great weaving
The poser project
I was meeting a knitting friend for some long overdue coffee shop knitting time. Mid move, I had no idea where my social knitting was, so I grabbed this yarn and some needles and spent our time swatching. I don’t even think I was really intending on making anything. This is just going to go back into the stash. I am thinking this handspun (by me) will work with a pile of other yarn I have collected for a bigger project.
Another meh sock
Yet again another social knitting project. I am not thrilled with it, and can totally use the yarn elsewhere. This is my hand dyed.
This is suppose to be a shawl
Clearly I fucked up something somewhere…Going to salvage the yummy Moonrover handspun
So there you have it. All my dirty laundry on my bad ideas. Tomorrow we are going to look at the WIPs I am feeling ambivalent about.
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Fiber artist Stacey Budge-Kamison AKA UrbanGypZ lives and works in Cary NC. She can also be found knitting in public, hammering out her latest e-course at local cafés and spinning yarns in her booth at her favorite arts festivals. A designer at heart, Stacey has decided that her mission is to help fellow knitters, crocheters, weavers and felters embrace their own style and creativity by exploring fiber art as it is a part of their everyday life and helping them embrace the title of artist no matter where they are in their journey. 
Your UFO’s are impressive! I can relate to many of them – I have discovered a few of the shawls I gave up on which I stuffed into my yarn stash (complete with needles which was why I had no needles left). They had a common theme; tension too tight and BROWN.
I have made a mental note to avoid starting brown anything in the future. I like BRIGHT!
I also agree with you about how things feel; if they aren’t soft and squooshy, then it’s bye-bye.
We learn so much about ourselves and our tastes from WIP’s/UFO’s
Have you considered raffling off some of your WIPs? There are some of us out here who are COMPELLED to finish things. It would be good mojo for your blog, don’t you think?
Hmmm…. could be.