Maybe this is the year I finish those un-finished projects.  The ones that I set aside for one reason or another over the past few years.  The infamous UFOs (unfinished objects) taking up cabinet space or lurking in knitting baskets and holding lovely Lantern Moon needles hostage.  The sweaters in cryogenic sleep.  The embryonic lace shawls. 

It sounds like a sci-fi movie.

Most of these are pieces I would honestly love to wear (or actually give to their intended recipients!).  I have, I think, 4 lace shawls on the needles and none in my wardrobe.  Now, it is getting to be like True Confessions!

Anyhow, I seem to have started already – having resuscitated the cashmere scarf I “gave” George for Christmas in 2010 and resurrected the Bella Bella Capelet (because I figured I could actually get it done to wear at Stitches West next month).  And it feels okay – not really exciting or even deliciously virtuous, but okay.  I figured out where I was on each one (grateful that I keep meticulous notes!)  and I am making steady progress.

The Bella Bella Capelet has some design challenges (hmmm, I wonder if that had anything to do with the reason it got stuffed in a basket…my beautiful Longaberger tote basket, by the way, which (obviously!) I have been unable to use for anything else for a couple of years…).  And it had me a little stressed out for a few days, but I think we have it figured out now.  The cashmere scarf is simply simple.  But the yarns in both are gorgeous and satisfying to knit.  And they should both be lovely pieces when they are done.

I cannot say what is leading me to do this, to take up these unfinished projects and continue on.  Guilt?  Well, I have felt those twinges for a long time, but they haven’t motivated me like this!  And I really don’t feel so much guilty about them as sort of wistful.  Maybe it is the sense of waste – not wanting so much exquisite yarn, such interesting design ideas, so many hours of work to go to waste.

 Like many families these days, we are having to “make do or do without” more than we used to – so things we took for granted are rather more precious, special, appreciated.  It is not that I don’t have yarn for new projects – I do!  I have compiled a very respectable stash (and things being the way they are, I do not regret a single yarn purchase from days when I was flush!). 

But I feel like, hey, here’s this almost-capelet (scarf, sweater, stole…) and it really is pretty cool and I love the yarn, so why not wake it up?