I've got WIPs coming out of my ears at the moment. I know this, because another yarn shop on Facebook (whose name completely escapes me at the moment), posted asking how many WIPs we have on the go. Oooh thought I, I'll answer this.
So off I go, counting them up in my head, feeling a rising sense of shame as the number gets higher and higher. The more I thought about it, the more half forgotten projects started surfacing in my mind. Abandoned creations that haven't seen the light of day in years. Like the really pretty striped wristwarmers that I loved until I realised I'd made them too small. Rather than fix them, I abandoned them like a cruel crochet mistress...
Look at them. They are so sad, they are curling up on themselves.
Or the headless hippo I was making for the Sconchlet when she was 2. She's 5 in January.
Or the quite large list of shop samples I enthusiastically started, like this little crochet top. I got this far and realised I should have tweaked something slightly, and it annoyed me so much it has just sat there, also in the forgotten pile, for over a year...
And let's not talk about how many blankets I have on the go. Like the CAL we started in our Facebook group, based on the amazing Block A Week CAL on the Look What I Made blog, but then we moved shop, I got crazy busy, then a bit poorly, then we moved again... then I decided to resurrect it but then got poorly again...
As I sat there totting up my crochet and knit casualties, a sudden thought hit me. This list didn't include the non yarny ones. The cross stitches half finished (like the lovely Winnie the Pooh cushion cover I was making for Mr Sconch for our first Christmas together. 11 years ago). Or the half finished patchwork projects. Or the weaving I started. The half finished needle felted bird. Or the bumblebee.
I might have a problem.
Now obviously a big part of the problem for me is time. I know lots of people who visit our lovely haven of a shop think I spend all day knitting and crocheting - but if you follow me on social media I like to think I give a slightly more realistic viewpoint of what running a yarn shop entails. In a nutshell; no time for crafting. Or rather, time to start a project and no time to finish it.
And obviously my health doesn't help. Rather unrelated to all the standard being poorly, I've not been able to crochet or knit for about 12 weeks as it was giving me horrific headaches and making me sick.
I am, thankfully feeling slightly less sick some of the time now. I still have a constant headache. And I've got a racking cough left over from a stinking head cold on top of everything at the moment. The eagle eyed social media followers of you will have noticed a few pics of crochet sneaking back in on my timeline. Namely a new blanket. *cough*. I mean, feeling a bit better deserves a celebration of starting a new project, right?!
And then the other day in the shop, it was a fairly quiet afternoon, I felt rubbish, and frankly didn't want to do the accounts that were calling me, so I decided to get this blanket out and do a few squares. Except said blanket was in my knitting bag. Which was in my porch at home. So I started knitting some socks instead!
And then I got so excited with working with non-acrylic yarn (I know, yarn snob, sorry), combined with the fact that knitting and crochet isn't making me so sick now, that last night on the way to Cambridge I started ANOTHER project, using the fab Cuddlebums yarn I got in a yarn club 2 years ago and has sat there looking very sad indeed...
The only problem with this great plan of starting this new blanket, is that the nausea keeps coming and going, and that I am getting increasingly tired, which means I have a feeling this blanket, sock and wrap, will no doubt eventually be cast onto the unfinished pile as with all the others.
Which is of course entirely the fault of the other WIP I have on the go at the moment. A rather special WIP that is due early April...
Tehe!
Sam x
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