I wish I was an Octopus: all these WIPs!

I said to myself in May "In June, I am going to work through my WIPs and clear the board before I start anything new." That notion came and went with the release of Stephen West's latest shawl patterns... He has been releasing new patterns as part of his Spring Scarf KAL and while I have loved all of them and been tempted by each, the Garter Goodness pattern just struck a nerve with me. So on Friday morning I dumped a whole load of sock yarns on the table in the shop and decided to play around with color combos and post them to Instagram as inspiration for others. I thought this would satisfy me enough to keep me from needing to cast-on myself. I was ok for two days but yesterday, one of my color combos was just calling to me and so I wound the skeins up and cast-on.

With this new project cast-on that officially makes 6 projects on the needles. Then I have the Works In Progress(WIPs) that either need blocking, fixing or still need casting on but I count them anyways because the pattern is bought, the yarn chosen and wound, so casting on is really just a formality. Taking all of that into consideration I now have 10 WIPs. How did that happen?

Several of these projects have been hibernating since I decided to open the shop. Because as any LYS owner will tell you, opening a shop will drastically reduce your actual knitting time. The photo above shows 5 of these hibernating projects. It includes the Cap Sleeve Lattice Top which I am knitting in Malabrigo Arroyo, some mittens I made for a friend that were too short, another pair of fingerless mittens that I promised a friend for her birthday last year and Stephen West's Daybreak, which I only need to knit about 6 rows on the border to finish. Oh and there is the scarf that just needs to be blocked before it can be a lovely shop sample.

I also have an item that I can't show you because it's last year's Christmas gift for a friend and she doesn't want to know what I'm making. There is very little left to do on this project as well but its the finicky part and there is stitch picking up involved and I'm not a huge fan of picking up stitches. It is one of those tasks in knitting that makes a project look beautiful and professional but somehow really annoys me.

None of these projects should take me very long to finish but they have been sitting in a box upstairs because new projects have caught my eye and I just couldn't resist. Such is the nature of knitting and craft in general sometimes. Sometimes I start a project because I want to learn something new and if I get far enough into that project and feel I have learned what I needed, I move on to something else. Other times a project gets neglected for an upcoming event, like someone's birthday or the birth of a friend's baby or a designer has released a new pattern that I love. All legitimate reasons to cast-on new projects in my book.

Then there is the gorgeous In Stillness sweater that I have been working on. I was flying along on this and thought I might get it done in time for the shop re-opening and then there were about three weeks when I didn't knit a stitch. This is at the main body part of the pattern though so it does make for good mindless TV knitting at the moment and the yarn is great to work with. It will get done by the time it's cool enough again to wear it.

And lastly we come back to the Garter Goodness shawl that I just had to start yesterday. The colors were just too pretty not to be turned into a massive abstract shawl. I think this combo of Hedgehog Fibres Sock in Damp and Typewriter along with The Uncommon Thread Singleton in Hi-Vis Green and Life in the Long Grass semi-solid Sock in North Atlantic are going to be just amazing together.

So I'm going to make a new pact with myself and this time I'm making it publicly and not just in my head, so you can all help hold me to it. July will be all about finishing off some WIPs. Let's see how many of these 10 projects I can clear out by July 31st.

How many WIPs do you have on the go? Who wants to join me for a month dedicated to finishing some of those off? M.aybe we can have a WIP-along

-Carmen