When Good Ideas Go Bad

I knit a lot of baby items for charity. Until last year I would knit a sweater, then stop and do the finish work, ribbons, buttons and trim, then go on to another item. Last year I had a great idea. I would knit until I either got tired of knitting or my wrists began to hurt, then I would gather together all the items I had finished knitting and do the time consuming trim work. This would be a great time saver and since it seems I always finish knitting just at a point in the evening when I don't want to go to the studio and get the trims out, it would be much more efficient. I could just turn to another pattern and keep on knitting. Bad idea!!



This is the result. I wound up with an enormous stack of sweaters, bonnets, bootees and blankets that were unfinished.



These all need ribbons, buttons and trims. The blankets still need the ends woven in.



What I really need is to invite a friend over, put the trims out on the table, make a pot of tea or open a bottle of wine, or both, and gossip all afternoon as we trim these items.



What I will actually do is spend the next two or three days trimming them myself. Rob offered to help, but I'm afraid he might get too creative and then I'd just have to redo them.



I don't really mind doing this except that it gets sort of boring after two or three, so I need to stretch it out. I like the assortment of buttons I've collected for baby stuff.



These are some of the ribbons for the sweater necks, bonnet strings and bootee ties. I enjoy picking the colors to use on each set.



I have some laces and trims for some of them. I don't look forward to this task, but once it's done, I'm sure I'll be pleased with them.



I have learned my lesson and from now on I'll do the finish work when the knitting is finished. It has not saved any time or energy doing it the other way. This has been my guilty little UFO secret that I've tried not to dwell on for a year. One of my resolutions was to finish my UFOs and this is what I had in mind.