Lets talk about WIP (work in progress) projects, those that eventually turn into UFOs (unfinished object), those that seem to take on a resentful personality of their own and just refuse to be completed. The worst ones are the ones that you’ve even managed to remove from your basket or project box, packed up and hidden away hopefully to never be seen again – but they will still be lurking at the back of your mind – and mocking you: You thought you were such a great knitter, but you will never ever be able to complete me – I will haunt you to the day you diiiiieeee! This blog post is about one of those.

I did the cast-on for my Larch in February 2013 (this was before I had my Instagram set up, and I had to check my Ravelry to see when I actually started the project). If you have a look at my Ravelry profile you’ll notice that this is actually the last project I listed there – that tells you how much this project has been haunting me over the years – so much that I’ve ended up ignoring my Ravelry projects just so I didn’t have to see it pop-up every time I visited the page. Why not just frog the whole thing, you might say. The reason I started this project to begin with is that I fell completely in love with the design when I first saw it, and I was equally in love with the yarn I chose to use. The Fyberspates Scrumptious 4Ply is my go-to yarn for so many project and the colour Jen’s Green is still my all time favourite green. The thing is, I never fell out of love with neither the design or the yarn – through the whole process I really wanted this specific cardigan in this specific colour. Then ‘life’ happened – and I never seemed able to finish my Larch.

I’ve had a look at my Instagram to try to trace the progress of my Larch, in March-14 I’m bragging about having finished the body, and that there are only sleeves and edging left to do, however I don’t seem to be casting on for that first sleeve until June-14 – and completing it in January-15…

https://www.instagram.com/p/pjLe9so618/?taken-by=knitwithattitude

https://www.instagram.com/p/x5E1klI69w/?taken-by=knitwithattitude

Then it seems like I am sloooowly but steadily knitting on my cardigan, completing the sleeves, and as this post shows – I’ve started on the shawl collar in July-15. See this! I’ve started the shawl collar, and this is exactly where I left it and how far I’ve gotten when I picked it up again last Christmas (that’s one and a half year later) determined to finish this project. (I am now slightly embarrassed and cringing on my chair writing this blog post).

https://www.instagram.com/p/5pLcnqI62m/?taken-by=knitwithattitude

And that determination was what saved my Larch in the end. I dug out my project from that dark hidden corner at the back of the closet because it was mocking me, right, but I only had the shawl collar left to do. Now at this time I’d completely lost where I was in the pattern – I’ve actually lost the pattern – and had to look it up in my Ravelry library again. Not only that, but I had no idea what size it was I was making… I thought I’d figured it out – ripped out the collar and started again – just to find out I was completely wrong. Nothing less than three times did I rip it out and start over again until I finally got it right. – If I’d only finished it sooner…

Right, so all the knitting was finally done – just the seaming left to do, and I have to admit it took me another couple of weeks to build the courage to tackle this. Coming to tension – we always advice our customers in the shop that this is a very individual thing – and that it can differ from day to day according to your mood, your energy level, (how many glasses of wine you’ve had), and so on – and boy had my tension changed over the years… The body, the sleeves, armholes, edging – my tension was all over the place and nothing seems to fit together – but I made it work somehow. And that’s it – my Larch is finished. It has a whole range of beauty marks and weird stitches, and quite a few wonky seams – but it is finished at last – and I will LOVE (and use) it ’till the day I die!