In defense of the neglected WIP

Sometimes, a project gets started and then it stalls out. It was too boring, when I needed something more interesting to work on; it was too interesting, when the rest of life was being too distracting and I needed something brainless. Either way, it got started–and every time you start a project, it is an affirmation of life and of looking towards the future–but then it got put aside.

I want to defend the lowly WIP here. (The TOADs, Trashed Object Abandoned in Disgust, not so much.) If you really don’t like it, let it go, just rip it, rip it, let it go back to being a ball of yarn full of possibilities. How many other parts of our lives do we get to rewind at will and have a do-over?

But there is value in having something on the needles simply waiting its proper turn, or, if you run shy of needles, you can always run a thread through the tops of the stitches, leave a note re the needle size, put it in its own zip lock and set it aside. It is not mocking you. It is simply waiting to be able to tell you why it is there.

I once knitted a sock and a half, before all the self-striping yarns came out that helped grab the imaginations of sock knitters. Plain and beige, boring and terribly practical, in the most basic pattern, no lace there. But size 1 needles and my hands aren’t friends to begin with, that yellowish beige was deadly (and it was right after knitting a very large pair in dark charcoal); after awhile, I just couldn’t make myself pick them up when there were other, brighter things to work on.

Till the day I badly wanted to knit a pair of socks for one of the nurses who’d taken care of me at Stanford, to thank him for his compassion and his willingness to walk in his patients’ shoes. A man. Boring beige and no lace, plain and practical. Perfect. Yes, Brian, this is a bit of a confession here. Knitting him a hat or a scarf in this climate was a little silly. He was about my height, so I imagined his feet weren’t that far off from mine, and since I’d been making them to my EE width feet, they had some lengthwise stretchability built into them. I felt swamped, because I was knitting something for all the medical personnel I could find who’d been involved in my case: in just over two months, I made 14 projects to go back and say thank you with.

And to do what I really wanted to do for him anyway, all I had to knit was half a sock. Done. He absolutely loved them. I mean, how many people get to see, much less own, a pair of handknit socks in their lives? I well understand wondering why anyone would want to bother, but put that first sock on and you instantly know. You never want to have to settle for a machine-made pair again.

A sock and a half for a year and a half, so close to being done, that had so bugged me–till I knew why I was glad I had them. Had I finished them earlier, they would have been well worn, had I declared them a TOAD and frogged them, I wouldn’t have had them to give. There’s a reason for everything. A small stash of WIPs is a very useful thing.

I have two shawls for which I’ve done the yoke but gone no further. One, the color just wasn’t right for me, and I still don’t know yet whom it is to be for; when I do come across the right person, it will feel like a very fast project because the first day’s worth of work is already done. The other, I picked up today, counted the stitches to be sure I’d done the final increase and to make sure on the stitch count–I’d eyeballed the lace pattern and was sure of myself, but best to check–and now off I go with it. I had cast on just as the wedding preparations were starting up; I simply ran out of time for it.

And now I know exactly whose face I can’t wait to see lighting up. I’m tweaking the pattern for the body; this will be a custom job. The first day’s work is preknitted, and off I go, delighted to be ahead of the game.