WIP Wednesday: Attacking the UFOs

This week has been pretty productive on the knitting front. I found myself with no project to work on last Thursday and I knew I might need something to work on Friday night (I drove some of the young singles from my church to a dance in Orlando). I didn't want to drag all my animal making stuff with me, and I knew I wouldn't get far enough into a new project to be able to just work on it with no problems. So I turned to my UFO (unfinished objects) pile. I started this "boob-holder" sweater in August of 2012! It's a free pattern by Stefanie Japel. At the time I had no idea what I was doing and I quickly reached a problem I couldn't diagnose, so I set it aside. I picked it up again last September and got pretty far only to mess it up big time when I had to pull back. I knew I could fix it, but it was one of those problems you have to just sit and mess with for an uninterrupted hour or so and I just didn't ever feel like it, lol. But I needed a large project! So last Thursday I spent about an hour and a half getting it back to workable condition. 

When I fixed this last week, I was at the point where you section off the arm holes and just work on the body and since then I technically managed to finish the knitting :) It's funny to work on something that I distinctly remember I just could wrap my head around at the time only to have absolutely no problem now - to the point that I'm amazed at how quickly this went. And I've already pulled back to change a few other things!

I tried it on a few nights ago when I finished the knitting and discovered ... the waist is way too big. The pattern is written to have no overlap going on under the boobs, just a button to fasten it in the center. As you can see - I'm overlapping it quite a bit there. It's also a touch longer than I want. So, I've decided to pull the whole waist out, lol. I won't go all the way back to where I was last week, but I'm going to pull out about 10 rows. There will still be a good deal of overlapping I will have to do, but I'm going to add an additional button hole to make it more secure when I fasten it. I'm really happy with this project and I completely LOVE these sleeves. Puffy sleeves for the win! I have the sleeves all finished and seamed on the bottom, so literally once I finish the waist it will be done and wearable :) Now that I know more about knitting, I know what a quick and easy project this really is and it makes me want to make another. If only it wasn't in such heavy yarn! Anyone know of a similar pattern in a sock weight? I'm sure I could buckle down and do the math to make it in sock weight, but seriously look how long it took me just to fix a tiny snag, lol, and I hat math so you can imagine how long it would be before I actually do that. One of these days ...

I also realize you can see my absentmindedness in the photo above - I forgot to keep with the garter stitch edge in a few spots. I didn't realize until I was way past that point at the time, and at this point it just isn't in my best interest to pull back that far - one of them is up by my neck! So I will be faking some purl bumps with some extra yarn once I finish the rest.

Last night I just didn't feel like pulling all that knitting out (I know, I'm temperamental, lol) so I grabbed another long time UFO - my Happypotamas! I made a couple of squares and have renewed my love of this pattern's cuteness. Hopefully I become addicted to it soon and can knock out the Lollo Bear pattern too that's been languishing untouched in my collection. I even have all the yarn to make it! You can't rush, I guess.

I'm kind of torn on my feelings about working on so many UFOs. On one hand I'm thrilled - it's a great feeling to finally finish something that's sat so long. On the other hand, my pile of projects I'm in the middle of is dwindling (I only have 3 others in there!) so I won't have anything to just pick up and work on soon. 1st world problems, amiright? So that's what I've been working on this week. Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see what others have going on :)