Festival of finishing

Fay, the host of The Crochet Circle Podcast is currently hosting a Festival of Finishing to support and encourage crafters to tackle long-standing projects or W.I.Ps (works in progress). Between now and the end of August, Fay is hosting a CrAL (a craft-along) over in the Crochet Circle Podcast group on Ravelry. As an added motivation, for each project completed during the period, Fay's company, Knit-it Hook-it Craft-it will make a donation to the charity Knit for Peace which does great work in this country and overseas.

I don't have a particular problem with long-standing W.I.Ps, with perhaps the exception of my Amigurumi-Captain-Barnacles-of-doom which I'll talk about later, but I have reached the point in the year where I want to clear the decks in terms of my current projects and make some space for some new ones. In my post today, I wanted to review my W.I.Ps and set my self some targets to complete as part of Fay's Festival of Finishing.

1. Spring into Easter socks

These socks are my youngest W.I.P as I started making these socks during our Easter break away this year. I am using Opal yarn Viridian's Schafpate's range (Thelma, 7952) and a hybrid pattern combining Winwick Mum's basic sock pattern with Erica Leuder's modified Eye of Partridge heel.

These socks have been a joy to knit - even if they are tricky to photograph! I am ready to work the toe decrease on both of them now but I really want these finished and quickly! My friend and I are planning a little summer KAL knitting a pair of vanilla socks continental style and I don't want an almost finished pair of socks hanging around as I start on a new pair. Neither of us can knit continental style so we are going to learn together in the hope it will make us super quick knitters. I have a sock yarn consignment arriving via my parents in two weeks time for our KAL so that's my target for completing these Spring into Easter socks.

2. Westbourne top

My next W.I.P is my Westbourne top designed by Isabell Kraemer. I've talked about this project in an earlier post  and it is growing steadily but slowly.

I would really like to be wearing this top in the Autumn/Winter rather than it languishing in a project bag so target number two in my Festival of Finishing is to work on this project every week day evening over the summer to make some good progress on it. 

3. Patchwork project bag

My third W.I.P is a patchwork project bag that I started making last year following a pattern from the Cath Kidston Sewing book.

I love working on it and then put it away and completely forget about it. I think with a little bit of focus, I can make good progress and hopefully finish this before the end of August...that's the plan!

4. Captain Barnacles

My longest standing W.I.P - Captain Barnacles - is three years old and has spent most of that time hiding away from the gaze of our little boy in the hope that he'd forget about it.

I have a strong aversion to making Amigurimi toys because, to be frank - you can't wear them and the crochet projects that I like working on the best are wearable ones! I dread this project - but it is almost finished - Captain Barnacles needs two arms and two ears, plus an evening's worth of sewing up - and so, I commit to finishing it as part of the Festival of Finishing; our little one still likes the Octonauts and I'm sure will enjoy the finish object plus another finished object will increase the size of the donation to Knit for Peace.

More about the Festival of Finishing

Fay has written a super blog post about the CrAL and how to tackle long-standing projects; Why you don't finish projects and what to do about it so do visit her blog to find out more.

Everyone is welcome to take part in the CrAL so hop over to the Crochet Circle Podcast group on Ravelry for more details; you'll find a really friendly and supportive group offering mutual encouragement as we all tackle our W.I.Ps.

For me, one of the best things about finishing up these projects is the prospect of planning the future makes so whilst I'm crocheting up Captain Barnacles' arms I will be dreaming of my next shawl project and garment make! I hope you have a super creative and crafty week x