MEETING A CHALLENGE

Sometimes you need a friend to give you a nudge toward getting something done that you've been putting off for a long time. This morning my friend Amy, who meets me every weekday morning for coffee, Literati, and knitting, challenged me to sew together two baby sweaters that had been languishing in the bottom of my "finishing basket" for about a year. The reason they were there was that they needed to be sewn. I've more recently been using a pattern that is all one piece and just needs the ends tucked in and ties put on at the end for finishing. So these two poor orphans sat at the bottom of the basket.

So, because Amy challenged me, I declared today to be Finish It Up Day. And the results have surpassed even what I imagined I would have to show.

First the baby sweaters. I had the two that needed sewing, two that needed ties, and one that needed sleeves. Here are the five of them, all finished and tied and ready for Church World Service layette kits. This finishes my 20 for the year. But I still have partial skeins in my knitting bag, so I will probably go ahead and knit them up before I quit doing baby sweaters for the season. So I should have 22 in the drawer at the end.

The biggest project in the basket was a prayer shawl that just needed fringe. I think I started this shawl when I was on retreat last fall, so it was high time to finish it and have it available for donation. It too, left the basket for good today.

And then, there were the hats. I knew there were a few hats in there, but I had no idea there were nine of them. I also had one on the needles, with just the bottom ribbing to finish. Having ten to show seemed like a good idea, and here they all are, with all their tops sewn up and their ends buried. I haven't counted these yet, as the season on these is picking up again. Arkansas Children's Hospital is looking for 30,000 hats in their Knitting for Noggins program this year; I'm sure they'll be able to use whatever I give them.

So my basket is a good deal emptier than it was at the start of the day, and my finished project drawers are a good deal fuller. There are still a few odds and ends in the basket - a couple pairs of mittens that need thumbs that will have to wait until their pattern surfaces again. And then there's the striped prayer shawl that has endless ends to be worked in. And I've lost my place to hide leftover yarn that I want to keep out for the present; balls of yarn have to be kept away from my black yarn thief. He got a small ball away from me in mid-afternoon, so I let him have it. But then he got a big ball out of my bag, and that was one I wasn't willing to give up. So before I go to bed tonight I have to rewind the tangle he left strewn across the bedroom floor.

So tomorrow it will be back to the two projects still left on the needles - the Tofutsie socks and the EZ square baby blanket. I will need to start another hat before Thursday, so I can work on the easy part while I wait for a meeting to start. And there are the remnants of the baby sweater yarn to work up. I think the socks in the morning. I'm in danger of an outbreak of Second Sock Syndrome, and I need to nip it in the bud.