Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes. Go make some tea.

Do you have a lot of UFOs? It’s surprising how a project that starts well can be derailed by life and end up sitting in a bag waiting for the sun to shine on it again. I am almost finished with my present two projects (a cowl and a pair of fingerless gloves), so I pulled all of my UFOs out of their cupboard and made them blink in the bright September sun. There are 15! I was a bit surprised. I thought there were 13. I know it’s still a lot, either way, but they do seem to be breeding, which is definitely concerning. Joyfully, I have tucked their notes, patterns, and, blessedly, their hooks in with them, so finishing them off will not be as bad, and some of them may even go quickly. Imagine that. 

So here, in a little picture essay with critical commentary are my UFOs, which I really do plan to finish up next. Honestly. I’m not going to get derailed this time, for now anyway.

UFO 1: A scrap yarn wombat

Are you familiar with Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland series? It is a favorite among the women of my household. In The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, there is a wonderful scrap yarn wombat named Blunderbuss who comes to life. He is my favorite character after A-Through-L. We quote him quite frequently. After discussing difficult people we say, “Even Gregory.” Our pets bite because they like it. I am very asthmatic and highly allergic to everything related to smoking but I find the idea of a Tobacconist charming because of this book. First go read the book. Then you too can find a good pattern for a scrap yarn wombat of your own. 

I didn’t get very far on mine and I definitely need to add in more colors, but I started it and I’m counting that. Scrap yarn wombat soon be born!

UFO 2: The hexagon peach wrap

A while ago . . . No. Years ago . . . Not enough emphasis. Before the pandemic (that’s it), I started a wrap in the various colors of a ripening peach for Hannah. It was going well. I enjoyed making the motifs. I decided to sew them together so I had lots of room to play with the color placement while weaving the ends at the same time. This was all good. Yet for some reason I put it away. It has been so long since I did it that I have no idea why I put it away, but I did. And now here it is, quietly back with a thoughtful air. It’s pretty, and I want to finish it, but I don’t know what to tell it. I like its shape and motifs, but no one really likes its color anymore. I will finish it because I am a box checker and I need it to be finished, but what then? Where does it go? How does it live a happy and loved life as a finished object when no one seems to love it? The lives of UFOs are just fraught with problems and worries.

UFO 3: The held double mohair and fingering weight shawl/scarf/thing

This is a more recent addition to the UFO family. I think I just wanted something to do and I was temporarily bored with my other projects. Or I could have gotten it into my head to get everything in my stash involved in a started pattern so I could flit from pattern to pattern at my wanton whim. If that was the case, I am lucky I somehow stopped myself with only this project on hook. 

Anyway, behold the scarf or shawl or something that I have started! Go me! I’ll get back to it. I’m sure Adia will like it once I figure out what it is and finish it. UFOs are strange creatures.

UFO 4: Something something flowers

I made these flowers for the Charlotte wrap and ended up not using them because I made them before I changed my plan. I had already joined them and woven their ends, so it was going to be a nightmare to pull them apart again. But I like them. They made me think of fall and cold weather and the death of the sun and happiness. 

I need to do something with them. Perhaps a scarf? Perhaps a little cowl? OOO! A cowl! I wouldn’t need that much more yarn, which is good because I already squirreled the yarn away in other projects, so I would have to steal it back quietly while I wasn’t looking. Yes, a cowl. A happy cowl the colors of fallen leaves when the pollen counts drop and I can venture into nature again. UFO conundrum solved! Now I just need time to do it. 

UFO 5: Repair work

So the bastard moths ate holes in some of Adia’s fingerless gloves. I did not make the gloves, she did. Neither of us made the moths. She has asked me to repair them and I have some motifs leftover from other projects that will work well for this purpose. 

Also on the repair docket is Hannah’s mohair wrap that keeps getting damaged along the one edge. Go figure why. All of her other wraps see the same treatment that one does, but none of them are damaged. I’ll probably have to make up a few more motifs, but that’s scrap yarn jar territory, so at least the yarn isn’t going to be an issue. 

UFO 6: The blue striped wrap

I really like this wrap. It’s repetitive: It’s just bean stitch after bean stitch after bean stitch. This makes it perfect for just sitting quietly and watching something mindless on television or Youtube and crocheting for hours. I like the way the colors are coming together. I like the way the bean stitches nest into each other. I like the texture of the fabric and the gentle drape. I like this project! 

So what happened? Who knows. Perhaps it is the lace weight yarn. Perhaps it is the 2 point something hook size. Perhaps it is just a lack of time to sit and mindlessly watch anything except time flying by at a ridiculous freaking pace. It’s hard to crochet when time does that. Very rude. Very rude indeed.

UFO 7: A kind gesture turned sour: The gift hap

So first I wanted to try making a hap but I wasn’t really sure I would like a hap. I mean what if it just looked like an elaborate table cloth? So I wanted an excuse to make a hap that would not have to live here so I would not have to see the judgment in its wooly eyes when it was never worn because it looks like a tablecloth. If it went off to its life and was used as a tablecloth, I would never have to know. I could imagine it otherwise and be happy with the illusion.

So this wrap would be a gift. Okay. For whom? Well, I picked someone. And then the world tilted and shifted and I changed my mind about everything. The colors I hate though I dyed them myself. The stitch pattern is fine, but I tire of it and it makes me feel irritated. Even in these pictures, I feel it mocks me. I hate this project. I do not want to finish it, but the box checker part of me feels I must. I could frog it, but I feel like the yarn would remember and it would judge me. Forever. Hateful yarn. I even really like that yarn base. Dammit.

I don’t know what to do with this project. It might be the last of the UFOs finished. It might only be finished because I want the hook for something else and I won’t separate the hook from the project because the responsible part of me knows that will lead to chaos. Or maybe I will just buy another hook and shove this project farther back into the wardrobe it lives in and hope it falls into Narnia and Mr. Tumnus can serve people tea on his lovely new tablecloth. 

UFO 8: A periwinkle wrap for Hannah

I love this project! The yarn is periwinkle and there is no better color. It’s lace weight yarn and I love the dainty, fairy feel of it. It’s Silkpaca, which is so soft and silky it’s a joy to just pet it as I work. With all of this love, why is it a UFO? Time. I think it comes down to time. I just need a quiet month (ha!) to sit and crochet this. Perhaps I could watch period dramas and work it as I sit by a window. Given that my allergies and asthma are killing me this time of year, perhaps I could channel my ancestors who died of tuberculosis and we could commune over the love of handwork and natural light.

This will be finished. You can tell because I let it live in the little, silk project bag my dad bought me. It is my favorite project bag as it reminds me of a reticule. We will forgive its color as one cannot have everything. Imagine if the bag was a nice blue or a pretty purple? That would not be good for my moral character at all! Such indulgence. But I will finish this project sooner rather than later. It brings me great joy. 

UFO 9: A long rectangle wrap for Hannah

Hannah has taken to wearing long, dramatic wraps around the house. I cannot fault her. Long, dramatic wraps feel luxurious and beautiful even if you aren’t in especially beautiful clothing otherwise. It’s nice to feel like you can swoon effectively if the need arises. This wrap will serve that purpose.

It’s a cotton wool blend worked in a very open, geometric sort of stitch that reminds me of Islamic tiles or quilting stitches without the quilt. It makes me very happy. It is drapey, soft, and beautiful. I will finish it, too, and soon. I have enough yarn to finish it and work an elaborate border and I feel like it really calls for such a border. I’ll keep it toward the front of the wardrobe lest it fall through and Mr. Tumnus gets ideas.

UFO 10: The circle packing project

Several years ago I became enamored of circle packing art. It’s weird, I know, but it fascinates me and I continue to love it. I went in search of a good motif pattern to use for it and couldn’t find anything in my books. I ended up buying ItWasYarn’s motif shawl pattern on Etsy and using those motifs for my project. If you like the motifs, I suggest you buy the pattern from ItWasYarn. She writes a very nice, clear pattern with both written directions and diagrams. It’s well worth the money.

So for my birthday, I bought a large mess of yarn in the colors of fancy carrots. Why fancy carrots? Because my daughter and I each had a rabbit who loved them. I worked lots of motifs. I planned to make them a capelet of sorts. Okay. A full on cape. It was going to be amazing. I still had some motifs to make when I tucked it away. I think I just wanted to work on other things, which I happily did. I kept thinking about it though, and I meant to get back to it.

But now I don’t know. I still like the project. I like the motifs. I like the colors. I like the idea of making a circle packing project, and I look forward to playing with motif placement. The problem? My muses are gone. Calcifer was old and passed so peacefully in her sleep. It was shocking, but gentler than a prolonged march to a horrible end. Callidora’s sun rose and set on Calcifer. She was four years younger but the world wasn’t worth being in if Calcifer wasn’t part of it. She lasted six days beyond her best friend’s passing. I truly believe she started to die the day we found Calcifer. 

How do I finish this now? I’m not ready to take solace in a gentle, wooly memorial. Their passings are still too raw. This one may have to wait. Perhaps Mr. Tumnus needs colorful coasters.

UFO 11: Adia’s Fishnet Sweater

Okay, this one is just a barely begun swatch, I know, but I have put a lot of thought into this and I need to finish it. Why? In part because I have invested thought into it. In greater part because it is black thread and I need to finish it before I decide I do not work with thread, let alone black thread, ever again. This will be earlier on the list, so it can just be done. 

UFO 12: The one with the quilting book

This one is a single motif, a book, and a pile of yarn remnants. It will be a scarf, dammit! So I got the book because quilts have always fascinated me. I like their little pieces. I like the way the quilting can exist to boost the pattern of the quilt, to compliment it, or as a story unto itself. I like the idea of playing with a lot of colors and how they interact with each other to create the flavor and appeal of a quilt. I like quilts! I hate sewing. I have made several quilts and I am never going to do that again, but I would like the experience of putting the tiny pieces together and creating that patchwork effect.

Enter the motif. Tiny motifs are going to give me that experience without making me sew. God bless them for that. So I worked up a tiny motif (it’s about an inch by an inch) right after I finished the Charlotte wrap. I liked it, so I pulled the colors I liked best from the Charlotte wrap and tucked them away with, wait for it, the actual instructions on how to make the new motif AND I wrote down the hook size I used. I am ready. 

I’m going to use one of the pattern ideas from The Quilt Design Coloring Workbook and I am going to make a fun and artful scarf. There are going to be a lot of ends. That will be okay. I think I want to make the creation like a puzzle in which I make blocks of color with the motifs and then, gulp, sew them together at the end. It’s not really sewing, though, it’s weaving the ends with extra steps. That’s okay, right? Not sewing at all.

UFO 13: The frogged mittens

These, though it may be hard to see right now, are tapestry crochet mittens based on a knitting pattern. The thing is, I started this project but it got the better of me, so I frogged it. Then I put it away so I could think about it and the yarn could think about behaving nicely the next time I pulled it out. I’ve thought about it for a while. I might need different yarn, but this stays to remind me I will not be defeated by a pattern of any sort. My day will come.

UFO 14:  Adia’s 90s inspired slouchy sweater

I started this sweater earlier this year when I was doing three month blocks of time for each of my daughter’s crochet projects. I finished one sweater and decided to start a second so it would be a quick finish when her next block came around. I quickly realized that this time plan meant I had no time to work on my own projects whether they were gifts, things for myself, or experiments I wanted to try. The time plan went away, but the half finished sweater remains.

I plan to pick this up next. It really will wrap up quickly. I’ve already worked it just past the bustline, so I only have the body bit and the sleeves to finish. It’s going to feel very nice to wrap up a whole sweater as the inaugural project to my “finish the UFOs” push. Happy day!!

UFO 15: Hannah’s Bright Star inspired sweater that has now become a cape

This is the project I am most looking forward to finishing because I absolutely love working on this one. The colors are lovely, the yarn makes me happy, the padded centers are challenging, the motif arrangement is fun and challenging. This is my happy place of projects. I’m not sure where this will fall on the list of UFOs, but I hope it’s soon because I love it so.

Because Hannah doesn’t really wear many sweaters, we have decided to change this from a sweater to a cape. I can still use the panels I started, I just need to work the rest of the cape around them. I think I need to make some little swatches of motifs in various sizes to plan out the cape, but I feel good about the success of this project. I love it already and it’s just two little patches.

Those are my UFOs. I need to wrap up the cowl and fingerless gloves I am working on now and then I can get started on this list. I’ll keep you posted on progress.

Happy crafting!