The Queen of the Land of Half Done

The slipper I'm knitting for my son is just sitting there.  Sitting there staring at me.  It would only cover about half his foot right now.  It's been there for about 2 weeks now.  I feel sorry for the poor thing;  even more so for my boy's cold feet.  The first one of the pair wasn't so difficult to complete. It never is because I am the Queen of the Land of Half Done and my subjects are single slippers and single mittens, and projects still on a set of needles scattered here and there throughout my stash.

On Friday last week I whipped up a mitten.  Just one.  There it is on the laptop. It is yet to have a partner.  I've started its match, but I've already lost interest.  Poor, poor, lonely mitten.

I've been trying to sort out how I ended up ruling over this land.  It comes down to my knitting style.   I like solving puzzles.  I also like to create and not necessarily following all the rules, or for that matter a pattern.  I alter patterns all the time.  Take the little yellow lovely to the left.  I referred to a pattern for the base of the pattern (how many stitches to cast on, how to set up the gusset.)  But the 6 stitch cable up the front was my own improvisation.  It was pretty successful. But now what challenge to add to for the left.  I need to think about that one... and I have no pattern to refer to make the match.  My mistake not to write any of it down.  Now I'm afraid that I won't be able to replicate the mitten with the thumb reversed.  The perfectionist in me coming out.

This is a pattern that rears its ugly little head over and over again:  I improvise or alter a pattern as the creative side of me takes hold and then I find I can't duplicate it and the perfectionist in me just can't be satisfied with the second version.  This is never an issue when knitting a hat or scarf or cowl.  Once those items are finished, if I can't duplicate my changes, then I simply have a brand new, one of a kind item.

So, lesson learned.  I need to start to jot down any changes that I make to the base pattern as I go.  But what about the mitt and that poor little slipper?  The mitten will soon have a left hand partner, but I'll make it without the cable so I still can have a "one of a kind" project, and a completed project at that.  The slippers are almost done.  I'm deconstructing the completed slipper as I go.  I'm nearing the toe shaping, and it's going to be a challenge, but it's getting colder and my boy's feet need to be warm.