The Problem with Unfinished Objects

16 Jun 2013 6 Comments

by Ana in General

Two falls ago, I made a pair of fingerless gloves. Well, that’s not true. I started a pair of fingerless gloves.

I began at the fingers and bound off at the cuff. But when I was more than halfway through the mate, I decided the bind off wasn’t stretchy enough, so I frogged the mate and frogged most of the cuff of the first glove.

Then last fall, when I was halfway through the mate for the second time, a friend asked me how to close the holes at the bases of fingers. I’d put the gloves down so long ago that, in the interim, I learned how to make no-hole gloves, but I didn’t remember how exactly I’d done it, and I noticed my fingerless gloves would benefit from the new technique, so I frogged both again to start over—again.

Now the gloves are done. The first one is bound off loosely and so is the second. But the second isn’t bound off completely. I’ve got a circular needle in the lone loop that is left after a bind off.

The needle has been there since Christmas or maybe January. My plan was to write out the no-hole instructions and send them together with the gloves to my friend, who has moved to a place with snow. But I haven’t. I keep thinking my instructions aren’t as clear as they should be, keep thinking the gloves can be a little better, keep thinking I don’t have a box the right size or tissue paper to wrap them in. I keep waiting for the quality I know I’m capable of, for the perfect gifts to cheer a friend, but what I’m really doing is putting off the moment my friend can warm her hands.