FINALLY FINISHED

My first pair of hand-knitted fingerless gloves!
In the past I've had good intentions. I've started a few pairs before. . . but I never finished them.

I think the problem of starting and stopping stems from my childhood...but then, don't all our problems stem from our childhood? ;)

See, when I was a kid, I used to crochet all my own doll clothes. Mom and Dad never had the money to buy fancy toys or clothes for those toys - heck, they couldn't even buy us kids fancy clothes. I grew up in hand-me-downs and my dolls usually went naked--or I wrapped them up in old worn out towels. I'd cut those worn out rags into dresses and hand-stitch them into what I thought were pretty clothes.

That's how I started sewing and crocheting. Anyway, I made most of my Barbie doll's clothes by crocheting leftover strands of my grandma's yarn. She always had scraps lying around from finished afghans she had made. So, she showed me how to crochet but never took the time to teach me to read patterns. I made up the designs as I went, weaving in one new strand/scrap after another until I was finished. But, I never learned how to read a pattern.

Those gloves I started (and never finished) were all started from patterns. Over the years, I've learned how to read the patterns but for one reason or another, I never finished those gloves I started from someone else's patterns.

So, this weekend when my sis and I went away for a girls' getaway, I started knitting and I just made up the pattern as I went and WAH-LAH!!! my first pair of fingerless gloves.

So, maybe I have a problem following rules, or maybe I feel locked in by patterns and trapped when I try to follow someone else's design. I don't know. But I've finally figured out a way to finish those fingerless babies!!! It's like the Nike motto says "Just do it." Just knit and go...fingerless.

So, how 'bout you? Is there anything holding you back? Any projects you've started but never finished? Could it be the rules/expectations/patterns that are holding you back?

I don't know but maybe all you have to do is just do it. Don't worry about staying inside the lines. Color outside the box. Maybe you'll be wearing your first pair of fingerless gloves too.