10 Year Challenge

I can't do the 10 year challenge because there really aren't very many pictures of me. But one thing I do have pictures of is yarn.

So ten years ago I had this idea that I would make a Tetris blanket for Tim for his birthday in November. And then after I had already begun the project, my friend challenged me to include more details than I had originally intended. And my 280 square project turned into an 896 square project. It may have been ok if I hadn't chosen the yarn and hook and size of the squares based on the first idea. Or if I'd been willing to fully redo all the work I'd already completed. It took 16 months. I had to take the screen out of a second floor window to get a picture of the whole thing. It's so obnoxious.

Ten years later, do I still have a weakness for accepting challenges that I should not accept? 

<insert a completely innocent face>

Resolution?

At the end of 2018, I guess I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the number of WIPs (work-in-progress) I had. So I took a picture, which didn't even include all of them. Between then and now I've tracked 32 projects that for various reasons weren't finished within the time frame I meant to finish them. It turns out 14 of them were started in 2018. I guess I was very ambitious that year. I also had two WIPs that were started pre-2018.

In the last three years, I've finished some of those WIPs along with who knows how many other projects that I started and finished in a more timely manner. And I've added more projects to the outstanding-WIP list.

I began 2022 with 19 WIPs. I still have the two pre-2018 projects, 7 of the ones I began in 2018, 2 from 2019, 2 from 2020 and 6 projects that I started in 2021 and didn't finish.

Of course, I did manage to finish one of them already. It was a Christmas present for one of my kids that was late, so I was motivated to get it done.

So I'm down to 18 past projects. Yesterday, someone asked me how long I've been crocheting and I had to think about it. Then I realized that in December 2022, it will be 20 years since I learned to crochet. That led to thinking about how one should celebrate 20 years of crocheting. I thought about neat things I'd like to make myself. Some of them are already on my WIP list. And then I realized that the biggest gift I could give myself to celebrate this milestone is to finish all these projects.

It seems impossible right now. It feels like that Julie & Julia movie where she decides to make all the recipes in a cookbook in a year. And I have less than a year at this point. At the same time it feels possible. Is that because it's the beginning of a new year and everything feels a little possible right now? Maybe I just have too much optimism. But I'm willing to attempt it.

Let's see how far this can go.