In contrast, I am quite good about finishing leftovers.

One of the terrible things about no longer living in a cramped apartment is that it is easy to lose track of all of the things that I've started and failed to finish.

Okay, actually, that's not true. I don't forget the things that I've started and failed to finish. Instead, I feel a tremendous weight of incompleteness, a supreme form of guilt as the projects sit gathering dust in corners, stitches quietly loosening in a desperate attempt at knitting project suicide. I would be a prolific crafter if I could ever manage to finish anything--instead I mentally assemble dear John letters to my swatches and skeins, "Dear part of a blue sweater that has been sitting in the hall closet for 9 months, I love you, but I'm not in love with you."

It is my sincere hope that this effort to document my progress will help me stay on task long enough to finish some of these orphaned projects. To that end, I present my gallery of shame.

Exhibit A: hats for babies that are already too big for these hats (also it is the summer).Simple projects, simple yarns. a 2x2 ribbing pattern, knit a long piece, decrease toward the top, sew up the seam, you get a hat. Easy, except for the bit where my attention span is so short I can't

Exhibit B: baby sweater for same rapidly growing babies (did I mention that my three year old nephew is almost as big as I am?)This was something I started after finding some of Scott's grandmother's yarn in the attic in Nashville. There wasn't much of the old yarn, but it had a lovely soft texture that I couldn't let go to waste. With any luck there will be a small person in the family when I finally do manage to finish this one.

Exhibit C: Toe-up socksI was feeling ambitious, and I had received some lovely brown yarn for Christmas back in 2005, so I found a sock pattern that looked promising. I liked this one, because you started from the toes, which meant you could check the size against the actual foot you were knitting for, and start making the turn for the heel at the spot that was just right for the intended wearer. Neat! Too bad I never got to that point, eh?

Exhibit D: Fuzzy Scarf (I think it got up to 90 degrees today)
I was watching television at about 5 in the morning one day, and a knitting show came on and they were talking about how wonderful things can happen when you knit two strands of yarn together. I thought, "hey, I may be a complete newb, but I can probably manage that." This scarf was what started happening when I knit together a strand of super cheapo orange acrylic yarn and some pricier fuzzy red yarn. It's very fuzzy!

Maybe I can finish it in time for next winter.

Exhibit E: baby blanket
No pithy comments here. I started this when I got pregnant, stopped when I miscarried. I haven't had the heart to work on it since then.

Exhibit F: crochet purse
It had started to bother me that I could knit pretty well, but had no earthly idea how to crochet. The same Christmas gathering where I received that brown yarn, I also got a crochet lesson from my mother-in-law. I promptly forgot how almost immediately thereafter. Fortunately, our friend and co-blogger MilkKissed came to the rescue, bearing about 5 or 6 different crochet instruction books. I spent a whole weekend cussing at crochet hooks before I finally fit my head around the basics, and started working on this project, which will eventually be a cute little handbag.

Exhibit G: would-be adorable halter topI have high hopes for this project, actually. This is a multicolored all-cotton yarn (yay for easy to wash!), and I'm building a halter top based on a pattern I found on knitty. With any luck, I'll actually finish this one while it is still warm out. Regardless, of all of my projects-in-progress, this is the one I'm going to focus on right now, and I'm not going to start any more projects until this one is done. Wish me luck!