WIP(e) Out!
After an unexpected and thorough derailment for most of January, I got back in the studio to start on a couple of deadlined projects. I was happy with my progress
until I went in the house for some coffee and noticed the blanket on the big Harrisville which was starting to look pretty dusty.
and the huge pile “ready for hemming”
next to the rigid heddle loom with 1/3 of a project complete.
This was next to the spinning wheel with “almost complete” scarf yardage.
Which happened to be around the corner from my inkle loom with a summery warp on it from SUMMER!
Then I walked past the final straw in my WIP(e) out which is the first row of a swatch for a sweater requested by my son. WIP is a nice way to describe stalled projects. I think of myself as someone who likes to finish one thing before I move on to the next, but I clearly have a somewhat murky perception of myself. 
I do like to have different kinds of projects going at the same time. Hard, thinky projects for the mornings, serene, easy projects for the evenings, etc., but it has clearly gotten out of control. I don’t have any wisdom (clearly) on this issue, but I did want to document it in hopes that it will shame me to clear the decks a little. (Final confession: I do have the front, back and one arm of a wee little sweater in beautiful alpaca for a 2nd grader . . . who happens to be heading for college in the fall . . .) Let me know if you have any equally shocking WIP(e) outs.
Lynn
Ha! You do not want to look in my WIP closets (yes, plural). Well, the closets also hold yarn and fiber, but there’s a warp on the Purrington that’s been there since 2016, and quilts that I started at least 25 years ago, and I know I never finished the baby quilt for my nephew who now has four kids of his own, and there are warps wound here and there, I know not for what, and did I mention the 17 fleeces?
Closets. I highly recommend closets.
Elisabeth Hill
Hi Lynn,
At least I’m in good company! Closets sound good – hard to fit the 60” rug loom in tho’!
Shirley Bergert
Hi Lisa,
Trying to update my contact info — I hope it works. I recently got my first notification under the email address I haven’t used for several years.
Only moving minimized my WIP projects but I have a few. I get obsessed once something is on the loom so it is a planned yarn stash or wound warp buried in the closet under the yarns I am trying to use up. I couldn’t bear to get rid of a lot of my yarn stash, only sold one loom, as part of moving to much smaller space. After a year I’ve decided another floor loom has to go but have been slow to list for sale. It’s the loom that made weaving safe to explore, a 24″ 8 shaft Leclerc so it feels like I am abandoning an old friend.
Elisabeth Hill
Hey Shirley,
So vtsaje is your new contact? I am gaining space with every passing year as the young ‘uns depart the nest, so I am not thinking about shedding looms . . . yet. But I even feel attached to my old cookie sheets, so I can understand your hesitation.
Claire
I have some handspun yardage I REALLY need to sew up into something, this year.
I am just about to aquire a second loom so I am facing a major studio reorganisation. I’m a bit worried about what I might find…. Most certainly some half finished quilts and lots of dressmaking fabric.
Elisabeth Hill
Hi Claire,
A second loom? That is exciting news. I do understand the “out of sight, out of mind” problem with WIPs. Digging the languishing projects out is the first step in recovery . . . he he