WIP or UFO?

Is there some standard, a set of guidelines, for determining whether a project should be considered a work-in-progress, or an unfinished object? Is it solely a matter of time? Or perhaps it's relative: for someone who churns out over a dozen projects a year, something that has been hanging around for over a month might be considered a UFO, whereas in the case of someone who works on many projects at once, or takes a long time to finish anything, something that's been in the works for six months might still be a WIP. Or maybe it's a matter of intent: if you intend to finish the thing, then it's still a work-in-progress.

Well, I've been working on this "Sweater with Lace Pattern and Cables" in Rebecca No. 27 since last spring, when I was in Virginia. I bought the magazine and the yarn, a powdery blue Dale of Norway Stork yarn (100% Egyptian cotton), from Capital Yarns. The sales ladies were very helpful in finding a substitute for the GGH Scarlett called for in the pattern.

I remember having a lot of trouble starting this sweater. For the life of me, I couldn't understand the Rebecca instructions and couldn't make the description for the first row fit into the number of stitches that I was told to cast on. The ladies at Capital Yarns sat down with me, a calculator and a notepad and we spent around 15 mintues figuring it out.

But, after that initial obstacle, this hasn't been a difficult pattern at all, just rather tedious. However, the reason this has taken so long is that other gift projects kept coming up, and then I got interested in quilting. When winter came along and other things took precedence it didn't seem a priority because, even if I'd finished it, I wouldn't have been able to wear this spring/autumn sweater right away.

So, this was where I left it way back in September, 2005. I had finished the front and back and had started the two sleeves, working from two separate balls of yarn to make both sleeves at once so they would turn out the same length.

Today, I finally started working on it again. I've always intended to finish this sweater, and it was never far from my mind (unlike some of the projects I just unpacked from storage after my move, that I hadn't laid eyes on in two or three years and had forgotten about!), so I guess it has been - and still is - a work-in-progress. I think my longest running UFO is a baby afghan I've been working on since sophomore year of college. It's been more than 5 years!!! Of course, I mean to finish that, too. It's just more brainless crocheting than my brain can usually handle.

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Posted by Lana to Bumbling Bees - Girls with Purls at 4/16/2006 08:32:00 PM