Sometimes, while a project is a lot of fun, there comes a point where you’re just glad to be at the end of it. Sure there is an almost meditative feeling to knitting row on row of a blanket, but eventually your fingers start to hurt and you’re going a little cross eyed from making the same stitch over and over again.
There’s a sense of completion when you’ve bound off the last line of stitches and are holding an (almost) completed project in you’re arms. If you’re working on something that’s particularly large or time consuming it almost feels like you’ve come to the end of a long journey. You can look at the rows of knitting (or crocheting) and trace you’re way back through the weeks or months you carried it around to work on it. Even now I can look at larger projects from years ago and remember what it was I was doing as I sat working on them.
Of course, at this point the project’s not really done. As nice as it is to stop knitting there’s the last finishing touches: weaving in the ends of loose threads. Maybe adding a border or edge. Blocking the yarn. Still, these are simpler (if tedious) tasks that go by rather quickly and you end with a finished work in your hands.
Sometimes the pieces are then packaged up and sent off to their final recipient. There’s certainly something gratifying about seeing all you’re hard work going to someone who appreciates it. Sometimes they are hung in the closet, tucked in a drawer or placed on the couch or armchair to wait for the time they’re needed. There’s something satisfying in that too.
Wherever the piece goes it closes the chapter on the project, and opens the door for a new one. There is only so many projects one person can work on without loosing track of what their doing and how. With the old project finished you can pick up a new pattern, or try an old pattern in new colors. Heck, you can try a different craft entirely! There is a world of possibilities available to you once you’ve finished a project and start on the search for a new one.
