I solved a very old problem this weekend

Several years ago, I made my first pair of real sock-yarn socks out of Opal yarn in turquoise and black. They turned out really cute, and I couldn't wait to wear them.

Problem was, I had messed up the ribbing on one of them, and so I had carefully removed it and knit a new ribbing. Then I had a new problem, and that was that my cast off was too tight, and cut into my leg. At the time, I didn't know how to fix it, so I wore them once (pushed way down!) and then tucked them into a box of "things to do later".

Yesterday I finally decided later had come at last, and I was going to fix those darn socks! Because now, of course, I have the skills to actually repair the problem. And so I carefully removed both edgings (one a cast on, one a bind off), unravelled a couple of rows, and bound off in a stretchy bind off.

And so, this weekend, I happily wore my first pair of socks around the house! Took me long enough, eh?

Also this weekend I repaired a quilting problem that had been haunting me. I started a paper-pieced crazy quilt from a tutorial I got from a friend on a bulletin board long ago. I decided that I wanted to make it for the bed, and of course I ran out of patience when I had only about 30 squares. Which wasn't enough. So I had the idea to piece them alternately with plain black squares.

After piecing one strip with the black, I decided I didn't like how it was turning out, so of course I ripped out what I had done while it was only one strip, right? No. I actually stubbornly pressed forward and sewed them ALL together before I finally wadded up all the squares and stuffed them in a box, frustrated.

So again, in problem solving mode, I dug them out and ripped all of those black squares out, seam by seam, and decided I am happy with a small, wall hanging or lap size quilt that is brightly colored and very energetic, and I'm going to piece the top together soon.

It feels good to uproot all the old demons and start making decisions; do I fix it, do I live with it, do I throw it away and give up? Those troublesome unfinished projects never go away; they still haunt you even from the bottom of a drawer or a box in the crawlspace. The only thing to do is dig them out and deal with them one at a time!