Thrice a Quitter

Looks like in my haste, I misread the SBQ for this week. It is not, in fact, time to introduce you to my UFO after all! The question, in fact, is this:

Have you ever just quit a project while in the midst of it? (We’re not referring to UFOs here, rather projects that you know that you’ll never work on again.) Why? What did you do with it – throw it out, give it away, put it away?

Yes. Yes I have. Two, in fact. No, wait… three. Before I really got into stitching, I had a few false starts. Partly due to my tendency to jump in the deep end instead of starting small 🙂

The first chart I ever bought myself (this is probably 15 years ago, or thereabouts) was Teresa Wentzler’s Summer Carousel Horse. This must have been back around the time when DMC had a dye change in the range of grey colours that the horse is stitched with. (I know that now!) So I took my aida, chart and floss home, and made an enthusiastic start. I stitched only about a square inch’s worth before I realised my fabric was not big enough – I think I had a piece the size of the design, no extra. So I chucked that piece and started again. Once again, I only stitched a little before I realised something was not quite right. The greys I had didn’t even seem to be in the same colour family. Some were more blue than others. I didn’t really know what was going on, but it discouraged me so much that I ended up putting that second start away for a long time. When I got into stitching again a few years back, I pulled that project out and binned it, and sold the chart on ebay. I still like the carousel horses (I now have the booklet with all four of them in), but I have so much more to stitch before I want to go back and try stitching one again!

My second bin-it project was similar. I had purchased Mirabilia’s Garden Verses, and a pre-packaged fat quarter of Belfast linen to stitch it on. Again, I started enthusiastically, and part way into the border, realised this fabric was also the wrong size – or rather, it might have fitted, had the FQ been cut on the straight. I still have that fabric with the little bit of border stitched in it. I’ll probably salvage the fabric for another project one of these days.

The third project I quit was actually a smaller project – I had convinced myself maybe I needed to start small, by this stage! I had a Dimensions Charts & Charms angel which was OK, I suppose, but in hindsight, not really to my taste anyway. This project was the one where I found I cannot count, and the reason I now grid everything but the smallest project. The froggies visited me a lot throughout the time I stitched on the angel. I probably stitched it twice over, but I only had about half of it actually done at the time I discovered yet another major error, and ruthlessly chucked it!

Heck, with a start (or 3) like that, it’s somewhat amazing I kept coming back to stitching at all :giggle: