Loose Ends Redux (or This Is Just Sooo Wrong! ;-))

I'm not supposed to be here right now, but when Barbara writes something about loose ends and writing and compares it to knitting...writer bangs head against keyboard... here I am. *grins*

My loose ends are everywhere about the house, lying around in unfinished projects - both writing and knitting - so that the house looks more like a yarn and research battlefield than somewhere people (and animals) live.

Oh, but you weren't talking about that kind of loose ends, you say? You were chatting about the dangly bits hanging all about a knitting or crochet project that leaves it looking undone and unprofessional and more or less unwearable / unusable? Yes, well...*big grin* After a fashion, so am I. Here, let me show you: I'm working on this book right now. It's due out in October (a charitable collaboration for breast cancer awareness / research) and I'm not only one of the authors but the project creator and editor. Right now I'm cleaning up all of the loose ends on it so it can be put together into uncorrected & unedited ARC (Advance Reader Copy) form so that it can go out to reviewers for advance publicity to generate early orders and mega (!!!!!! from this type to God's ears!!!!) sales so we can donate a ton to either the National Cancer Society (breast cancer) or the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I plan to knit up some of the Knitty Titties from Knitty and...

Yes, well, LOL!! You get the idea. Let's get the book done and out. Which it will be. Last year's version made it and so will this one. But right now I'm also finishing up the "loose ends" on a sweater that I started for my husband 2 Christmases ago. It's his favorite sweater, and the only one he really likes me to make for him. I've made him...I don't know 15 or 20 over the years, from an old Leisure Arts pattern dated from 1974 called "The Great Sweater of the 1940's". Hold on, I'll show you:
Here's the front and back cover from the pattern. As you can see, it's knitted all of a piece - back and front knitted as one through the shoulders and neck by several rows of garter stitch before stockinette stitch resumes for the body of the sweater. The sleeves are joined to the body and knitted in, then the collar (turtle neck, since the pattern's history states the sweater originated during WWII and was knitted en masse for soldiers at the cold war front) is done in the round. Nowadays I generally make the color a mock-T-neck or a crew neck for him, but...

The pattern runs from child's size 4 to adult size 50". My husband loves this sweater with a passion. Why? I can only guess. He tells me it's because I've told him he can wear it like a sweatshirt (which he does). I've knitted it out of the least expensive yarns I can find. He throws it in the washer, wears it under the car, works on whatever equipment he wants to and wears it to the shop. The thing wears like a leather jacket even at the elbows - and he's hard on elbows.

But I digress. After 2 years, I'm finally finishing his latest. He'll get it for his birthday (Halloween.) I gave him the yarn a couple of years ago at Christmas. I think that's what you call one present down.

Or tying up the loose ends - as well as finally applying the finishing touches to the thing.

Yeah.

Terese Ramin, who had to choose the hottest days of the year to work in wool