Achievement Unlocked.

 

JENN McKINLAY: It took me 15 years to finish this %$#@!&^%$# skull scarf for Hooligan 1, but I did it just in time for his 25th birthday. Y'all, I don't think I've ever felt such a sense of accomplishment in my life. 

How did I get myself into this, you ask? Maybe you didn't. I'll tell you anyway.

I decided to teach myself to knit in 2008. I made a bunch of simple scarfs, very fun, but then wanted a challenge. While looking through patterns one day, Hooligan 1 saw this one and asked if I'd make it for him. "Sure!" I said WAY TOO CONFIDENTLY. I bought the pattern off the Ravelry website and bought the yarn and set to work. At the same time, Otto our salt and pepper schnauzer entered our lives. 

I had gotten a good start on the scarf when Otto got into my yarn basket and as the Hub said when he found him, "I didn't know where the dog started and the yarn began and vice versa." Mercifully, the puppy didn't strangle himself. The destroyed project was ripped out and put on a shelf and promptly forgotten about. A few years later, I found it and started again assured that the puppy who now had his buddy Annie as a playmate would stay out of it. They did. 

But here's the thing. THOSE STITCHES ARE TINY. 

This frigging scarf took FOREVER!!! I'd pick it up and work on it a little bit through the year and then put it down to work on more interesting projects. It became a running joke between me and H1 as to whether or not I'd ever finish it. Then I was cleaning my office, found it again, and realized I was 30 rows from finishing. Newly motivated I spent the week before his birthday working on it. Maybe four hours of work in total. WHY didn't I get this done years ago? Argh!!!

Needless to say, H1 was surprised and pleased and I was relieved. Seriously, achievement unlocked, as the gamers say, and I will never knit anything with those teeny tiny stitches ever again!

So, fess up, Reds and Readers, what's a project you put off forever and then it took no time to finish?