The Art of Unfinishing

Last week one of my customers asked me if I had heard a piece on Radio 4 on the subject of not finishing projects. The programme in question was Sideways – The Art of Unfinishing, presented by Matthew Syed, and was all about the psychological importance of finishing or not finishing work. He focussed on an amazing group of women, the Loose Ends Project, who I already knew about, but also talked about art, writing and music. You can find it on BBC Sounds if you are interested.

The Loose Ends project was started by two friends in America who realised that they had one thing in common which was that they would often finish projects that had been started by people who had died or become disabled. They realised how important such actions could be and set out to help more people finish unfinished work, and now they have ‘finishers’ all over the world involved in the project. Mandy and I discovered it when we were asked to finish a cardigan by the daughter of one of our customers who had purchased the wool and the pattern from us about 4 months before she died. It was a difficult yet amazing thing to do and we both got a lot from it (Mandy did the knitting and I sewed it up).

Matthew Syed talked too about the ethics of finishing unfinished pieces, whether the act of finishing changed the original project, whether people might not want it finished after all. It was something I had not really considered before. In the context of knitting, each person has a different tension, and so it is sometimes hard to match someone else’s fabric. And after all, should we? Or is it better to show the original work within the final product? One of the pieces that Loose Ends mentioned and which I found particularly moving, was a piece of crochet that someone had carried with her to all her chemotherapy sessions and which was subsequently made into a much larger blanket by the Loose Ends finisher, perfect for the bereaved person to wrap themselves in and remember the person they had lost. It may be that that was not the original intention, but what a great way to complete it.

Almost all really dedicated crafters have unfinished projects lying around. Sometimes they fall out of love with something. Sometimes it is too tricky and is relegated to the ‘naughty corner’ for a while to be tried again later. Sometimes the weather is not compatible with what you are doing – I am still working on the cable knit sweater I started at the beginning of the year, but honestly it has been far too hot to work on recently, and I have turned to a different garment in a cotton based yarn, which is easier on my fingers when it is warmer. Sometimes (I am definitely guilty of this), the lure of a new project is too great, and you abandon something in a bag, sure that you will get around to it eventually. My Social Stitchers were talking today about projects purchased at yarn shows and relegated to the back of the cupboard as new and more interesting things take their place. Or you might have some projects only suitable for some settings – I have an ongoing sock project for long journeys for example, or boring knitting for TV watching. Personally, I currently have 5 pieces on the go, known in the crafting world as WIPs (Works In Progress), UFOs (Un Finished Objects) or PHDs (Projects Half Done). Mandy was telling me about somebody recently who has 40 ongoing projects which seems like a lot – I think I might find that depressing. I was talking about this to my daughter, who is studying Animation, and she told me that most of the artists she knows also have lots of works on the go at the same time. Ongoing drawings, ideas, sketchbooks, and I assume the same applies to musicians and writers. We talk about it sometimes as if it is a bad thing to have so many unfinished things around, but, as Matthew Syed pointed out, perhaps it is not, because it is the process of creating that is joyful, as much as the end result. And that is why, I think, that the Loose Ends Project has so many people who offer to be Finishers, because they love the process, but would also get pleasure from finishing something on behalf of someone else.

I hope that anyone reading this will gain some comfort from knowing that they are not alone in having unfinished projects, and that it is not a bad thing, but in fact a normal part of the creative process. I would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on this subject.

My mother was knitting a lovely scarf in the months before she died and it is sitting, half done, in a bag in my house. I cannot bring myself to finish it. It makes me sad even to look at it and remember how much pleasure she got from a craft she only rediscovered when I opened this business two and a half years ago. The pattern was recommended to her by her sister, who is an amazing knitter. I know it should be finished, and I have the ability to do so, but perhaps I should send it to the Loose Ends Project to finish for me.