Having decided to dedicate the first two months of 2013 to completing unfinished projects, I found myself, on day two of this enterprise, overrun with choices.

One of the first choices I stumbled on was the first few rounds of Jen Spears “Gift bags that keep on giving.”

I had started work on the bag in late July of 2012 when my family and I drove to Washington, D.C. One my way out the door, I had grabbed my hooks, some Red Heart Super Saver pink camouflage yarn, and a copy of this free pattern so that I could keep myself amused during the drive.

Unfortunately for me, I ended up driving more than I had expected to, and this was as far as I got with the project:

It was in a basket in my closet where it had lain dormant since I had unpacked my travel bag from the trip in late July. While I was tempted to make it the “le projet du jour,” I decided that since it could be easily contained to prevent possibly tangling, I would contain it.

To that end, I tracked down a plastic bag with a zipping sort of closure, and

With that project contained and safe from tangling, I moved on to another bag that contained this yarn that I had purchased the day I finished my 2012 North Carolina State Fair project:

I had gone to the yarn shop just to look, but the looking led to spending, and this yarn that was intended to become a cowl for my mother had found its way into the same bag as the start of a hat I had imagined I would finish in time to give as a Christmas gift.

The hat ended up as my “projet du jour” for three reasons:

First, it was supposed to have been a Christmas present, and it is already more than a week past Christmas.

Second, it had tremendous tangle potential as it had taken me several tries to figure out how to get the gauge needed to make a hat that fit, so there was a lot of frogging, and consequently, a lot of yarn pulled from the skein:

Third, the sooner I get it done, the more opportunity the recipient will have to use it.

So for all those reasons, this hat became my “projet du jour.” Here is how it looked when I started:

and here is how it looked when I had to set it aside and tend to other matters:

I did not finish any projects today, but I did manage not to start anything new, and that in itself is a bit of a victory.