The new year has been, for me, a time of expanding crochet projects. Every time I think I’m about to close in on finishing something, it slips from my grasp, so today, I made a concerted effort to only work on project that I have already started. No flirting with the “perfect crochet cardigan” for spring, no “just trying one motif.” Instead, I stuck to a diet of finishing at least one of the many projects I am juggling in an effort to generate some “finishing mojo.”

There were so many options to choose from, it was hard to know where to start, so I went with one that seemed like it would be quick and easy: weaving in the ends of a textured crochet newsboy hat I had made from yarn I had reclaimed from a rug I never finished:

It was easy, but it wasn’t quite as quick as I had expected it to be. When I had crocheted it, I hadn’t noticed just how many ends had been generated, but when it came time to weave them in, it was hard to ignore.

Undeterred, I took my trusty bent-tipped yarn needle and got to work, and in more time than I had initially budgeted, but in less time than I thought, I had all of the ends woven in, and the hat was ready to wear:

But had I achieved my goal of creating finishing mojo?

I decided to put it to the test, and I pulled out my first and future troll hat which still needs quite a few of the lengths of yarn unravelled:

Using a slight modification of the unravelling method I arrived at the last time I spent an afternoon unravelling yarn, I got to work:

In forty-five minutes I had made visible progress:

I have two goals for this weekend. One is to not start any new projects, and the other is to finish the first troll hat, unraveling the yarn, one strand at a time.