Organizing UFOs

Dear users, dear authors,
how do you keep track of your UFOs = unfinished objects = craft projects you’ve put aside?

Hi Josefa,
I downloaded the ColorNote app to my phone (also for my other lists 🙃).
There you can create lists as text or as checklists (also great for shopping lists).

I created a UFO list there
- with the name of the pattern (yarn if applicable),
- needle/hook size (important!!), and now also
- date (from–to),
so I can keep track of everything 😇

Here’s how I organize things:
1. I’m always starting new projects and never finishing them.
2. I toss UFOs in a corner or shove them into a drawer (I just need a lot of drawers and needles). 🙃

Yeah, and that’s exactly what organizes things here all on its own—there’s just not enough space! Everything I’m working on is somehow lying around “out in the open”—cabinets and drawers are used for other things—so I just make sure to finish one project after another.
Because of the temperature blanket, there’s already a large basket lying around with a started blanket and all the yarn for it. Then, on the side, one or at most two other projects, but after that—depending on their size—it just becomes too much stuff in my way.

I keep my UFOs in boxes.
Either I’ll finish them at some point, or I’ll rip them out.

I lost track of them a long time ago… unfortunately🌸 

There seem to be two types of people here: those with “organized chaos” and everyone else. Well, I’m one of the others. 😇

I also unravel projects every now and then, but overall only about 10% actually get finished. 
But I always feel so bad about unraveling— all that work for nothing. *sob*

You can definitely work on 3 or 4 projects at the same time. That’s actually a good thing—especially if a project takes a while, so you don’t get bored. But you shouldn’t have more than that, because anything that sits around for too long has a 90 percent chance of never being finished.  At least, that’s how it is for me. New projects just have to wait until at least one thing is finished. So I don’t forget them, I write them down. Sometimes, after that, I don’t even feel like starting the new project. But then I guess it wasn’t that important anyway.

Anja, I often unravel projects too. It’s not that hard for me, because for me, the journey is the destination. And it’s also great to be able to use a beautiful yarn over and over again. If I bought new yarn every time to start the next UFO, our house would soon fall apart 😱

But even for me, it’s total chaos again right now. I’ve started a lot of projects and haven’t finished them because they didn’t turn out the way I’d imagined. But right now I can’t unravel anything, since I want to give it a second try and still need the first model for that.

I stuff my UFOs—along with my notes and needles—into a little fabric pouch so I at least still know what I’ve done so far and what needle size I used. 

I’m in a huge mess, too. I always mean to take a photo with the ball of yarn and the needle at the start, so I’ll remember later what needle size I used. But I forget to take that photo so often, and then it becomes a UFO with no second chance. It’s enough to drive me crazy—I just can’t get my mess under control!
Do any of you have a husband as wonderful and understanding as mine?

Warm regards to all of you 😊
Karoline 

I think anyone who’s so organized and disciplined that they catalog or photograph everything they start is also disciplined enough not to have any UFOs. But isn’t a little chaos part of true genius?😉 So let’s just accept that we live in creative chaos—and that’s how UFOs happen. We just shouldn’t let them pile up too much.

That’s interesting—I’ve actually thought about that myself. By the time I’ve photographed and cataloged everything, I’m sure I’ve finished at least one project.
That reminds me of a friend who’s completely overwhelmed by her two-person household. She spends hours making lists of what’s in her closets, shopping lists, and cleaning schedules—while in that same time, I’ve thoroughly cleaned at least two rooms, including all the closets, without even giving it much thought.

Oops, Veronika—
I guess that puts me in the “middle.” I like to take photos of my projects, and I usually make notes on the patterns too. If I really like something, I’ll even make it 2–3 times 😇
Unraveling has become a regular thing for me—if a piece isn’t being worn (or if the color or cut isn’t right), I’ll give it a chance with friends; otherwise, it gets unraveled.
Today I managed to get rid of a shawl (that used to be a shawl) by trading it with my friend for some bobbles—what a lucky break that she doesn’t knit (only crochets) and that these are her colors 😂😂 (win-win, I’d say—so all that work wasn’t for nothing 😇)

Sure, sure, I do that too—taking notes on the yarn and needle size and snapping a photo of the finished piece. But I don’t have any UFOs myself.
I just thought that this time investment, at the very least, might be worth considering for those of you with lots of UFOs.

When I start something new, I don’t even realize yet that it’s going to become a UFO. I really want to finish my project, but then something comes up and—poof—a new UFO is on the way.

I also take photos and make notes on Ravelry. That way, I’ll definitely have some information when I pick it back up. After all, I’ll definitely need details like the needle size and where to find the pattern. 

It’s comforting to know I’m not alone in my UFO chaos! Time and again, I resolve to finally get everything organized, but then I suddenly need a little gift… At least, yesterday I finished the little socks I started a year ago as a project to work on while traveling, and today, now that it’s finally not so hot anymore, I want to weave in the ends on two pairs of patchwork slippers and attach the pom-poms. Let’s see how far I get with my good intentions…

A problem shared is a problem halved.

My UFOs are still manageable. I keep them all together in a bag inside the fabric box in my closet, and I still remember which AL that was. I don’t take notes on yarn or hook size, since I always crochet with the same hook size and cotton yarn.

Yes, that’s right—as soon as I start a new project, the other one (the UFO) gets put aside. Eventually it resurfaces, but by then I have something else to crochet, and so it continues its dark existence in the box. Someday it’ll definitely be finished. I promise.

I end up with UFOs simply because I have at least 2 places where I craft (mainly in summer),
because then we spend a lot of time in the garden and I don’t want to carry everything back and forth, so there’s usually a crochet project there.

In the apartment, for the evenings I then have either something simple/relaxing, something more difficult with a detailed pattern or chart, or a larger project, or something with 2-3 colors.

The difficult one usually takes forever, because it often gets set aside for a quick in-between project/gift 😁
Or I just need a different color for a change ... or a different pattern 🙄😂😂😂😂

I really worked on a slipped-stitch shawl for my coworker for a year (Yay, it got finished); before that I’d made a Hinata in similar colors, and then at first I couldn’t stand looking at that color anymore,
then I experimented with slipped stitches, some patterns turned out not to be quite right after all, and I frogged and re-knit so much of that shawl 😲, in between I simply didn’t feel like it anymore and needed a sense of achievement 😉

I still have a shadow-knit shawl lying around; I think that won’t happen until winter, because I first have to read myself back into the pattern, and I just don’t have the head for that right now.

And for vacation I need something simple and uncomplicated that also works well while riding in the car 😉
and just like that, another UFO 😂😇