FO stands for Finished Object. Since I started blogging, I’ve been posting WIP Wednesdays and posting individual posts for finished objects when I finish one. Many craft bloggers write FO Friday posts, so readers know when to expect posts for finished objects. The FO Friday posts I’ve seen aren’t usually as detailed as the posts I’ve written for my finished objects and they almost always include multiple items.
I have so many blog posts planned that I thought I’d go with FO Friday posts for a while. I’m going to include multiple projects in a single post, but include many of the details that I’ve included in individual post. The “About the Project” section will be shorter. If I have a pattern I want to discuss in greater detail, I’ll write a separate post about it rather than including it in the FO Friday post. I’d like to hear your thoughts on FO Friday posts versus a post per project. Which format do you prefer?
Clapotis
Official Stats
- Date Started: March 28, 2015
- Date Finished: June 1, 2015
- Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert (Ravelry, Knitty.com)
- Yarn: 872 yards 100purewool Merino Worsted
- Needles: U.S. 8 / 5 mm
- Finished Dimensions: 22″ x 54″
- Made for: ?
- Ravelry Project Page
About this Project
Knitty published the Clapotis pattern in 2004. It seems like everyone’s knit it — Ravelry has more than 22,000 project pages for this pattern. I’ve had it on my list of things to knit forever, but never gotten around to it. It’s not a difficult pattern to knit, but as many have noted the middle section seems to go on and on and on. The pattern has three sections: increase section, knit straight, decrease section. The “Knit Straight” section is a 12 row repeat and you are supposed to knit it 13 times. I only knit it 8 times. I tried to knit it 9 times, but ran out of yarn before finishing the decrease section and bind off. In order to knit the entire 13 repeats the pattern prescribes, I would have needed at least one more ball of yarn. The yarn I used is discontinued and the company is out of business. No one on Ravelry had the same yarn in their stash, so I couldn’t try to trade or buy another skein. I didn’t want to rip out the entire project, and it looked like it would be big enough, so I forged ahead. I ripped out the entire completed decrease section (more than 3/4 done) and the 9th straight section repeat so that I could reknit the decrease section and bind off.
Super Secret Shawl
Official Stats
- Date Started: April 7, 2015
- Date Finished: June 1, 2015
- Pattern: Self-designed
- Yarn: 880 yards Knit Picks Gloss Lace in Winter Night
- Needles: U.S. 4 / 3.5 mm
- Finished Dimensions: 23″ x 47″
- Made for: Me
- Ravelry Project Page
This is my first attempt at designing anything. It’s straightforward — a single stitch pattern and a rectangular shawl. My single biggest snafu was estimating yardage. I measured and weighed the swatch to calculate the yardage I used to knit it. I used that information to calculate final dimensions and yardage for the shawl. These calculations were off by a significant margin. I probably needed another skein of yarn to get the dimensions I wanted. I cannibalized my swatch to get a couple extra inches. I will be doing some research on yardage calculation and trying again!
My only problem with FO Friday posts is that I don’t have a WIP each Friday. I will always have a post for WIP Wednesday though. I like your idea of adding more details to the FO Fridays posts.
That is the main reason I hadn’t done FO Friday before. I am finding that during HPKCHC term, I do usually have a finished object every week. If I don’t, I’m not getting as many points as I’m aiming to get 🙂
This is my first time here (came from Ravelry), and I want to say…your self-designed shawl is beautiful – both in color and stitch. I’m a crocheter, but my biggest angst is trying to figure how much yardage I need for anything when not following (or deviating from) a pattern.
Welcome to my blog! And thank you for the compliment 🙂 There’s got to be some way to estimate yardage. After I wrote this blog post, I watched part of a Craftsy class on sizing patterns. I only watched the section on yardage estimation. The class is focused on sweaters, and the recommendation was to knit a sample, weigh it, and calculate the yardage for other sizes based on ratios between the area of the other sizes and the knit sample. This is essentially what I did for the shawl, and it didn’t work.