Knitting with a Deadline

This isn't the first time that I've done this to myself, and it probably won't be the last. I've given myself a deadline to finish a knitting project. Deadlines can do strange things for me. Either they really motivate me to work hard and finish on time, or they pressure me into feeling like I'm tied to one project, which makes me want to knit anything but the project that I'm supposed to be working on. In this instance, I really hope that it's the former.

I started working on my Red Hot Mountain Stole in July. It was my first real lace project, so I was nervous and excited to see how it would turn out. Then my husband and I got tickets to see Wicked when the tour comes to our city. We'll be seeing it in October, so an elegant lace stole is exactly what I'll need to pair with a little black dress for our evening out. Since I'd already started Red Hot Mountain, it seemed logical to try to finish it in time for the show.


So I figured out exactly how many rows I'd need to knit for the stole. (550!) Then I counted how many I had already knit (I think it was about 38...). So I counted days and gave myself a little buffer for blocking and determined that I needed to average 9 rows per day in order to finish the stole before the show. It's going to be challenging, but I should be able to do it.


So far I'm doing pretty well. I'm ahead of schedule by about 4 days. If I can keep that up, then I shouldn't have any trouble meeting my deadline. Here's my updated progress:


Word of caution - There is a downside to calculating the number of rows you should average in order to finish by a deadline. Once you know how many rows are in the project (550), and you know how many stitches are in each row (99), it's hard to resist the temptation to calculate the number of stitches in the project (54,450!!). And trust me, you're better off not knowing.