All right then. It was a fun adventure so I didn’t begrudge the time spent. Years passed. Now and then, I’d take the unfinished project out and knit a few rounds. A friend offered to help me figure out how to set the sleeves in. More years passed. One day, I took it out of the basket and found moth holes in it. My friend said, “Throw it out.”
I couldn’t. I washed it, needles and all, and put it back in the basket. Years passed. I have a small side business of spinning wool from my sheep and selling the skeins. Somehow, there was always a short-weight ball of yarn left over at the end. They went in the basket too.
A rather filthy cat nested in the basket, on top of the Norwegian sweater project and the short balls of homespun. My friend said, “Throw them out.”
I couldn’t. The cat died but another one took its place. David moved away and I cleaned house top to bottom and threw away truckloads of our former life. The basket stayed.
No sooner had I started than the cat colonized my work.