When is an object truly finished?
I just realized that some of the items that I knit are constantly evolving, almost like growing, living organisms. Especially those long-term UFOs.
John's Gansey: Ordered the yarn from eBay. It was described as a "soft" blue. When it arrived, the adjective "soft" obviously described the color and not the tactile texture. So, it went from being a girly tom-boy project to a tough all-boy project. In my Scotch / Irish cultural heritage quest, I went off on a Gansey tangent. So, a scratchy tough blue Gansey was begun. I tried to follow the pattern, but when I picked up the stitches for the sleeves, something went horribly wrong. The shoulders are smooth stockinette funnels that feed into the way too skinny arms. Having plenty of yarn and can't waste any, I kept knitting the sleeves until I ran out of yarn. Therefore, they have oversized lengthy ribbed cuffs. I did experiment with a very stylish skater thumb hole part way down the cuff. It came out well.
So, since no human child could really wear this long term..... It's being rebuilt into a new improved version. John bravely wore it once, but when his fingers started turning as blue as the sweater from lack of circulation, he gave it up. He's also grown about a foot since it was started, so the sleeves aren't really that long now.
Corrective track: I've unknit one shoulder to detach the sleeve and am trying to reattach back on with about twice as many stitches picked up from the shoulder.
(photo of in progress here).