The Hat That Waited

The Hat That Waited: On picking up a WIP, and what it gave back.

There’s a hat that’s been sitting in my project bag since February 2021.

It’s not a particularly fancy hat (It's the Bankhead hat, if you want to know). It’s a nice colour, and I liked the pattern, and I was pleased with how the fabric was coming together. But somewhere between casting it on and actually finishing it, life moved on. Other things took over. I stopped reaching for it. And somehow, without meaning to, I let it sit, untouched, for over three years.

Three years! Just resting quietly in a bag, while I got on with other things.

And it’s not that I forgot it. I knew it was there. Every now and then I’d think of it, that hat I really should finish , and then immediately feel a bit tired and push the thought away again.

Until last week, when I was going through the hallway, and saw the bag and thought:

You know what? I’ll give it fifteen minutes.

No expectations. No guilt. Just a little check-in to see what it needed.

Turns out… it needed six rows.

That’s all.
Six quiet rows.

I nearly laughed. I was so close, and I hadn’t even realised.

And I’ve been thinking about that ever since. How much space a project can take up in our heads when it’s unfinished. And how quickly that weight can lift when we just dip back in. Not to finish it all at once, but just to see where we are.

Fifteen minutes. That’s all it took to clear three years of “maybe I’ll get to it soon.”

I have a lot of WIPs (I won’t tell you how many, but… it’s a lot). Some are half-done cardigans, some are swatches that were meant to become something more, some are lovely ideas I just didn’t have the headspace to finish.

But this little hat has taught me something:
Sometimes the best way to finish is to stop thinking in terms of finishing at all.

Just pick it up.
Set a timer.
See where it leads.

Because you might be six rows from the end, and you deserve the calm that comes with finishing something, however small.

If you’ve got a lingering project you can’t quite face, try giving it fifteen minutes this week. That’s it. No commitment. No pressure.

And if you do finish something… let me know. I’d love to cheer you on.

Nessa