Community is something I think about a lot.
I have a degree in sociology, my resume is dotted with titles like “community manager” and “volunteer coordinator,” and in the wake of the 2016 election I decided to get even more intentional about building community.
When I learned to knit in 2017 just so I could make my own pussyhat, I had no idea that I’d fall head over heels with the craft—much less that it would turn out to be the catalyst for so many meaningful community connections in the years since. But by the time I learned about the Loose Ends Project in early 2023, the power of the fiber community was already a given.
For those who are unfamiliar, Loose Ends connects volunteer finishers with skills in a number of crafts (including knitting, quilting, embroidery, cross-stitch, crochet, sewing, and more) with the unfinished projects left behind when someone dies or is unable to complete the work due to injury, illness, etc. The person who owns the project submits it to Loose Ends, who matches them with a finisher who both has the necessary skills and (ideally) lives close by. The finisher collects the unfinished work and completes it, returning it to the project owner when they’re done.
It’s a brilliant idea, and it has absolutely taken off.
I checked, and my first Loose Ends email newsletter came in April 2023, when the tally reported was “more than 500 projects being completed by volunteer finishers,” with 8,900 volunteer finishers from 44 countries signed up. As of this writing, there are now more than 35,000 volunteer finishers signed up from 84 countries, with more than 4,500 projects finished or in-progress.
That’s mind-blowing growth by just about any measure. And, if you’re a numbers person, you probably noticed the disproportionate number of volunteer finishers to projects.
Word of Loose Ends spread like brush fire through the crafting community, as evidenced by the (if I’m doing my math right) nearly 300% increase in finisher numbers from April 2023 to November 2025, but it’s taking a bit longer to become as widely known among people who might find themselves in possession of their late grandmother’s basket of half-done crochet blankets and no clue what to do with them. For instance.
But I didn’t know that in 2023. I signed up as a finisher, and then I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I loved seeing all the Instagram updates of finished Loose Ends projects, and I eventually learned that the numbers weren’t favorable to finishers getting projects quickly, but that waiting game was hard, y’all.
This past May, a little over two years from when I first heard about Loose Ends, I was finally matched with a project. I was thrilled.
Deb was a painter living in New York City and studying at Parsons School of Design in the 1980s when she decided to try her hand at knitting. She got a really good start on a sweater with an all-over cable design (no small feat for a beginner!), but the unfinished project ended up in a vintage drawstring shopping bag that she brought with her when she moved back to Oregon.
Deb and Jacque met in Portland in 1992 when their kids were in preschool and became close friends, and somewhere along the line Deb gave Jacque the unfinished sweater as something she might want to complete for herself someday.
Deb died in 2014 after a fairly rapid decline from pancreatic cancer.
When Jacque reached out to Loose Ends, she had had the project (in its fabulous vintage bag) for more than a decade. She wanted to see that the sweater got finished, and also hoped it could be sized up (Deb had been tiny). The first volunteer finisher, Heather, did the hard work of bringing an old pattern into the 21st century, including working with Jacque to find a modern pattern to use and coming up with a solution to increase the size of the garment.
Heather had finished the front panel (that Deb had started) and gotten most of the way through the back panel when she decided she needed to ask for help. Deb had knitted the dense cables beautifully (no small feat for a beginner knitter!), but she had used a chunkier yarn than the pattern called for. Matching Deb’s tight gauge was a challenge, so Heather talked to Loose Ends, who contacted me.
I started work on the project in early June, and within a few weeks I realized I’d have to further expand the community that had already been assembled to complete of the sweater.
Since the panels included elements from two different patterns made at different gauges, there was a difference of more than 20 stitches in the stitch counts between the front and back panels. Not only that, the back panel ended up being about 2.5” longer than the front by the time I was done with it, thanks to the front panel’s cables contracting the fabric so much (and me not measuring it until I was done with shoulder shaping).
I did a little sweater surgery on the back panel, removing 2.5” from the middle and grafting the two pieces back together, but my lack of mathy confidence made me ask for help to resolve the issue of the wildly different stitch counts. Fortunately, I had the resources of an incredible fiber community to call upon.
I posted my dilemma on Perfectly Knotted’s lively Discord, a community of smart fiber folks who are super generous with their knowledge, to see if anyone had suggestions—and they did. I got exactly the advice I needed to make the shoulder pieces on the panels match up, as well as the rate at which I’d attach the pieces together to account for there being more stitches on the front shoulders than the back. It worked on my first try.
I finished seaming the two panels together, making the project look like a sweater for the first time, and started on the sleeves. I ended up ripping the sleeves out and starting them over three times trying to get the sleeve size and decrease rate to look right, since I was more or less making that part up, but it finally worked out. The finished sweater was too small for me, so I roped in even more of my fiber community (two smaller-than-me friends in my local knitting group) to try it on—it fit wonderfully, and the sleeves looked great.
I even had enough yarn left over to make a cowl (using a cabled piece that Deb had knit, perhaps originally intended as the start of the back panel) and a matching hat, so Jacque could keep one piece and the other two could be surprises for Deb’s sister and daughter.
This was Deb’s first attempt at knitting, as far as Jacque knows, and it’s both an impressive project to tackle as a beginner and a great example of the things we don’t know (and don’t even know to think about) when we’re just starting out with a new craft or skill.
It reminds me of my first sweater in some ways—the yarn isn’t exactly the right weight for the pattern, and therefore the gauge is a little off—but Deb’s stitches are absolutely gorgeous. The dense cables have impressed every experienced knitter who has seen them.
Community is always important—and, of course, these days we’ve learned that it’s downright essential. Just because I’ve been a part of the fiber and crafting community, I’ve made several Welcome Blankets, made and donated food to the network of free fridges in my city, and volunteered at a day shelter for women and marginalized populations.
And, now, I’ve helped to finish the work of a fellow knitter for her loved ones.
I’m not religious, but I am devoted to community and to this craft. Picking up another knitter’s work to finish it when they cannot is sacred work, and it was an absolute honor to be a part of completing this project for Jacque (and, by extension, Deb’s sister and daughter, who have two of the pieces)—and, really, for Deb.
Loose Ends is all about showing up for one another: Heather showed up for Jacque, I showed up for Heather, and then my fiber community showed up for me to finish something that was started four decades ago.
Turning this WIP into an FO was the most satisfying group project I’ve ever been a part of—and I’m already looking forward to my next Loose Ends assignment.
One of my core beliefs is that the only way any of us get through is together. If you believe that, too, and you want to get involved with Loose Ends, here’s how:
- Are you a crafter? Find out about becoming a Loose Ends volunteer finisher.
- Do you or does someone you know have an unfinished craft project? Find out about submitting it to Loose Ends.
And if you’re able to use Ravelry and you want any additional info, here are my project pages:
I so enjoyed reading about the journey of your Loose Ends project and the clever ways the original pieces were finangled to fit the final items. I was surprised by how different the shape of the original pattern was to the finished piece, so kudos for figuring out how to rework Deb’s pieces. I see the posts on the Loose Ends social media and always want to know more, so it was refreshing to get a chance to learn the whole story. I’m still waiting to get a project (knitting or cross stitch) and I’ve been on the list since Fall 2022!
Thank you so much for your note! I was thinking about the project in word form throughout, so it was fun to look back and put it all together. And I know what you mean about always wanting to know more of the story when I read the Loose Ends posts. 😊 Here’s hoping you get your finisher project soon!