Me: well, I said, not exactly worried, but..
I do have a person who comments when I cast on another project
Friend: OMG, You do have a knitting police!
The thing is that I really have an ongoing list of projects that I work on. I've always been more of a process knitter than a project knitter.
When I started, I knitted projects to learn the techniques. My first cardigan used 5 or 6 - black yarn, kntting intarsia, first collar, first pockets, first button band, knit made by knitting across the fronts - I used 2 yarns, the body was on a US 7, and the band was on a US 5. I charted it because the teacher whose class I was in, insisted that I knit the cardigan from the bottom up! I also started with a raglan style cardigan, and ended up with a set-in sleeve.
From there, I went to fairisle fingerless gloves of my own pattern, a dress using different weights and types of yarns than the pattern, and mega-cabled socks. I discovered that I love doing cables, but they don't provide much warmth in sweaters. I explored felting, knitting with beads, weaving, and yarn dyeing. I knit baby gifts and gave them away, and learned to knit only for people who could really appreciate the time and effort taken.
Since I work full-time, I just don't have the same time to devote that others might have, my attention wanders easily..unless I focus. It's worse in a group, I really need something mindless at knit night - which means boring stockinette or garter. I find that after interacting with people all day at work, I just don't have much focus or attention.
Last year, I tried to do 12in2012, a knitting challenge which is its own reward to knit 12 projects in a year. Most people churn out 12 small projects. I knit a lot of scarves last year, and cowls. Just one sweater last year.
I do have quite a few sweaters waiting for me to come back to them..hence the large amount of UFOs - unfinished objects (for any of you non knitters). Here's what I have on the needles as WIPs (knitters love acronyms - works in progress) right now.
Can you spot the new project I've just started ?
I've joined the bandwagon of almost 6,000 projects for The Color Affection by Veera Valimaki (sorry missing accents). I'd "invested" in the yarn around Christmas time, and ended up making up my own kit with three colors - a dark brown, middle brownish creme, and a bright pink. I'm through the first section of garter, and onto the striping. Garter. It's all garter - very boring garter, but perfect if your brain has poofed after a week of meetings, discussions, and computer stuff.
So, a short revisit of the rest of my projects on the needles, shall we ?
Next up - Pearl Shawlette - Status - Not Started. Percent complete: %. Planned for
Silky Leaves Shawl - knitting in the lovely codex - Status - knit 2 strips each of 10 leaves in Murder calls Dr. Hanley (navy), Arkady (brown with blue),Delirium (multi-fall colorway), Petit Prince (light pastel blue), and 1 strip in Spielen am Morgengrauen (gold/blue). Realized I want to both show off the details of the leaves AND have a cohesive shawl knit in this stunning bfl-silk blend. Might be challenging to do both. Need focus to figure out the order of the strips for the shawl
Hush Hoodie - knit in the lovely Skein Fingering merino cashmere in Hush, a light lovely brown. I'd been away from this for so long that I'm not sure what I have left to do. I think I finally seamed the shoulders, and have to figure out if I want to rip back to the bodice, since I misplaced 6 stitches from one side of the front to the other, or just pick up and knit down on the sleeves. I satisfied, but dissatisfied on this one. I don't need practice on re-doing, and since I don't wear much of what I produce, I'm not sure it's worth the effort to frog and re-do. Percent complete - 70%
Love that Dahlia - still loving the yarn; finally ripped back to the first chart which required attention I didn't have at the time I knit it. Now, my house is quiet and I think I could actually get back to this again, and the colorway is so lovely.
Caribbean Watershed - started January 2011. Was ready to finish off the one side when I realized I have to re-frog, fix and re-do this one. This has been cursed from the start, and really, I just love the yarn and could knit and finish my own creation and call it a customized pattern. I'm sure even the designer will not want to lay claim to the pattern when this is done..if ever.
Kelmscott - also stalled from 2011 or was it 2010 ? I have to go back and check. I fastidiously knit this at knit night until I took a wayward turn at the fronts for neck decrease. No good instructions in this area, and I think I may have to figure out how to reduce the lace and still make it look good on the front - maybe stockinette ? Such a lovely hand, and found the bag this is in, so I want to restart this soon - hah! take that knitting police - it's in my mind..albeit low on the list.
Janel's Class sample sock - from Sock summit 2011 -last summer. such a cute little fairisle sock; not much effort to finish. not sure where i've put it now and even if the needles are still with the project - could be a hibernating project soon.
Regal Silk - had started and knit the hem and it was BY-oo-ti-full! but realized when my mom said "That looks too big on you!" that when I could pull it up over myself over jeans, that she was right - too big. so, sadly need to rip back and figure out if I can make a size that is even on the pattern. It's an olgajazzy pattern - she makes wonderful designs but never seems to have the patterns test knit so patterns have to be heavily modified or analyzed prior to knitting. the regal silk is taunting me it's so gorgeous! Soon my lovely soon - but probably not if kelmscott is ahead of you.
BP Breakwater - have the yarn don't have the inclination. started but the yarn traveller has a bit of a squeak even though it's only wool. weird, i know. somewhere, it's in a project bag, but hasn't had much attention -so status - not really started. ok, not started, and i'm ok with that.
Summery lacewing - gorgeous yarn I picked, and I finally have a 3rd skein, so enough yarn now to make this for sure. Have to recalc the waist decreases/increases as I've started and frogged this several times as the yarn is different than what the pattern calls for, so i'm essentially designing my own sweater here. I probably should just pick a pattern that actually fits me and use the same lace, but I didn't think to do that at the beginning (oh man!). why didn't I think out loud earlier ?!
... so, it's been waiting for me to calc,
and to take it off the needles to measure and make sure it isn't too big, as it's bottom up
(deja vu on the regal silk, for those of you who have read this far!)
Blue - yep still waiting for me to have enough to attention to sleeve the seams that have been pinned now for over a month..or was it two?! can't wait to wear this. Everything has been blocked separately.
So, this I say to the knitting police if you're reading..it's true! the word is out -
I've cast on another project. and it's an easy peasy one, which doesn't require much attention, I hope.
and that's good for me - because it's going to take all the attention that I have right now in my leisure time, to complete it.
now, go bug someone else for a change.
