Startitis

How many projects do you work on at once?  And how many is too many?

Assuming that we don't count the blanket I started five years ago that is still sitting forlornly in my closet waiting to be finished (let's be real, that is just never going to happen), I have

• 3 projects on needles and currently active
• 6 projects that just need a little bit of finishing (blocking, sewing seams, weaving in ends)
• 4 dead projects that need to be frogged
• and an ever-expanding queue of projects-yet-to-be.

Basically, I have this bad habit of starting a project and not finishing them before starting another project.  It's called startitis, basically a disease in the knitting community.  Check out the webcomic Worsted For Wear for a relevant example.  

Here's the first problem. I cast on in November (early November, mind you) for a scarf that I was going to give to a friend for Christmas.  And in my twisted, gnarled brain, I was going to finish that fingering weight, linen stitch scarf with 375 godforsaken stitches in a little over a month.  As an added challenge, I decided to knit the thing up in a different style of knitting than my usual, beloved throwing English.  Continental, I told myself, would be way faster.  And yes, Continental has been faster for this particular project, but I have to watch what I'm doing because I'm not familiar with the technique.  That means I can only work on this scarf when I don't need my eyes.  I'm (only) about halfway done with it, and it seems like it will never end.

So to fix the first problem, I have to cast on for another project.  This time, I want something to work on in my own style of knitting, English.  I choose lace, again in fingering weight yarn but at least it's on larger needles than the linen stitch scarf.  And the pattern is really interesting to me because it's not the same thing over and over again.  But, that's the problem.  I actually have to think about the pattern.  I can't memorize a lace pattern that's ten lines long, and I have to constantly be counting to make sure I decrease and yarnover in all the right places.  That means that I can only work on this project when I don't need my brain.  

So to fix the second problem, guess what I did?  That's right: I cast on for something else.  This one is a shawl that is so tediously simple that I can set my brain on auto-pilot and work on it while I'm in a meeting, watching tv, or reading a book on my Kindle.  The other great thing about it is that when I think I might want to burn it because I'm so bored with the pattern, that's just when the lace border will begin!  

Those are my three active projects right now.  The six projects that still need finishing are doomed to sit in the closet until I get really bored or until I have time to work on updating my Etsy shop.  They're looking at 6 months to life.  As for the dead projects, I will frog them when, and only when, I desperately need the bag they are sitting in or when I have a truly brilliant idea of what to do with that yarn.  

What's next up in your queue?  Because I'm thinking about casting on for slouchy cable hat...