Knitting Monogamy or Monotony?

As recently as last year, I was a knitting polygamist (pardon the abuse of language here): I would cast on for a new project, grow bored within a day or so and start another, and another and another. Socks! Hats! Scarves! Mittens! I spent so much time starting that finishing became a big issue. Lots of people can live with that, but it started to stress me out and cause guilt to creep in every time I saw the lonely project stuffed in a ziploc (hmm, didn't Wendy just write something about this?). So I made the decision to make RULES for myself about knitting. The first one was to finish up all those UFO's or frog them forever. Several second socks and a pile of yarn later, I then decided to focus on one project at a time. That lasted for about a month. Now I am living a moderately comfortable life as a bigamist knitter: two projects on the needles. (I still haven't decided whether or not socks actually count in this relationship so I only flirt with them.) Stash is a whole other subject.

That said, here's Tilia in progress, provided with help from my lovely feline assistant, Phoebe. Note that the waist seems impossibly small and the sleeve a little on the long side? Only time will tell if these proportions will actually work on my body.

Since I am so close to finishing Tilia, I decided it would be an appropriate time to start something new:


Hmmm, is it a jellyfish? A tiny beret? A funky booby? If all goes well, it will be Norah Gaughan's Sunburst Pullover from Interweave Summer 2002 (It's the cover photo). Reynold's Mandalay has been discontinued, so I'm using Ole Ole instead. I love the construction of this sweater, but starting out was not so good: 8 stitches on 4 size 10 dpns {{shudder}}. This puppy had better block flat because otherwise there will be whispers about baby bumps when I wear it. I'd be working on it now if it weren't for the fact that for some reason I do not have any 24 inch size 10 needles. (The only thing worse than a second sock is a second sleeve. Yeah yeah, I know I could do both at the same time, but it gives me agida.) It must be bad knitting karma, because after all that horn tooting about self-restraint, I must confess that I have about 3/4 of Soleil on hold because I messed up when dividing front and back and have to tink back several rows.

When it comes right down to it, I always have cheating on my mind.