16 July 2008 – 1:40 pm
It’s a bad addiction, this ravelry thing. I spend far too much time on there oogling other projects and stumbling upon patterns that I absolutely must make. It really becomes a hinderance. I look at my current projects and I slowly become uninterested in them. I really need to throw away my bookmark and tell myself not to look at ravelry again until I have complete a few projects and am ready to start fresh. But yeah right, that’s not going to actually happen.
I just need to control what it is that I surf ravelry for. If I just stick to forums and don’t click the pattern/project links, I won’t have any trouble. I’ve currently got 4 WIPs and that is more than enough for my plate. If I could only get them finished in a timely manner then restrict myself to only 2 at a time, I’d be doing a whole lot better.
I have too many ideas and ambitions and I just don’t have the time to knit fast enough to follow through with all those ideas. For instance: I still want to make the crochet hexagon blanket and I’ve even gone so far as to purchase the pattern book (in Japanese no less) for it. I have yarn sitting in my stash waiting for me to do the rectangular granny afghan. I also would love to make a ripple blanket. And lets not forget the countless items in my ravelry queue and favorites (for maybe some day).
I’m sure every knitter has these issues, but it really does overwhelm me the amount of stuff I want to make or have pending to make (meaning I have pattern and yarn patiently waiting for the cast on). And I can’t seem to finish anything fast enough for my liking. Once I cast on a new project, it’s like a race to the finish so that I can start a new project.
I managed to get down to 2 WIPs and I told myself I wouldn’t cast on anything else. 2 WIPs were more than enough. I’d prefer 1, but I know that’s unreasonable. There’s no way I can knit a lace shawl while watching tv, so why not use that time to work on a pair of socks, for instance. But anyway, somehow, I didn’t listen to the niggling voice in my head telling me to wait. And I ended up casting on 2 more projects. So now I have 4, 2 of which are pretty labor intensive…one a lace shawl that requires concentration and no interruptions while I count and recite the stitch pattern out loud as I knit. The other is DH’s afghan which is just going to take a while, no matter how I look at it. Mindless tv knitting, but I’m making it extra long and wider than suggested because I have a 6′1″ tall husband.
The other two are somewhat simpler, but not really. The cardigan is simple, I’m just knitting a sleeve…pretty basic structure there and I’ve got the stitch pattern down. Just a matter of doing it, so I can seam it up and move on. The cabled bag is time consuming…doing two repeats of each row in a 12 row cabled stitch pattern takes time. But I’m 1/2 way through it, so the project is moving right along. I can see these two being finished fairly quickly. I will finish them both before I cast on for anything else.
Then I’ll have 3 projects going. Because once the bag and the cardigan are finished, I will immediately cast on for my sister’s wedding afghan. This is my mammoth project. Probably the biggest I’ve done to date. But as I mentioned, I really need to get the other two projects done first. Ugh!
I also have hopes of knitting some towels for Christmas. I still have yet to start on the baby’s Christmas stocking, which I bought the kit for back in January. And I want to start working on my quilting again now that mom has given me a decent sewing machine.
It’s really a good thing my husband both supports and encourages my hobbies.
