Short-attention span knitting

I am suffering from serious knitting ADD. I have three four projects on the needles and they just keep coming.

1. The Flower Basket Shawl.

   

   This shawl from the Fall 04 IK is for my Grandma's 80th birthday so there is a deadline: September 10. According to Rose-Kim's helpful triangular shawl calculator, I am 77.5% done. I am making it with Knitpick's Alpaca Cloud, however I unwittingly went down a needle size. To compensate I am adding three shawl repeats and hoping some vigorous blocking pulls it into a good size. The photo above was taken in the middle of the ninth repeat (66.2% done) and it still looks awfully small. Only 16 (long) rows left to knit.

2. Head Cover. These are from two Christmases past, but I never finished a whole set for my brother or step-dad. When I got back from vacation I thought I would start them so I always had one on the needles, however a snafu with knitting intarsia in the round has left the one I started stalled.
3. Hopeful.

   

   I am about six inches in knitting this in Microspun, which is hell to knit. The upside is that it is soft and pretty. The downside, so I have heard, is that it pills like crazy. While it is a pain to knit I can do it without looking, so it is great in-class knitting.

   I am fairly certain that I am going to run out of yarn since I only have three balls of Microspun in turquoise. So I am calling upon you, dear readers to see if you have any turquoise Microspun in your stash that you would be interested in swapping. I have some Cherry Red Cotton-Ease. You know you want it.

4. Airy sweater. (This project needs a better name)

   

   I went to Artfibers on Friday looking for a last something for my Secret Pal, knowing that I would find something there that she couldn't get anywhere else. As usual there were several new and groovy yarns including the above pictured Tsuki, which is a laceweight silk/mohair just a tad thinner than Kid Silk Haze. KSH weighs in at 229 yds/25 grams and Tsuki gets 515 yards/50 grams. The best part? Where KSH costs $13-16 per 25 grams, Tsuki costs $16 per 50 grams. Nice, yes?

   So, I see the yarn. I see the yummy brown. I see the sign that says, "Women's Medium Sweater takes 2 balls." 2 balls? Within moments, Kira had fired up the computer and we were writing a pattern for a deep raglan, ballet neck, tunic sweater. After several tries at a swatch I got gauge and cast on. Last night I joined and knit a couple of rows.

This is an illness, people.

This list doesn't include the Corset Pullover that I cast on and started knitting. I had done a couple of the decreases wrong on the first row so I frogged, thus it doesn't count. Hey, speaking of the first row . . . the stitch count seems off. The repeat is 6 stitches, plus, I think the 2 selvedge stitches. However, no matter how I do the math (count the selvedge stitches, don't count them, count only one of them) the stitches are not a multiple of 6. Anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Then there are three sewing projects . . . all gifts and top secret. Of course, as with gift-making, one of them is already late and the other two are sure to follow.

If I could just quit my job and school, then I would have time for these far more important things.

Comments

[Karma]

I'm just like you; too many fun projects for my own good! Ah, well, at least we'll never, ever get bored. :) Sometimes I'd like to quit my job, too, but there's that pesky mortgage...

[Melanie]

I have 3 projects on needles, and have said no more until I get at least 1 done. hope you get the shawl done in time... I love your hopeful. it's pretty... I'm doing the same color... but not with microspun, I HATE that stuff. Good for you being able to knit it w/o looking... I kept seperating the stitches when I used it.
Mel-- from your hopeful knitalong.

[terry]

Gee, I think it'd be very hard to walk into ArtFibers and not come out w. something - esp. when you look at yarns (like Tsuki) and figure that it's such a good buy and feels sooo nice and on and on...

I got some Tsuki for a Kiri shawl - 2 skeins. It feels so nice. Hmm, I could really identify w. you - lots going on the needles. ps - nice shawl start!

[Bonnie]

I dream of going to Art Fibers. Let me live vicariously through you.......tell me more!!!! love the hopeful color.