Startitis

I have it. I currently have 4 projects on the needles, but for some reason, I feel like I need MORE! Perhaps it's something to do with the projects themselves, or with it being January. I don't know.

While I can't fully explain why I feel the need to have at least two more projects going, I can at least explain my current WIPs to see if I can find a connection.

The oldest project is my Eclipse. It's being constructed of Malabrigo Lace in Whale's Road and is scrummy and soft and delicious. The colorway is also certain to contrast deliciously and delightfully with my coppery red hair. I love it already even though I've had to frog and start it over once. The lace pattern is simple, and it's being knit in a fairly loose gauge (as opposed to knitting laceweight on needles the size of toothpicks). All that said, I can't seem to keep my interest in it much these days. It lives in one of the massive compartments of my purse to pull out and fiddle with when either nothing else is handy or I actually feel like working on it.

My next oldest project is a pair of black Branching Off Socks. Yes, black. It's what I wear, and I'm okay knitting with it. The problem I have with wanting to work on them is that they are in a bitty little fine gauge and are incredibly complex. They require focus that I don't often have during my downtime at work and don't get much downtime at home to work on.

The second newest project that is actually on the needles is a hat for my friend Lilly. Lilly doesn't yet know she's getting the hat, so I'm in no major hurry to complete it. It's worsted weight in seed/moss/whatever stitch (alternating 2 rounds each of k2p2/p2k2). It's on dpns, which I now see was complete folly, as it's frogged itself twice in my knitting bag and I can't find my dpn WIP tubes. It will be re-cast very soon (possibly today) on a 16" circ. Maybe that will also make it go faster, as I find knitting anything in the round goes very slowly on dpns as compared to circs.

The newest and shiniest project I'm working on is a pattern I'm adapting from something else. It's a coffee cozy with a beautiful cable pattern that I fell in love with while knitting a pair of fingerless mitts last year. I'm adapting the cable pattern to work flat from the round. It's tedious and slow going and also in a stupidly fine gauge.

I'm about to cast on some simple vanilla socks just for the sake of having something mind-numbing I can work on while watching TV. The next project? I don't know. Perhaps another Impossibly Large Shawl. That's also mind-numbingly simple and in a larger gauge. I really enjoyed knitting the first, but it got a little wonky somewhere, so I'd like to do another. We shall see what the rest of the day brings.

Meanwhile, I've got my yarn from yesterday cooling in the dye pot again. As it dried I discovered that I didn't particularly care for the color it turned out to be, and so I went at it again, this time with more of a clue as to what I was doing. It looks beautifully scarlet sitting in the pot, but then it looked pretty yesterday when it was sitting in the pot too. Only time will tell, I guess.