Aspirations

Ah, memories. It seems like only yesterday I took this picture of my haul from Stitches West 2007. The patterns, the yarns, the lovely Jordana Paige bag full of so much hope. What has become of the pieces of this merry still life?

All of the yarn is stashed. All of it. I haven't used any of it. I've swatched the Black Water Abbey wool. I've read a little bit about knitters' problems with the Nantucket Jacket I intended to make from the Berroco. Daisy wound the blue skeins into tight balls which I then did nothing more than admire until we packed up and moved. They're sitting in a bin with those two huge skeins of variegated Interlacements merino.

I did nothing with the Krista pattern because I found that it was pretty much a resized version of Bella with a different neck, and then I found an identical version in Knitting Lingerie Style under a different name. (It's the only White Lies loose-leaf pattern that's reproduced in the book, by the way. The book's totally worth the purchase price.) I haven't done anything with the other patterns, either.

I use the bag all the time, so that's something.

I said that I'd use all of this yarn before the next Stitches, but I say that every year. Didn't happen in 2006, didn't happen in 2007, didn't happen this year, either. I make these declarations, and then I don't hold myself to them.

O.K., then, here's the deal. I've got four months before the next Stitches, and I've got yarn for four distinct projects in the picture above. Starting with the Blackwater Abbey and starting this weekend, I'm going to work through those four yarns before Stitches West 2009. I'm unofficially doing NaKniSweMo with some other Knittyboarders, so that should get me off to a good start.

I'm two inches away from finishing the first arm of Alexandra, and I should be able to get the second arm knit tonight. I'm enjoying my "Knit, damn you! KNIT!"* method of project selection. As the storage bins in my garage illustrate, I've spent a lot of time over the years dithering over my hoard. I spent as much time thinking about whether or not to use yarns as I did knitting them. It feels good to be working with them.

*I picture Ricardo Montalban in his Khan regalia grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me as he shouts this at me, his eyes white-rimmed and blazing with crazed fervor. It makes me laugh to myself, and it makes me work harder. Does that make me a brilliant self-motivator or a big f$%king dork?