Heavy

No pictures today, but just you wait to see what I've been working on. I've had this humongous pile of Lotus Pink worsted Brown Sheep languishing in the stash almost since the stash began. In fact, this bulk of yarn might have initiated my stashing. Before the pink, I immediately knit up everything I bought.

And now, after several false starts, most of that heap o' pink has been pulled and tugged into a Loop d Loop Lace Leaf Pullover (details about what worked well and what didn't when I finish and post a picture of its pinkness).

As I near completion of the sweater (I've got a sleeve and a half to go), I'm feeling that same anxiety I always feel when I near completion of a large project. It's like being cut adrift, without a focus, without a plan of what I'm going to knit next, even though I have several "to knit" lists in several of the knitting journals I seem to constantly start and abandon. My creativity seems to come in fits and starts and I'm always afraid that each burst will be the last.

I recently read an article about how to be one of those uber productive people with way to much energy to sit in front of the television and watch an entire season of Alias in a weekend. Occasionally, I think I want to be one of these people. Think of all the knitting-baking-sewing-creating I could be doing! But one of the secrets, according to the article, is to cut the stewing period before making a decision. Productive people, apparently, make decisions about what to knit, how to cut their hair, where to go on vacation, what kind of job to try for, and never look back.

If I lived like that, there surely wouldn't be an almost-finished Lace Leaf Pullover neatly folded on my dining room table awaiting sleeves. I bought that yarn originally to make a garter stitch sweater in Stitch N Bitch. A garter stitch sweater!

The yarn then became targeted for a top down raglan sleeve sweater with a cable up the front, a plan which eventually morphed into the Big Sack Pullover (also from Stitch N Bitch). Then came Samus. Oh, how I wanted to make a bright pink cardigan ala Brynne. But the zipper did (and still does) scare the bejeebers out of me. So I went back to the big sack plan, even going so far as to cast on.

Then I read a new post on the long dormant Dirty Purls blog and saw the Lace Leaf Pullover. Ding-ding-ding-ding, went the creativity bell. "I bet I could double the Lotus into that!"

And so it goes. I'm still not sure whether the Lace Leaf is the best use for the yarn. But it's got to be better than the garter stitch plan. To hell with being productive.