Oh boy oh boy oh boy! See? See? Look! Look! Look what I made! Look what the yarn does!

Excuse me. (gives inner child piece of taffy) There, that ought to hold her for a few minutes.

I dyed up two skeins of yarn for the Dye-O-Rama, in the event one of them went horribly wrong. I don’t know how horribly wrong sock yarn could go, really, and frankly I don’t want to go there. One of the skeins is in the mail to my dye-o-rama buddy, and the other one is Here with ME! I thought I’d just knit up a little bit, just to see how the striping I worked so hard on turned out.

Well. I have no idea how that happened. One minute I was casting on, and then I was done with the ribbing, and then it was ... long. Fer goodness’ sake, I just started this thing yesterday afternoon; by the time I went to bed last night, it was over six inches long. Either I’ve gotten a lot faster or I’ve been obsessively knitting more of the afternoon and evening than I thought. Or both. Hey, I already knew that! I am pretty damn fast, and I’m also ever so slightly obsessive.


Okay, now this is where you get to participate in the Stern Reminder to Self. Self? Are you listening, Self? I see you calculating how fast you can get a whole pair of socks done if you do a whole leg in a couple of hours. It doesn’t ever really work out that way, Self. Yes, you can knit fast. You get obsessive about striping yarn. It’s a thing with you. But listen here: the thrill wears off. It does. You let those Regias languish unfinished for MONTHS. Almost a whole year before those suckers were done. You listening, Self? Don’t go there. Do NOT. Go. There.

(Inner child boings out) Ooo, look! Look! They’re gonna be a whole pair just before you know it! I can tell! You are so, so fast!

(sternly) (readers join in as able) No, we have learned our lesson. (pause; this sounds schizophrenic (WHICH I CAN SPELL! HA!), and we—I—am not. First person is Singular, here.) Sane behavior and realistic expectations. The STR socks, they’re nearly done. Finish those. Then squeeze in a couple rows, at least, on the Dale and the Leaf thing and do another bit of the Spring Forward. And for gods’ sake, would it kill you to finish the February Almanac shawl? Hm? Would that be too much to ask?

Sigh.

Play! Play! Play! C’mon, let’s PLAY!!!

This is the hard part. Giving myself permission to play. I am soooo not about process, I really, really love the finished thing. I do. Except I’m having a weird reaction to being nearly finished with things lately. Yes, the “on needles” list over there to the left is long, but it actually doesn’t include the eggplant colored cardigan (which needs only knitted on edges and the last of the sewing) or TIKJ (The Incredible Kilim Jacket, which is a whole story in itself from before the existence of the blogosphere). Or the stripey new sock, obviously.