S is for…

…startitis, of course.

I always get a bad case in the spring.  Just at that time when the weather is finally warming, water is running in ditches, small streams become swollen, and any patch of dirt becomes an unnegotiable mud sinkhole, my startitis hits an absolute annual peak.  I first noticed this tendency about 13 years ago when those knotted hemp necklaces were all the rage.  Being particularly prone to crafty hubris of all sorts, I carried a partially complete knotted and beaded hemp belt through I don’t even know how many moves, until it finally made it into the ‘things to go’ box many years later.  While I first noticed my tendency to annual spring startitis at the age of twenty, I believe that the tendency stretched much much further back.  Back to the days of cross-stitched x-mas ornaments begun in August (my mother: Are you SURE you will finish this one?, me: Of course!, reality: eventually donated in one of my semi-regular moves), or baby quilts, or tie-dyed clothes, or… and the list goes on back in memory.  I could really do with an equally strong case of finishitis coinciding with the autumn equinox one of these years.

This year began innocuously enough.  In preparing for a long car trip (approximately 30 hours each way) I did what any knitter would do – prepare.  I kept it modest this year, remembering my overpacking of knitting last year, and remembering my poor track record of actually getting any knitting DONE, never mind finished enough to warrant multiple projects, and kept it to two projects.  I returned home with less than one sock and about 8 inches of a scarf knit.  That was two weeks ago.  The sock is now complete, its friend is about 3 pattern repeats out of 7 leg pattern repeats complete, and the scarf is complete.  So far so good.  Though I have not yet knit a single stitch past my last posting of something like 3 weeks ago on the Apres Surf Hoodie.  And I’m trying to narrow down a choice of knitting patterns for the April Sock Knitters Anonymous Challenge.  And woefully behind in my spinning.  And almost halfway through a scarf I intend for a friend as a graduation gift in less than 3 weeks.  Nevermind the various projects begun over the last twelve months that I completely forgot about until looking for a 4.5mm or 5mm circular to – you guessed it – swatch another project and realized that the reason I can’t find one of them is that it is on a WIP.

Given all that, what do I find myself doing this morning?  Yep, winding a skein of yarn to start swatching a new sweater for the mister.

Here is a picture of one of my vacation-knitting projects –  the not-so-complete Lacy Baktus I cast off last week.  I really wanted to use the entire skein for this scarf.  This scarf is knit by increasing to the halfway point then decreasing to the end.  I judged the halfway point by weight, allowing a few grams leeway so I would not run out of yarn before the end.  But, as you can see, there are more than a couple of grams of yarn left over.  Now I want to rip it back to centre, add about two more pattern repeats and increases, then begin the decreases, hopefully using up all of the yarn.  The yarn is handspun merino/silk/bamboo in the All Spun Up fibre club colourway for August-September 2009.  ETA: July of 2020.

The second piece of vacation knitting, doing double duty as my March challenge for Sock Knitters Anonymous is a pair of Blackrose socks.  The yarn is Handmaiden Casbah, a gorgeous blend of merino, cashmere, and nylon.  The yarn is a bit on the thick side of sock yarns, so I usually knit it on 2.5 mm needles.  I am making the medium and probably should have made the small, but they are alright on, so I can live with them.  I may actually finish these by the April 30th deadline.

Up next is another Lacy Baktus, this time knit out of the Crown Mountain Farms Fibre Club handspun for March in colourway Bannockburn.  I loved this yarn in the fibre.  I loved it in the skein and in the ball.  I do not love it knit up.  I am torn between frogging and shelving it or finishing the scarf and overdying it in a dilute blue to green-down the yellow.  Feel free to chime in with your two cents.

On the plus side, every time a yarn works out or does not work out from a fibre, I like to think I learn something.  Though I really  have yet to learn, despite the slowly growing stash or the many many ‘before and after’ posts on Ravelry, that the fibre and finished yarn often bear virtually no resemblance to each other.

Going back in time, I began Laeticia, designed by the incredibly talented Stephanie van der Linden for Twist Collective Spring 2009 before going on vacation.  After finishing the first sock, I decided to leave the project at home, wanting something requiring less concentration for car knitting.  Behold the kiss of death for sock knitters everywhere – I have not yet cast on the second sock and it’s been over a month.  Things don’t look good.  I also wavered between knitting the yarnovers regularly and tightening them through the back loop, so the open portion of the leaf pattern is not consistent.  My only reason for this lack of consistency is that I kept forgetting which way I was knitting the yarnovers, so I kept switching.  That’s all, just isolated brain malfunction.

While seaching for a circular needle to swatch a new project, I came across this.  This is a Smocking on the Move designed by Teva Durham for Interweave Knits.  I began this last summer after buying the wool at Belfast Mini Mills during a trip to Prince Edward Island.  What you are looking at is both sleeves and about 6 inches of the back.  And the missing circular needle.  Having remembered that I was once working on this, I may resurrect it.

In the so-close-to-being-done-I-should-just-finish-the-!@#$ing-thing category is the Honeycomb I began in December of 2008.  Though the yarn is not really ideal for this project (too heavy) I do really love the yarn – Vermont Organic Fibre Company O-Wool.  VERY appropriately named.  It’s an organic  wool/cotton blend.  I’ve got about half the front and the neck and armhole edgings left to do.

Finally we come to the moment of truth.  Up to this point what I have on the go, and what I am comtemplating starting, seems perfectly reasonable.  I am sure that there are knitters out there that would scoff at my mere 5 or 6 active WIPs (we won’t discuss how many WIPs I have that are inactive and likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future, Pomatomus I’m looking at YOU).  However, when I found myself frantically searching for a free circular needle and winding the yarn you see below, I did have to acknowledge that I had contracted a bad case of startitis and maybe (emphasis on the maybe) should think about finishing at least one of the above projects before starting on a new sweater.  Maybe.  What you see below is destined to be another sweater for the mister.  It is from MacAusland’s Woolen Mill in Prince Edward Island (acquired on the same trip as my Belfast Mini Mills purchase).  It is a very rustic wool, saturated with lanolin and studded with bits of hay.   I was inspired by the article in the Spring/Summer issue of Twist Collective about knits for men.  This will eventually be a two-colour saddle shoulder sweater with a turtleneck.  The body will be in the grey, the sleeves and turtleneck in the green.  My search this morning did unearth a couple of circular needles in a couple of gauges, but on further reflection, I think I should knit a few token rows on at least one of the above projects before starting a new one.  Maybe I’ll find that new project love I once had for them, the same new project love I feel for the wooly rustic sweater I’m contemplating.  Maybe.

Not pictured above – the Apres Surf Hoodie.  No change since last post.

Now I will get back to the other part of today’s planned activities – haunting the mailbox in anticipation of a delivery of the latest All Spun Up club fibre.  I think I am the only person in Canada left to receive mine.  I have plans for it.  Big plans.  Sweater plans.  As it is a BFL/silk blend I am hoping it will be a colourway that will  coordinate nicely with the pound of oatmeal BFL I’ve been sitting on for the last year.  Or the two pounds of white BFL I’ve been hoarding.  La la la!  I DO love the spring!