Swatchy

Well, Family Tree is done, and almost dry enough to start his trip west. He came out a bit smaller than planned, but my sister assures me he will find a person who loves him.

I've got to find an hour or so to pick up all the stitches for the second Starz arm. Hank is about 15 rows away from the cuff. So close to both being done, and I'm beside myself.

I have no idea what to do next. I'm making myself crazy. This is stupid, because I have enough going on to cause myself to be crazy without making the selection of my next project into an "IMPORTANT ISSUE". Yeesh.

The last three projects, I sort of had lined up. Now – nothing is really begging to be done or used. The abundance of stash and patterns and lack of direction is causing more difficulty in deciding than usual. I think this is fun.

My process seems to be to riffle through my enormous collection of knitting magazines and books, open to some attractive project and spread them around the house. I have made this step much easier by placing sticky notes on the pictures I liked the last time I looked through. I notice my sense of what is nice or not changes from time to time. I make this harder by moving the magazines and books around a lot, so I’m never really able to put my hand on what I want. Then, I pull out all the nicely packed boxes of stash yarn and throw the yarn around the spare bedroom. This will cause me to have to re-organize it all in the future, but the throwing about and putting away all counts as "playing" with my stash. I find this activity as enjoyable as the actual knitting.

So, how to decide? I sometimes find a yarn I want to use, and choose a project to fit. Sometimes, I choose a project, and see if I have yarn that will work. Sometimes I choose a type of project, like modular.

Then I swatch and change my mind a few times before digging in. Sometimes the swatching process leads me to entirely change my direction. Then I start again. What I really need is a rainy day, and no family for a few hours.

How to others decide what to make?

And to end - an amazing good dog story. Husband brought home a few honk'in big T-bones the other night. Shiloh has apparently learned that polite dogs who don't want their bone taken away eat in their crate. (bad dogs eat on the livingr oom carpet, and lose thier bones) See how good he is?