Side Effect

This Knit Your Stash 2007 knit-along has a side effect I was not expecting. I spent my get out of jail free card - all day Jan 19th. All of the yarn has arrived and I have managed to avoid Etsy, Loopy Ewe, Webs and Knit Picks (except for more needles) so far this week. But I cannot stop casting on socks and projects. It's like the starve and binge affect food diets have on people. My mind knows I cannot buy more yarn until I get through my stash. So I went through my stash Dec 30 - Jan 1 and made up project bags for a lot of my yarn. I have been swifting and ball winding like crazy. I keep wanting to get them all cast on. Which is totally unrealistic. I do swatches for projects and cast on socks, on every available needle. So - it feels like one compulsion has replaced another. Instead of compulsively buying more yarn for my COLLECTION I am compulsively casting on projects.

There was an interview on Knitty D and The City with Mel Clark the co-author of Knit 2 Together. She said that when we work on several projects at one time, it may feel like it is taking a long time to complete a project. But usually when you add up the actual hours worked - it did not really take as long as it seemed. I like working on sweater pieces, and I like the almost instant gratification of socks. I also get bored easily. So I will always have many projects going. But this is overkill. I am desparate to start my vest and sweater, and I have just cast on two more pairs of socks. I don't even think I want to put them on the progress sidebar. Too many projects to list. Well maybe later.

Another trigger to the compulsion to cast on is the yarn. Every time I look through my yarn stash I want to see it all knitted into warm, soft, beautiful clothing. After all, that is why I was compelled to buy the yarn to begin with. Addictions - yarn addiction, cast on addiction, crafting addiction. It may all be harmless but it feels a little like binging. Maybe the sane thing to do is just keep on knitting and crocheting and let everything else sort itself out.