With all this blogging about Guilt Afghans and Neglected Lace
Shawls, I feel I need to come clean about my actual Active Project Status.

At present, I have 6 Active Projects.  That means I have 6 separate knitting pieces
in bags that I haul into the living room each evening – or in the afternoon, if
I have it together enough to do so.  I do
not work on all 6 everyday, of course (that would be crazy – okay, probably
best not to start drawing that line, but I mean it would mean a pretty
fragmented knitting experience).  But on
any given day, I probably work on 3 or 4, at one point or another. 

My system works, mostly. 
Really, it does.  It is not that I
get bored with a single project (although I sometimes claim that raising a
family has left me with the attention span of a gnat).  The fact is that some projects are better
suited to one knitting situation than to another.  For example, an excruciatingly simple project
(like the current Guilt Afghan which is 6 rows or knit followed by 6 rows of
purl worked in ever longer rounds) is perfect for car trips around town (when
someone else is driving, of course) or anytime that it is inconvenient to
follow a chart – it is also good for totally engrossing conversation since it requires
minimal attention. 

It would drive me stark raving mad (oops, forgot we were not
going to go there!) – that is, I would find it mind-numbing to work it in a
quiet room or in front of a ball game or a movie.   That
is the time for charted lace or cables or some pleasant color work.  Now, anything really complicated (like
Kitchnering a sock toe) or that requires my full attention (some stitch
patterns are just like that!) is best done in alone in a quiet environment when
I can dedicate my brain to it.

A typical evening might run as follows:

In the early evening (while I am still fresh) a few rows of
the Bleeding Heart pattern of my lace shawl (true lace knitting with pattern
work on both right and wrong sides done in a fine merino)

Then we put on a movie and it is time for the main course –
a multi-colored cable pattern for a Rappé (I have become comfortable with the
pattern and the color work is fairly obvious)

For dessert (as I finish my tea after the credits roll), a
simple ruffle for my poncho done in a nice chunky yarn (easy on tired eyes)

So, a time for everything and everything in its time.

The trick is not to let too much time slip by between work
sessions on any (even the simplest!) project. 
A few days is okay;  a week can be
deadly.  A couple of weeks means it has
moved into some other part of my brain and I will have to jump-start something
in my cerebral cortex to get going on it again. 
At this point, it has lost its Active status and is, hmmm, Resting,
let’s say.  After a few months it is
legitimately Neglected.  Though one
should never give up hope, certainly. 

My Active Projects are kind of like those Tomagachi-things
that were so popular with the kids a few years ago.  I have to tend to them regularly as if they
were living creatures – or they go into “sleep mode.”  So, having 6 Active Projects at once is
living on the edge.  It requires some
conscious effort to get to each of them every few days.   Right now, the lace shawl is teetering a
bit. 

It is a juggling act and it requires an odd kind of
discipline – the sort of discipline a gnat might understand as it hops
methodically about!   And it requires an
odd kind of patience because progress on each piece is slowed by progress on
its sister pieces.  Weeks go by without
my completing anything!  But I seem to be
okay with that.   The crazy, er, quirky
thing is that I frequently finish 2 or 3 projects within a few days.  Perhaps 
—  on some mathematical level I
cannot fathom – I am subconsciously balancing out the work on each project!