Well, I have too many projects going.  No big surprise there (it does happen from time to time).  And I have no one to blame but myself —  tho I have not given up trying!  The market at Madrona is certainly a candidate — there were more independent dyers this year with all this fabulous, one-of-a-kind, get-it-or-lose-it-forever yarn!  Spring stirring in the wings has caused its own mayhem (if I want something spring-y to wear come April, I had better get it on the needles now, right?!).  Which is how I started knitting bright green hand mitts with raccoon faces on them…

Winter ought to share some of the blame too.  Gray, chill, damp days.  Really, you need a little something to perk you up.  And tho I keep telling myself "If you need some instant gratification, for heaven's sake, eat a chocolate chip cookie!  Don't cast on!" — well, when there is all that lovely Madrona yarn in the house…..

And while it seems harsh to blame babies…Okay, I am not going to blame the babies.  But the baby knitting cannot be ignored.  Tho Sarah and I have gotten smart — we knit toddler-ish sweaters as baby gifts now instead of those adorable minuscule newborn sweaters that fit for about a week (the chances of the new parents — in those first raw weeks — even thinking of putting the sweater on the baby are pretty minuscule too).  Larger sweaters take more knitting time, but since they are not actually relevant until the baby is nearing its first birthday, the knitter has some substantial grace time.  Still, those sweaters are not going to knit themselves. 

And throw in a couple of design projects, a couple of hangers-on from the winter knitting, and a way overdue gift blanket….you can understand why I sigh and twitch and am sometimes just paralyzed when I sit down to knit!  A sensible person (who is probably not a knitter) would calmly suggest setting a few of the projects aside. The truly responsible adult course of action would be to concentrate on the gift knits.  The tricksy bit there is that the gift knitting is fairly simple knitting.  My other projects are more complex.  And not only would I go stark raving mad if confined to simple knitting, but I would likely get muddled over the complex knitting if I had to let it sit for weeks.  And, to top it all off, I would have no raccoon mitts to wear on Easter.

So, as always, the solution is to just keep knitting….Keep Calm and Knit On!