Lying to ourselves.

Today as I was walking home from the library, clutching two new knitting books, I realized that I sure do lie to myself a lot. The stack of jeans that no longer fit, the numerous books on my shelf that I tell myself I'll read when I get a chance--even though I know I'll never use any of them, I keep telling myself that I will. Keep these things, they will come in handy. What delusions.

As I was leafing through the knitting books, Big City Knits and Knitting Nature, and planning out my next projects I realized that I have a serious problem with lying to myself about my knitting capacity. I want to knitknitknit, but can't seem to find the oomph to get projects done quickly. I see some other knitters churning out sweaters and socks every two weeks and somehow translate that kind of knitting mojo onto myself. Yet, the reality is I've had this damn Grecian Plait sweater on the needles since February, and I just can't seem to finish it (Seriously, I'm half a short sleeve from being done--and have been at this point since July. This is just embarassing).

I do need to take into account, though, that while that sweater has been sitting there, shooting evil glares at me from the work-in-progress pile, I have knitted several other things. Even so, I find myself wanting to knit MORE. Everything, to be honest. I suppose this is the curse of being a knitter; at a certain point we become so blindly enamored with the craft that we loose all sight of our knitting realities.

Perhaps that's why my initial glance at Wenlan Chia's book made my heart skip a beat. I've read all the warnings that the patterns seem... to put it nicely.. to have been written by a non-knitter. I'm fully aware that if I weigh more than 90 lbs (and I do) these designs may make me look like a polish sausage. But still, the designs are damn cute and the prospect of knitting a sweater in a week or two is too good to turn down.

So instead of putting an end to the knitting delusions, I'll just find a way to make the delusions less ridiculous. Cast on for a new sweater with six other things on the needles? Don't mind if I do!