I’ll put it away later

Good news. Spring is on its way. I know, if you live around here it might be hard to believe, what with the dingy snow malingering in the yard and the safe planting date being two months away, but it is totally coming, and I can prove it.

I have Startitis. I want to knit all the things. All of them. The same thing happens every spring, so I know it must be coming. Right now I have no less than four active projects, and I feel like it is not even remotely enough.  My stash is a beguiling force that keeps calling to me, though it’s hard to hear, what with all the noise that buying new yarn makes. I thought I just wanted to knit a lot right now, but that’s not it. If it were, then I’d be content with the four projects I’ve got rotating through my day, and those, my knitterly friends, are not cutting it. I want to start things. New things. Gorgeous things.

Capture 2016-03-07

This is the latest to hit the needles – Capture, knit with one strand of Woolfolk Får, and another of Shibui Silk Cloud. (It’s taking two skeins of the Får, and one of the Silk Cloud.) I am desperately in love with it – it’s so soft that I’ve forced about eight non-knitters to touch it.

I haven’t even bothered to put away the yarn that I bought in Texas, and that is because my startitis is a delusion that says that I’m going to use it up so quickly that there’s no point in putting it away. I look at it, I contemplate taking it to the stash room and making it a spot, and then something comes over me, and I think – heck no. I’ll just take a minute and make a shawl/socks/cowl later. No point in carrying it upstairs.

There are five skeins of yarn for a cowl, four skeins of sock yarn, and two balls of laceweight cashmere. I added it up – that’s 2858m of yarn, and I’m not putting it away because I’m going to start it later, and it won’t count because it will be finished quickly.

Oh, Spring. It must be right around the corner.

74 thoughts on “I’ll put it away later

  1. Oh, Steph, you are simply drunk on sunlight…and frankly delusional. We’ve had two snow days in each of the past two weeks, and there is no way the boots are going into storage yet. I don’t care if the tulips are stupid enough to poke up out of the ground. IT AIN’T OVER.

    • Kindly get your XXXL snow-boots off my delusions of Spring, thank-you-very-much!!

      *~ goes back to imagining that there will never be another snowflake landing in Southern Ontario, Canada — never, ever, EVER!!! ~*

      *~ renews prescription for anti-depressants ~*

      *~ le sigh ~*

    • Dinna ye listen to the naysayers, lassie. A) My father always said it’s not spring in Michigan till it’s snowed three times on the tulips, so being able to see them means we’re nearly there. B) It’s like 9-month nesting syndrome, a sign of the impending. C) With umpty projects partly done, I’ve just cast on a Foxy cap and a Shetland shawl for an impending (in September) baby. Facts is facts.

  2. Yes it was lovely and warm when I walked the dog today, and it will be even warmer tomorrow. It’s so nice to be able to linger for a minute to watch the cardinals instead of wanting to hurry home as fast as possible before frostbite sets in. Strangely though, my current projects are not really spring related, but mittens for a charity in northern Manitoba.

  3. I’m making a wurm, while telling myself that it won’t be cold enough to wear it until next winter. But it will, Yes, it will.

  4. Steph, get real. Spring is coming, but you get startitis a couple times a year (at least). Put that yarn from Texas away in the stash room before you even pass another store that sells yarn, twine, fishing line, dental floss, rope, steel wool, etc. Otherwise, you might lose Joe, Sam, and the cat in all that stuff.

    • Joe, you’ve got to stop trying to post ‘anonymously’, when it’s so obviously you, or the girls, or all of you. 🙂

  5. I have it too. Two socks on the go, not the same colour., and if Cookie A. has her way, the second of each is going to be different, with winding cables and tendrils. A never-ending ZickZack Scarf (it should be finished by NEXT winter). A mitten, and a teddy bear (okay, two different teddies). And yet, I want to start a sweater and a blanket, a Honey Cowl and a lacy scarf (Estonian, perhaps). The Stash is Calling and Cannot Be Denied. And Spring is Coming. Tom Brown promised.

    • Me too! I am knitting and buying and knitting and buying like a mad-woman. Oh wait…..no, this is unusual, promise! 😉

  6. I feel it too. The winter in south west Norway has been colder and longer than usual. I’ve been good and finished a bunch of UFOs, but now…every time I see a ball of yarn I want to knit it. Yesterday two new projects appeared on my needles, and I’m nowhere near sated.

    Yet tonight – the horror – we saw a series so exciting that I-forgot-to-knit. Be warned. The Man in the High Castle may cause you to waste valuable knitting time. Worst of all: I’ll put on another episode or two tomorrow. Because it’s that good. Oh dear.

  7. Am I the only one who gets Startitis in the fall? When the weather cools down and it feels good to cozy up with knitting or crocheting, that is what does it to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love to knit and crochet year round, but the warm weather for me is about UFOs. And now, socks, because my new goal is one sock per week to be used as birthday presents throughout the year so that I don’t die trying to knit everyone socks for Christmas.(Long Range boxes don’t work for me cuz as soon as its an FO I want to give it to the recipient. I will barely be able to wait for the b-days as it is.)

    • No, I get it in the fall too. What I have at this time of year is “better finish it soon because the growing season is about to commence” ! Once that starts it takes over my life. In a good way 😉

    • I get “whatever-all-you-people-have-I’ve-got-it-too”.

      Apparently, I can be talked into anything [which explains, although doesn’t excuse, most of the boyfriends over lo-these-many-years — too embarrassing to discuss, so move along, nothing to see here …..]

  8. I’m about to have that problem with some noisy new yarn from BMFA (did you see the BFL sale? I’m sorry if you hadn’t yet. I fell down HARD) And surely I can just crank right through that in one evening. No matter that I haven’t finished a single thing yet this year. And that my Loopy Academy projects are taking forever. And I seem to have no time to knit these days.

    Lets go sit outside and watch the daffodils grow.

    • I’m both delighted an relieved to be a “process knitter”, as opposed to a “product knitter”. The whole point, for me, is “to knit, and/or to have knit”, which is a goal in and of itself. That I wind up, at some point [maybe] with a pair of socks or a shawl or a sweater — this is a bonus, on top of the benefits accrued in the Act of Knitting itself.

  9. I am trusting Mother Nature. The flowers are coming up. The birds are tweeting in the morning. You have startitis. All signs point to spring!

  10. I’m still knitting last year’s Startitis pile. Apparently arranging knitting WIPS in large decorative baskets does nothing towards getting them finished.

    • Yes, baskets! We do not want the yarn to feel unloved and. if it is tucked in tightly in a lovely basket, it may not notice us pulling out yet more yarn!

    • Yarn in baskets looks so pretty! Projects in baskets look so decorative and elegant. Dusty yarn and or projects in baskets, not so much. Ask me how I know….oh, and a project in a covered basket STILL gets dusty AND it gets forgotten. Again, ask me how I know. Drat.

  11. I have been fighting the startitis urge, too. I will have to track if startitis only happens to me in the spring.
    We have fields of lovely yellow daffodils. just put a photo on my blog!

  12. LOL! I’ve been holding back casting on a bunch.I’m also confident I’ll get a lot done since I’m teaching myself lever knitting and loving it!

    • Lever Knitting — uh oh something new to learn — and I just bought TWO tatting shuttles and a set of tatting needles !!! 🙂

      • Once upon a time, I was determined to Do All The Fibre Things!!

        I took All The Classes.
        I acquired All The Stash(es).
        I did All The Things To Follow Through ….. OK ….. ‘some’ of the follow-through stuff.

        And I did the math. To pursue ALL of the fibre-related things I wanted to do —–

        —– I could spend a MAXIMUM of two and a half weeks, PER YEAR, on each discipline. Umm ….. yeah.

        You know the phrase “choose your battles”? Really, really does apply here, to the fibre arts.

        • But that really isn’t fair…I want to try everything and have time for it too. And Patti, be careful with the tatting it is very reminiscent of casting on in knitting and is so totally absorbing. You have been warned, or is it already too late?

  13. Yeah, you can toooootally do it! Just like I can toooootally finish the blanket, the fiddly socks, the assorted shawls, the layette, the hats…

    But I doubt spring is coming, if only because I walked out the door this morning and scuffed my shoes in fresh hail. In Southern California. Ice fell from the sky onto the ground in SoCal. In March.

  14. Meanwhile, down South, autumn is here! Which means it’s finally cool enough to knit (oh joy!) Not that I wasn’t knitting all through the grilling summer, but at least now I can do it more comfortably 🙂

    • Not quite cool enough for knitting in Southern Australia. Mid 30 degree (C) all week!! Feeling a bit ripped off – It is March and officially Summer should be over!

      • It’s been pretty hot here too, although happily not quite in the mid thirties – that’s definitely not knitting weather! Seems to be cooling down this week, and hopefully we’ve seen the last of the heat for the year. I think it’s the tail end of El Niño that’s doing it.

  15. Oh at Stitches West my sister met an Australian rancher who was selling his own naturally colored cashmere. Yes I did go back with my sister to buy some.

    And lately I have been fondling it and considering . . .

  16. You are so sweet as always. I love having a new pattern, yarn and I love to be a bit into it. Until then I am twitchy, a bit irritable and I find I bite my lip a bit. But THEN I start and the magic begins! Even if I have to frog it later

  17. I don’t have startitis. I have..FINISH IT NOW on the brain and in my heart. I want nothing begun in 2015 to be in my new house! All the old must go away and that is where I am. Drunk on sunlight…not a chance…

    bjr

  18. I’m in this state too but I’m in Australia so spring definitely isn’t on the way here. I’m quite enjoying the flurry of wool and needles and fibre though, so spring or autumn, it’s all good 🙂

  19. a mini shawl, another Noro (sigh) scarf, a baby cardie, a feather and fan scarf with gradient yarn, a blankie and…….yep, add my name to the list. I keep fondling the yarn in my stash and imagining it finished …

  20. Woolfolk Far! Oh goodness yes. My LYSO had the same reaction when it first came in and as soon as I touched it some had to come home with me and it leaped onto the needles. It only came in four colors then. SUCH a soft yarn. Have fun with everything!

    The first eight figs have appeared on my tree. Spring is very much coming. Come to town and I’ll bring you some.

  21. I am with you on this. I just started a pair of mittens for my esteemed spouse, even though we’ve had 4 days in the last 10 at 50 degrees (F). ????? If it weren’t that, it would be something else.

  22. I just finished Que Sera in perfect for spring cotton, and now I’m delusionally cranking on a drop stitch linen shell. Also I’m making a pile of baby socks for an expectant coworker. This is extremely anticipatory knitting because the only time it’s stopped raining and being 50F in the last three days is when it hailed. The baby isn’t due for another 6 weeks. Spring isn’t either, no matter what the daffodils and my yarn fibers proclaim.

  23. I am similarly affected. I thought it was a reaction to running out of knitting a few months ago. (I cast off, reached into my knitting bag to find another project…and it was empty! Gives me the heeby-jeebies just thinking about it). I now have so many WIPs that nothing is getting finished, and I am becoming disheartened; my reaction is to cast on something new!

  24. Let’s see: two pairs of socks OTN; two toddler hats ready to start; 8 skeins of yarn wound up for crib blanket with accompanying infant hat and socks for nephew’s new daughter-to-be. Oh yes, and new circs to cast on a Manos Alegria Shadow Shawl.
    Think I may have caught that startitis bug as well…

  25. Thank you so much for finally naming what I have definitely got. I have been ready to knit all the yarn in my stash. It all is screaming at me to put it on some needles. And then there is the matter of all the yarn in the stores, with such pretty spring colors, screaming that they want me to take them all home. Oh what’s a girl to do 🙂

  26. Too hot to knit here tonight (after midnight and it’s still 30C – Melbourne, Australia). I can’t wait for proper Autumn temps to roll in.
    What about using the bout of Startitis to get a jump on your Long Range Planning box, for Christmas?

  27. Oh I certainly hope so. The high for today is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It’ll probably be snowing day after tomorrow. It’s taking all of my willpower to not chuck aside my worsted weight sweater that is literally hours away from being done, and casting on a fingering weight shawl design that has been bouncing around in my head for ages.

  28. I’m making another Wurm. My daughter’s looked so good that I’ve cast one on for myself and it’s awfully cold at soccer practice and games. The daffodils and blooming trees in North Carolina must be crazy!

  29. Oh I totally get it. Hubby caught me looking at future projects yesterday and actually said ” hey I know what you mean I’ve always got room for one more spanner” apparently you can never have too many spanners (wrenches) I think you call them. Hey all that training has finally paid off (only 45 years)

  30. Suffering the same thing. Spring is coming, and suddenly all my thick, wooly, WIPs are no longer so appealing. I need to cast on that light cardigan, and mitts, and a summer top. It’s not here yet, but what if it gets here before I’ve knit for it? And I couldn’t possibly finish this cowl/other cowl/super warm hat before it’s too warm to wear it. And oh my bob, just realized my aunt’s wedding is in two months and I’ll need a light dressy something to throw over the dress I haven’t bought yet.

  31. Weather’s been in the 70’s (F) here in Tucson after a warmer than usual February, so I cast on a lacy cotton scarf. Woke up this morning after a rainy night here in the valley to a snow scene on the surrounding mountains. It ain’t over ’til it’s over!

  32. Oh my me too! I spent days trolling patterns on Ravelry looking to knit a BLANKET! I could totally do that in just a few hours, right? Knit a blanket? And sweaters and hats and toys and and and! I’ve already got a shameful number of projects half finished, but they.aren’t.NEW.

    A curse on spring (not really, but ugh!).

  33. Amen to this, it happens to me every spring! Hasn’t really kicked in yet though. Maybe because I’ve had two walks in the snow this week… (I’m in the south of England, that’s pretty unusual here!)

  34. I have a moderate case of startitis. I have yarn sitting on my couch that I want to use, I even have ideas of what I want to make… but I also have a lot of projects started and also on the same couch.

  35. I know, right? I’ve been really excited because the light looks more yellow than white somedays and that means spring!! And the clocks go forward this week and that means the sun will set at 7!! 7!!

    I nearly cried with happiness when I realized that.

    7!!

    • Unfortunately it won’t rise until after 8:00. There’s always a downside.
      I detest Daylight Stupid Time. But I’m glad it brings joy to someone!

  36. Recently I asked my husband if he knew who the Yarn Harlot was. “You?” he replied. After reading this blog entry I realize he was probably right. Like you, I have startitis. I have a gradient set from The Unique Sheep on my desk because I’m sure I’ll have time to knit it Real Soon Now. I appreciate your explanation. I didn’t associate it with spring fever, but I bet you’re right.

  37. We’ve had temps in the 50’s and 60’s lately with today’s high being 75*F. This weather makes me want to run out and start gardening. Tonight’s guild topic, thrumming. Clearly when the planning session was held, we never anticipated the rodent’s paw (Punxatawney Phil) in our weather. I’m going to celebrate the weather even though it is out of season and have a Hawaiian pizza for supper. I wish nice weather or rainy weather inspired me to clean house a little. Sorry for the foul language. Now and again it has to get out. 🙂

  38. Wait – doesn’t Startitis come in January? Or perhaps October or so, when it’s time to settle in for the winter? Around here, it doesn’t hit in July, though – one small saving grace.

  39. I know, right? I have 2 sweaters on the needles, and a pair of socks. I have 1500 yards of a gorgeous merino/silk lace to knit my nephew’s fiancee a shawl for their wedding in September. I have yarn and a pattern for a cardigan for me. I have yarn for a sweater for my daughter. It’s 50 degrees out. I want to START NEW THINGS! ARGH!

  40. I know that feeling. That itch that can only be scratched by buying half the yarn store and casting it all on in one day. I just bought a 1200yd skein of handpaint laceweight wool/silk. I’m trying to scratch that itch but I think it’s going on the ball winder.

  41. Yes yes. I have it too! I want knit all the things, spin all the things, and weave all the things. I want to buy all the yarn and the fleeces. I need to take a couple months off work so I can do this.

  42. Wait, what about the Habu sweater? I saw it at the Stitches West Habu booth, I think. I asked a woman working there if it was indeed the sweater the Yarn Harlot was knitting, and she looked at me like I was nuts and huffed “I don’t know any Yarn Harlot.” OOPS.

  43. I think “spring” is relative, like “cold.” I think spring is coming here to WY too. We had a few lovely days in the 50s. And then it snowed 6 inches and was 16 degrees here this morning. I think that IS spring here. *sigh* I try to tell myself that it just means I can wear sweaters longer. And maybe I’ll finish my current one before it’s too warm to wear it. Maybe.

  44. I think I have you beat in the Old Magazine Dept. I have Woman’s Day 101 Sweaters you can Knit and Crochet Numbers 11 and 12. Can’t find a date on them, but I think they are from the early 70’s. Anyone else have anything this old? I have to say that I still like some of the sweaters in these two mags and may make them yet. Sweater styles don’t really change all that drastically.

  45. I have it, too. Fell down hard at a new (to me) yarn store. Started 6 new things, Sigh. For me it’s two-color Brioche in the round. Reversible cowls in 2 colors!
    Julie

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