Indecision

Having a good sized yarn stash can be a blessing at times, but at others it is most definitely a curse...a hindrance.  It gets in the way of knitting.  Like many, I suffer from having too many choices.  Give me enough variety and I will be paralyzed by indecision.

Let's make that one!

No.  This one.

Err, that one looks great too!

We've been meaning to make that one for some time now.

Socks!  More socks.

No.  Definitely time for a sweater.

There are those toys we've been meaning to knit and get out as gifts....

Um.  Let's start an entirely new project with shiny new yarn!  

What a rough problem to have, amirite?  These first world problems will take a lot out of ya.

I have bound off the socks I showed you all for The Boy and am now stuck in the place of not knowing what to cast on next.  For now, I'm less-than-half-heartedly crocheting a toy out of the leftovers from the socks--a part of me wants to have a small stash of already made toys to pick from for times when we're invited to parties out of the blue--but I'm getting very little done on it because honestly, I do not really want to be working on this.  My ♥ isn't really in toys at the moment.  It wants to knit something for me.  Preferably in a yarn heavier than light fingering-to-fingering weight.

I thought I might share some of my potential projects with you kittens and see what you think: what makes you excited?

My first choice is the insanely popular Color Affection shawl by Veera Välimäki in the colorway shown above--seriously, you would have to be living under a rock and avoiding all contact with the online community to not be at least familiar with this pattern. The yarn is a gorgeous and painfully soft cashmere/silk blend in a lovely dark teal, bright magenta, and lovely driftwood color.  It's listed in the Ravelry data base as a lace weight, the label doesn't given any information either way about it, but I feel it's light fingering-ish.  It's definitely not heavier weight, but few of my projects are if I have to be totally honest.  I rarely venture above sport weight for anything.

Choice number two is a modified Little Birds sweater by Ysolda Teague--those of you who have been with me long enough know I love Ysolda's whole body of work.  She always manages to have just enough whimsy in her projects to keep them fun, but they're practical at the same time; I've never seen a pattern of hers where I think, "Man, that's just so cute but who would wear it out in PUBLIC?"  

One day I was looking through Ravelry's data base for Chroma fingering weight to figure out what on earth to do with these two skeins of the Lollipop colorway I bought on an impulse.  And then I saw it: vivaglam's Little Birds made with a different colorway.  BINGO.  I had been meaning to make a pullover version of the sweater forever and now here's my chance.  I do not care for any of the Chroma solid coordinating yarns, so I used this as an excuse to try some Tosh Merino Light, despite the fact that Tosh keeps biting me in the ass with quality issues.  (From what I've been reading around, none of these have been  cleared up so it breaks my heart to keep avoiding Amy's yarn.  I do want to try a few bases I've never used before, but I'm steering clear of the now-called-DK ...and any dark colorways.  Oof.)

A third choice is Norah Gaughan's Beatnik in some of the Dancing Dog Dyeworks yarn I purchased. (I've linked the shop in previous posts, and you can stalk my stash if you want to see more details.)  This is her new tweed base, and it's still not widely available.  I've been trending towards tweed lately and just had to have a sweater's worth of it.  For some reason, I had to have it in this lovely minty green which is a much bolder color choice than I've been making lately.  I've been heading back towards neutrals in general.

Another choice is a stripey sweater--still not sure of neck shaping or sleeve style--in this lovely palette.  The colored yarn is less red as it appears here, and more very deep raspberry pink.  It was difficult to get a good photo of.  And the lightest color is less blaring white than it appears. These are all merino/silk blends and in the fingering weight range.  I have so many self-designed stripey sweaters planned for the future that it isn't even funny.



I clearly have more choices in stash than just these, but the ones above are calling to me the most.  Writing out this post, I think I know what I'm going to cast on now, but I'm still curious to see what you all think.  Happy Wednesday, kittens!