Everything.  No, really, everything is inspiring my knitting right now.  Every time I turn around, I see something that even slightly reminds me of a project I am knitting, a project I want to knit, or a design I have started mulling over.  I am not a huge fan of summer, so just the thought that it is ending is sending my head spinning over all of the possibilities.  I keep planning trips in my head to go apple picking with M, wine tasting at my favorite local vineyard, and heading to a pumpkin patch for some extra fall fun.  But even thinking about these wonderful fall activities, reminds me of all of the knitting I want to accomplish.

So I just started casting on everything.  To the point where I am running out of needles.  I asked my father to purchase an interchangeable needle set for me for Christmas (along with some sweaters’ worth of yarn) and nearly broke down when I turned them over to him after the package arrived.  “I NEED THOSE NEEDLES NOW!” I keep screaming in my head.  It doesn’t help that M and I managed to break two sizes of my current interchangeable set, so I’m already down two potential projects!  Not to mention, a lot of these hopeful projects do require the same size needles.  I have been pretty restraint in my needle buying over my ten years of knitting, and there are only a few sizes where I have more than just the one interchangeable size.  Then there’s the problem of how many cables I have for the interchangeables.  

Since everything keeps getting in the way of me casting on every project that’s ever existed, I am trying to set timelines for me to actually finish the projects I currently have on the needles.  The first project, though technically off the needles, is a button up cowl… that only needs the two buttons.   This would maybe take me five minutes to complete so I could gift it to its recipient, and yet, I just cannot seem to do it.  Then, I have a finished shawl, awaiting to be sent off to another friend, if I could only weave in the ends.  Completing this project would take, max, ten minutes, and that includes printing a shipping label.

As for the projects on the needles, I am proud to say I finally picked up for the button band of a baby sweater I’ve been working on since the beginning of July.  The goal is to finish it by Friday, or everyone in my life can yell at me.  I’ve already told my daughter, “an acceptable time to yell at Mommy, when she doesn’t finish this baby sweater this week.”  She’s totally on it. She’s already started practicing yelling at me.  Just in case.

I already have two very large Christmas presents on the needles, both almost halfway complete.  Luckily, one is my commuting knitting.  It is traveling everywhere with me so that I can get in a few random stitches here and there and work on it during my lunch break.  This is not a project I’m worried about completing.  The other present was coming along, until I realized it was going to be a present… and not for me.  Then it took a back burner to the baby sweater.  But it’s looming over me.  So as soon as the first is off the needles, this will move into it’s place as the commuting knitting.

However, the most important and time sensitive knitting.  The one thing that should have a clear external and internal motivator is proving to be the most difficult to be consistent on.  M’s birthday sweater.  She turns three at the end of October and has been asking for a new sweater.  I have had the yarn for said sweater for almost a year and a half.  It’s time.  After casting on and then tearing out one cardigan, I finally found one worthy.  And it is the most complicated pattern.  Clearly, I want to knit all of the things in the world… and use absolutely NO brain power to do it.  I want this cardigan done.  To the point that I have printed out the pattern multiple times, cutting and pasting charts, writing and rewriting row numbers along the charts, and thinking about completely rewriting the entire pattern to try and make it a more portable project.  It’s just not happening.  But I LOVE this pattern.  I NEED my daughter to wear this cardigan.  So I have planned out a strict schedule for knitting this project that gives me a finish date a month before her birthday, so when I utterly FAIL I’ll still have a month to get it done.  Here’s hoping!

Then of course, I have a couple other projects going for christmas presents, ideas for holiday gifts for all of my coworkers (which is just absurd and likely to not actually happen, but they will be cast on…), and an idea for my Christmas door decorating that will be addressed in a future post.  I’d also like to knit about five sweaters for myself. I don’t think I have ever made so many lists over and over again of what I want to knit.  Trying to prioritize and desperately trying to NOT LET MYSELF CAST IT ALL ON! But Fall gets to me and, for now, I don’t see an end in sight until after the holidays.