If a Katie Perry song were being rewritten to describe me, it would be something like,

"You start new projects, like a girl changes clothes."

(Yes, I happened to hear that song yesterday and now it's an earworm. Ugh.)

I want to start yet another shawl, even though I'm plugging away (two more rounds completed, WOO!) on the Rosy-Fingered Dawn shawl. But going through some of my patterns and yarn I found the pattern for the Scotch Thistle Lace Stole and dug out the yarn (Lorna's Laces in "Purple Iris" - the closest to "thistle" colors I could find) for it.

And darn it, now I want to start that. Even though my level of concentration at this point is really probably only good enough for one shawl (plus the cabled vest). But I've got it sitting out next to my computer at home for now, where I can look at it and be tempted by it.

I also found the bag of silvery grey yarn, and the bag of leftover (and then plus-some) Tardis yarn (1500 yards of the Tardis-blue, I think 1000 yards of the grey) that were bought with no project in mind. And I get to thinking about gansey sweaters, and the big thick cable-rich sweaters like Melissa Leapman designs.

And I'm thinking again about pulling out the long-neglected Airy cardigan, and finishing up the bits of the shoulders I need to do, and then doing the necessary redrafting to make the sleeves not look ridiculously short on me.

(I think you have to go through your "stash" periodically, just to remind yourself of what you have. And yes, my "stash" is big enough that I forget some of the things I have. Don't judge me.)

I take this as a good sign; when I'm happy and generally on an even keel, that's when I want to start lots of things, when I have great enthusiasm for projects, both at work and out of work.

Thinking about starting new projects is as much fun as actually doing it (and you don't have to worry about whether you have the right size of needles free). It's also as much fun (but much less expensive) as shopping for yarn. (And considering how much I have stashed-up, I should probably "shop the stash" exclusively for a few months).

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Lynn linked this today, but I'm going to link it too: Knitting Spies. I particularly like the mental image of the French grandmas collecting information on German troop movements and coding it into their knitting.