And then this

I have started a few new projects, with the thought that, "If you can't think about ordering new yarn, at least you can begin new projects."

I started a pair of "simple socks" using the hot pink tiger-striping yarn I bought a while back. I am doing a spiral rib on them (which means if I take them over break, I'll photocopy the directions for that from Folk Socks so I don't have to carry the whole book just for that). They're not "tigering" as much as I had hoped they might.

I also pulled out the skein of Verdant Gryphon "Traveler" I bought almost a year ago for the Lakkos Cloche from Knit.Wear. I had put off doing this pattern because (a) it's done on very short circular needles and that sometimes bugs me (though I'm finding it not that bad, on 16" needles) and (b) it has shortrowing, which always looks harder in the pattern than it actually is to do. Here, the shortrowing allows for the back and "ears" of the hat to be longer, and the part over the forehead to be shorter, so you don't have to wear the hat tilted back on your head (or bagging off, like a Rasta hat) so it's not down in your eyes. I can kind of see the way that shortrowing works here.

I still have dreams of designing, I mean really designing, not just fitting a lace stitch pattern into a standard 64-stitch sock, some day. And I like to think that each time I use an "unusual" technique, I'm learning a little more about how that technique works and maybe some day I will suddenly be able to design. (Yeah, and maybe someday I'll see the light and suddenly be able to play by ear or improvise on the piano). I know that's unlikely but I still hope.

I don't know. I might start something else. I was looking at a couple of skeins of Swan Island yarn I bought a while back for a shawl. I cannot, for the life of me, remember what pattern I was going to use. I even flipped through the issues of KnitScene I had sitting out because I thought it was for one in there, but I'm not finding the one that made me go, "You want this yarn for that." I might have to try searching my library on Ravelry....I'm quite sure that I bought the yarn FOR a particular pattern, rather than just "oh, that's pretty, I want to knit with it, two skeins would make a shawl."

I suppose that's the mark of having too much yarn, just like when you buy a book and realize you already own a copy is the mark of having too many books.