Time Out...

A few weeks ago I was knitting with a friend and I asked her about a sweater that I had seen her working on. "That sweater is on time out" she said. That is a perfect way to describe it.

I noticed awhile ago that I had no handknit sweaters and immediately started on one...and then another one. Then I started working at a yarn store and was looking through the Rowan "magazine" (hell of a magazine) and saw this sweater, irresistable...and I'm going to look just like this nordic princess in it when it's done. But the first sweater is on time out until I spin more yarn, the second sweater is on time out until I frog a few rows and fix the problem with the pattern, and the third sweater is on time out because of an evil dye-lot problem. I felt good enough about myself that I disected the insane cable chart for this sweater (reduce 6 stitches in one stitch...sure, nothing easier you crazy English knit-nazis) that I just can't find the enthusiasm to reknit one whole repeat even though there is a very distinct color difference in my last two balls of yarn, even though they came from the same dyelot...grrr.

So now, not only do I still not have a handknit sweater, I don't have anything to knit. Oh sure, I've knit a few hats, and I knit some samples for the store, but those don't count. Anything that you can knit in three hours doesn't count as a project. It's something to do instead of twiddling your thumbs or bouncing your foot up and down.

Now, the old Ragnar would have just started another sweater unrepentant yarn whore that she was, but the new mature Ragnar (did I mention that none of these time out sweaters have skulls on them...not a one) knows that having four unfinished sweaters is prohibitively ridiculous. So here's the question, how do you bring a sweater out of time out?

Any suggestions?

Ragnar...practically a yarn monk.