I have an ideal number of projects in progress: 3 + 1. The plus one does not really count as a work in progress as it is a project that lives in the car. This stems from my days as son's chauffeur and if I was early for pick up or practice ran late then I always had something to work on. Only yesterday I knitted a few rows on the car project as we had stopped to look at the sea on the way back from breakfast. (As a side note I love looking at the sea and you can't really do that when reading a book.)
Before I explain my ideal number of 3 I want to explain how I rate projects as easy or hard. The differentiation is the amount of concentration that is required. An easy pattern requires little concentration, it has minimal shaping and patterning and I can read, watch sub-titles, carry on a conversation while knitting (so that the person I am with doesn't think I am focused on my knitting). A hard pattern requires much concentration, the hardest being where the only other thing I can do at the same time is listen to music. Although I would like most of them to be at the level of being able to listen to an audio book. The first shawl shown in this post I classified as hard because of the beads and nupps and changing lace pattern. The neck warmer shown at the end of this post counts as easy because it is a simple rib pattern.
So how do I arrive at 3+1 for my ideal number of projects in progress? The 3 is broken down as one crochet project, one easy project and one hard project and the plus one is the "stays in the car" project. I know many people are monogamous knitters, working on just one project until it is finished and there are others who work on many projects. And then there are the monogamous knitters who work on one project until the next shiny thing comes along and the project is cast aside into the UFO pile. Whatever your knit number, it needs to be at a level where you can finish something once in a while and not too high that you feel so overwhelmed that you can't work on anything.
It is probably becoming obvious from this post that I have exceeded my magic number. (And I am not going to admit that number here as a certain marital partner reads this blog but you can always check my page on Ravelry.) There are many innocuous but insidious ways that a new project creeps into my work basket.
- Firstly the innocent little gift. Usually this will mean all the other projects are put to one side while the gift is worked on. The redeeming feature of gift knitting is a due date so once it is finished, I am back to my ideal number.
- Next is the mystery pattern. If I want to keep up with the clues I have to cast on on the start date and start each clue on the release date. Depending on the complexity and size of the pattern I can work on one of the "ideal 3" while waiting for the next clue. (Confession - 2 of my current projects started out as mysteries.)
- And then an easy pattern turns into a hard pattern. So I need to cast on another easy pattern because I can never not have an easy pattern on the go. If the easy project just needs casting off or seaming then it can jump ahead of the current hard project and quickly be finished but if more work than that is involved I know have two hard projects to choose from.
- Running out of yarn. This doesn't happen very often but when it does, of course, I have to cast on an appropriate project to work on until I get more yarn.
- Gift yarn. Although I will mostly wait until I have finished a project before starting a new one with yarn I have received as a gift, there are times when I feel guilty that such yarn is still in my stash so I cast on regardless of how many projects I have on the go!
And that's how an ideal of three can easily turn into eight or more.
Next time I'll have the answer to What To Do When You Have Too Many Projects On The Go.
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