So, one evening I'll be straightening up the portion of the stash that lives in my room, admiring the beautiful colors and fibers I've garnered, and thinking of all the things these cakes and skeins could become. Then I'll touch a skein of gorgeous alpaca lace, or an especially springy and cushy worsted wool, and I'll be nearly overcome with the desire to actually wear it. To be able to work it into something that can be next to my skin, to warm and comfort me.
And then the search begins.
I'll start hunting through my personal library for something suitable. Then I head online and search at Ravelry. If that fails, I'll get to Googling for patterns. After hours of intensive perusal, I'll find something that catches my fancy--not too complicated or fussy, yet classic and wearable--and cast on, still dreaming of how great this little number will feel, and loving how the yarn feels as I work with it.
I knit on, sometimes for an afternoon, and sometimes for days. And then it happens. At first, it just seems that what I'm knitting doesn't look nearly as nice as the photos, or what I had imagined. Then, as I keep on working, I realize that what I'm knitting simply isn't pretty. It's not meeting my needs for aesthetic pleasure, and I become sadly disillusioned with the project. Sometimes I wait a week or so to frog it, but usually it's within only a few minutes of the final verdict that the yarn is back in it's embryonic state, awaiting a pattern to bring it fully to life.
I don't think this is startitis, because it's not as though I just fall out of love with a pattern or idea, my interest trailing away as I begin looking at other projects. It's that they all seem to fall so far short of what I think they should (or could) look like, and I can't bear to work on them any longer, knowing that I'll be unhappy with the finished product, and won't wear it.
Am I the only one who does this?
It would be so nice to have some idea of what to do with all of this yarn, and not have this worry hovering in the back of my mind, taunting me with the likelihood of hours and hours of wasted effort. If you know of a 12-step program for this type of thing, do please speak up . . .
