Your blogpost on inspiration says a lot to me. Of course, “immediate excitement” seems to trump everything for me, which is why certain wips (works in progress) get laid aside when they reach the “dutiful slog” stage.

This above statement reveals even more to ponder when choosing one’s next knitting  project.  This anonymous reader of “Bloom” is, of course talking about impulse buying.  Impulse buying has happened to all of us at one time or another.  Even with ready-made clothes when that must-have skirt screams at you or those to-die-for shoes tap, tap tap their way into your heart, you somehow get sidelined from purchasing what you intended.

And, she is referring to the yards and yards of stockinette stitch or ribbing or cable that seems like the project will never end and you begin swearing about the stupidity you had taking on such a thing.  Sometimes I can’t get over the long hours of just weaving in the ends of color work design. Yes, the “dutiful slog” stage is familiar to us all.

Her comment somehow made me think of my stash, too.  There is a term familiar to every knitter, the “next” project(s) waiting in the wings.  For some, it is just a list on paper or posted in their queue  in Ravelry.  For others, it is bundles of purchased yarn, some with earmarked patterns, other skeins waiting for the just-right project.   My stash tends to be tangible with specific ideas in mind for each amount of yarn.  Also, I am a knitter who will build a stash with a number of future projects.  This means I may not get to that certain project for a year or two.  So, imagine the commitment (and love) I must have when I might not even begin the project for awhile.

I want to avoid unfinished projects.  I want to avoid purchasing yarn that never finds its way into fruition.  I want to avoid swooning over someone else’s finished object that might cause me to belabor the completion of my own.  I want to love my project knowing the thought that went into choosing it, the time and effort that went into producing it, and appreciating the skill that was needed to complete it.

The below is from my stash, purchased about one year, ago for a pattern I’ve been in love with since 1988 (by Carol Covington in Fall/Winter Vogue Knitting 1988), and soon to be a finished object seen, here!