MOTIVATE ME

Oh people. The last blanket. The LAST blanket remains. And I could not want to knit something less. I am in full procrastination mode.

Here's the thing, for Baby Beef, I had to work from a dishcloth pattern and modify it so that it would turn out right. It involved effort. I couldn't just look at an already there pattern, I had to make it up and it was hard and it required brain power. But, once I figured out what I was doing, I sat down and just DID IT.

For this next blanket, I've committed myself in a much larger way. The blanket is for one of my best girlfriends. I was there when she and her husband met and I thought "wouldn't it be nice to tell their story on the blanket?" And with that thought, my brain stuck to the idea like glue. Yes there are million "already there" beautiful blanket patterns, but I really want to do my idea. Using dishcloth designs, each square represents something significant about their life together.

Everything started coming together really nicely when the SUPER AWESOME Lisa, of Digknitty Designs responded to a small question on Ravelry by offering to really help me out. I decided to use all of her patterns for consistency, especially after she offerred to alter one of her designs to accomodate my needs and design FROM THE GROUND UP, a special request. She didn't have to help me nearly as much as she did... but she did and for that she will always be awesome in my books. (I will also be pimping her site here during the duration of this blanket- so PLEASE, go order something from her. She has a million designs, and I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but she's AWESOME!)

But now I'm in the planning stages and there are so many reasons why I keep telling myself that I'm not getting this blanket done.

1) I hate the yellow I ordered. HATE IT. I have changed my mind and decided to knit the blanket in blue and off white only. EXCEPT, that I ordered yarn with a whole blanket in mind and now I'm pretty sure I'm not going to have enough of either color to finish. That's not a big deal, I can call Knitpicks and place another order, but there's no guarentee on dyelots and I can't get more off-white until Dec 18.

2) The baby was born yesterday. (I can't even comment on the level of guilt I'm experiencing over not having a baby blanket for one of my BEST FRIENDS. I am a terrible person.) It's a girl. YAY... except that I was knitting blue and white. The baby room is blue too. If I'm making a knitpicks order anyways, should I just change gears mid go here and order pink?

3) Lisa's patterns are awesome. But they are designed for dishclothes and I am one of the most anal retentive people alive. I am rewriting every one of them, so that they are all the same size. This involves going through every pattern, re-writing it and adding or subtracting (or both at the same time) stitches to make every square, well, square. It's tedious, time consuming work and I just want to knit, not think.

I've had more than one instance where it dawns on me that what I've done is wrong, and had to throw out the entire set up and begin again.

4) I do have the cast on number, and 10 rows of the border knit, but the minute I'm done the border I have to commit to how I want the "story" laid out. And I can't make up my mind at all!

5) I told myself that my father-in-law would disown me if I didn't get him his mittens. (NOT TRUE- I wanted any excuse I could find to knit with the soft alpaca.) And so, instead of working on this pattern earlier, I finished a pair of lovely mittens for him in the SUPER lovely alpaca yarn.

Pattern: Cruiser by Cailyn Meyer

Yarn: Jubilee Alpaca from the Wool Emporium in Saskatoon
Needles: US 5 & US6
Notes: LOVED the yarn. ADORED the yarn. Have maybe thought about rolling around in the yarn more than once. I liked the pattern too- a great easy knit, although ABSOLUTELY would knit a thumb gusset instead of doing the afterthought thumb. A gusset would have 100% satisfied me.

Father in law seemed to like them a fair bit, and so at least that's one issue off my conscience.

So now, I find myself running out of procrastination excuses. The baby is HERE, the patterns are purchased and half written out, I won't allow myself to cast on ANYTHING else until I make some progress on the blanket- so really that just leaves me to actually KNIT THIS BLANKET. Except that I don't want to.

My Tuesday knitting lunch crew, (Anne & Mel) and I have been jokingly calling this next blanket my "Magnum Opus"- because it's such an undertaking. For me, I haven't even started knitting it and I'm already struggling with my desire to knit it.

That's where all of you come in. I need you to hold me to this- I need you to ask me about this blanket... OFTEN. I need you to suggest finishing techniques, and ideas to help combat procrastination. I need to finish this blanket, and I'm hoping that you, dear reader, can help carry me there. We can get through this together- hang on tight!