1,000 stitches

So, lately I've been feeling really really overwhelmed and unfocused.  This is a normal feeling for this time of year, as things are getting more and more crazy at work as the tourist season draws ever closer.  However, things are compounded this year because I feel like I've bitten off way more than I can chew in my knitting world.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing.  The deadlines I'm working on are for really exciting things (that I can't share with you just yet!) and I wouldn't trade my involvement with them for anything. So, this huge pressure I'm feeling right now will turn into pride and satisfaction at some point in the future, but right now it's about ready to make my head explode.  I've got one design down and one more to go before I can relax a little bit...for at least a week or two anyway. ;)

It's just funny that the tables have turned and I'm now looking forward to going to my day job tomorrow as a respite from the knitting stress, when usually it's the other way around.

In the meantime, this is what it looks like on the couch beside me after a weekend of sitting in my knitting nook and knitting my little heart out.  (I'm too lazy to get my camera so all you get are iphone pics tonight.)

Empty snack bags, needles, DVDs, cell phone, yarn, pineapple lace book...these are the necessities of any good knitting weekend...

I've been trying to put in a little time on my pineapple lace project for the W's.   This is also weighing heavily on my brain right now, as I feel waaaaay behind on it and I should have been finished with it by now!  It's self-imposed stress, as there was never a deadline on this, but I really wanted to have it finished before the season starts, otherwise it would just get lost in the summer craziness.  

I think what was keeping me from working on it was the fact that I was at the stage where I would be picking up stitches all around the body and beginning to work the pineapple lace border.  This is what I've been looking forward to all along, when I would finally get to do something besides yo, k2tog, not to mention no more purling.  

Here is the massive mound of lacy stitches sitting on its familiar perch on my laptop. And a movie to keep me company...(I heart Jason Segel.)

  

Initially I thought it would be smooth sailing once I got to the border and that the body of the piece would be the bulk of the knitting work. I think somewhere in the back of my brain I must have known the horror that awaited, which is why it took me over a week to make myself do it.  But I knew that it had to be done, so I sat down this afternoon to begin the pickup process.  Three hours later - yes, three hours! - I finally had all the stitches picked up and evenly distributed on the circs.

And after it was all said and done, there were 1,000 stitches on my needles.  Yikes.

I then went to look at the pineapple border instructions....33 rounds total.  Any wind I had in my sails was completely gone at that point. That's 33,000 stitches that I have to go until I can bind off.  

Oooof.  

It will be worth it in the end, right?  Right.