Unraveling Affection

Yes, I know. It's been a while.

You see, about two months ago I got a promotion at work, which I am super excited about.  With any new job, one would expect a steep learning curve during the transition period.  However, my situation has been complicated by the fact that I, with a seemingly sane and clear mind, said that I would perform both my old job and my new job for the next 7 months, so as to have as minimal impact as possible on our summer operations.

While all that seems like a valiant thing to do in support of my employer, it's made a complete disaster of my personal life. Working 12-14 hour days has taken its toll on me and the evidence is obvious with one look in my house.  Piles of dishes, dirty laundry, rotten food in the fridge.  Just one day off since March 1 and I spent that day sleeping.

So, needless to say, knitting has also been sadly moved to the back burner.  I can't even carry a conversation when I get home from work, let alone read a chart or write up a pattern.  Luckily I have no upcoming deadlines and I made the very wise decision this winter/spring to not submit to any upcoming publications so that I could work on my own designs at my own pace.

But when Maya at Springtree Road put up an update a while back, I snapped up some of her gorgeous sock yarns in a very pale dusty lavender, dark charcoal grey, and a bright deep fuchsia with a Color Affection shawl in mind.  I figured, hey, it's all garter stitch. Exactly what I need for a "me" project, since I haven't had any just-for-fun knitting in a really long time.  What could possibly be easier than that?

Turns out a lot of things.  Even garter stitch is a little too much for my fried brain right now.  I've had to start this effing thing over 4 times now.  This most recent time I actually thought that I had finally gotten it right.  All my stitch counts were correct after each row and things seemed to be progressing swimmingly.  I was envisioning myself wearing my new shawl maybe by the 4th of July....er, possibly Halloween...hmmmm, definitely by Christmas.

But something kept nagging at me all along that my edges were way too tight.  But I kept ignoring that little itch in my brain until I realized that, yes, the edges were way too tight and I couldn't in good conscience let myself continue this way and feel good about it.

But instead of ripping it out immediately like I usually do, I carried it around in my bag for a few days, thinking that maybe I just needed to let it rest.  Because we all know there's nothing worse than that feeling you get after you frog something and then you realize that you really didn't need to after all.  Am I right?

Somehow, I guess I was hoping that the knitting gods would cure my knitting of its terminal disease.

But this afternoon I realized that the handwriting was on the wall and I just needed to pull the plug. So, even though I was in the office and should have been doing the bazillion things on my to do list, I pulled the sickly project out of my bag and put it out of its misery.

And afterwards, I felt so much better.  Who knew that a fresh start would feel so good?

Casting on again tonight for the fifth time.  Going to try keep the edges super loose. At least I know I'm not the only one with this problem.  The Yarn Harlot had to frog her Color Affection for this very same reason. I'm in very good company indeed.