Alright, Infinity, Let's Talk

So, you remember those self-imposed rules I was so flamboyantly breaking? Oh. My. God.  It turns out there's a reason I make rules for myself.

I started knitting the Infinity Cardigan (knitpicks, ravelry) in June of 2013. I don't have decades of knitting experience but I have got confidence in my ability to figure things out and I'm not easily discouraged. Seriously, the defining quality of my life is accomplishment through sheer bloody-minded determination.

At the outset I was hesitant to do the two-stitch cables without a cable needle because of the twisted stitches they leave in their wake. But then the first sleeve took two months to complete. Two *months*, you guys. I have finished entire sweaters in less time that that! So my perfectionist nature is just going to have to suffer. Twisted stitches it is.

I've never worked with sock yarn before. At least not in a regular-fabric-knitting kind of way. I've done some lace knitting, so the tiny needles aren't strangers to me and the charts aren't a concern. But the sheer quantity of time required to create a thoroughly patterned fabric when working at this small scale is coming as a surprise.

Nine months later, I'm halfway through. And I don't mean nine months of slacking, either. Sure, I've got a full time job and what seems a moderate variety of other leisure time activities. But I'm enough of an introvert to enjoy frequent TV-and-knitting dates with myself and it does tend to be my default weeknight relaxation occupation. But here we are. Nine months and only half finished.

This endless tiny patterning is killing me. For whatever combination of reasons, the charts don't stick in my head. So I'm constantly checking the sheet, making sure my stitches are lining up, doing one of the cables the wrong way around and fixing it on the next row, and generally making trouble for myself. And I worry that the choice of a heathered yarn tends to obscure the pattern, so what's it all for anyway? But when I see it in a single tone yarn, while I recognize that it's beautiful and that the stitches are put to better use, I just don't want it. I love heathered yarn. In our expanded body-mod future, I will have heathered skin.

Last week I briefly considered the possibility of binding off and just wearing half a sweater. I tried it on and gazed at the result in the mirror for a while. Took it off. Put it back on again. Paced the floor. You know, the usual decision-making dance.

In retrospect of course it's obvious that the people finishing the project within the first few months were those with incredible velocity and bags of available time. There's also probably a multiplier at work where if you hit some threshold of hours per week, the chart gets into your head much earlier on and stays there more effectively, thus enhancing your progress even more. While those of us with too many other things crowding the charts out of our heads plod along wondering desperately if we'll ever see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I wasn't even supposed to be buying new yarn. There's nowhere to put it. The yarn for this project sits in its shipping box on the arm of the sofa! And it looks like it's going to stay there for the rest of the year. Oh, sweet tiny gods of knitting. Send help!