As the weather gets colder, lots of people come in to the store driven by virtuous and commendable gift-making and -giving ideas. And a lot of the time, these same people fall in love with a new yarn, or a new shade of an old fave, or an exciting new pattern that they want for themselves. And then I get to witness their personal drama: the struggle between the desire to let creativity run free and the desire to at least appear disciplined, self-controlled, maybe even frugal?

Then I can almost count down the seconds until my darling customer turns to me and asks something along the lines of, "Maybe I shouldn't until I finish my other project? I can only work on one thing at a time, right? I mean, how many projects are you working on?"

(These are the people who don't know me personally. Those who know me personally, are now snickering. I can hear them.)

I usually respond to my customer with a role of the eyes and and airy "Oh, lots!" or "Oh, I'm way into the double digits." Then they look at me with new eyes. I wish I could be sure it was respect or awe, but I have a sneaky suspicion that at least some of them are thinking I've gone off the deep yarny end.

So, without further ado, I give you (ta-da!) my projects on needles:
I think there's a color thing going on here....

I said, "On needles." That's not including my other knitting dreams and schemes (which are crazy, crazy many), not including projects for which I've purchased yarn but haven't yet started, not including (ahem) things I owned before our beloved k2tog existed, and certainly not including just general stash. (Not on the first date.) But, still, I can count to my lucky 13 pretty easily!

So stitch on fearless knitters. You've most likely got a WAYS to go to catch up to yours truly. And, as long as we don't completely abandon those impulses of discipline, self-control, and frugality, as long as we're not hurting anyone, I say the world can sure use our creativity.