It's Like Deja-Vu All Over Again

Here is the beginning of Faery Ring, Part Deux.  It's a birthday present, whose completion is slated for August 16; a goal whose optimism defies all reason, and most logic.  Still, Hope springs eternal, no?  Wouldn't be the first time I gave someone a box of  unfinished sweater pieces for a gift.  For that matter, I have also been the happy recipient of such boxes, too.  Just how we roll in my family, I guess.

This week has been a serious meat-grinder, work wise.  I managed to miss a publication deadline, not because the project was off track, but because I failed to change the page on my calendar, of all things.  The deadline that I had firmly planted in my consciousness of 07-09, turned out to be 07-06, instead.  So while I totally met my goal, the magazine editor had different ideas about when my project should have arrived.  Oops.  That sucked.  A lot.

My day job has also begun to more closely resemble the seventh circle of hell.  Co-workers on vacay = more for me to do.  Again with the "only so many hours in the day" problem.  I actually dreamed last night that I quit my day job to become a stripper.  I was the Gypsy-Rose-Lee-Burlesque kind of stripper, with long satin gloves and a bustier.  It was great, too, because I only worked on Friday nights, and I made all the money I could spend.  Funny that my subconscious has decided that life as a stripper is less debasing and humiliating than my current occupation.  Makes me wonder...

I've been beating back the suspicion that my knitting is burning me out.  And by beating back, I mean completely denying it.  I only realized this when I finished the on-time-but-still-late-anyway project, and happily turned to the Faery Ring.  I have been promising myself that I would give it the attention it so richly deserves as soon as this other thing was done.  But when it finally was time to relax into its fleecy embrace, I found I couldn't fully succumb to its many charms.  My mind kept wandering off into other territories, and I began to ask myself what was really going on.

Now, those who know me well will nod appreciatively when I tell you that I don't like repetition.  I am the woman who will drive an hour out of my way to avoid going down the same street as yesterday.  If I could afford it, all my bedsheets, automobiles and shoes would be disposable.  I just get sick of things being always the same.  So it was with considerable shock that I realized that the Faery Ring Part Deux is no less than the FOURTH project in a row that I am making more than once.  That's right: "Sommelier" = two different versions of the same pattern.  "Desert Rain" = made a second sample so I could model one while the other was on display. "Juliette" (you'll see it this winter)= dye lot problem and failed overdye attempt resulted in a complete reknit.  "Faery Ring"= well, granted, I finished the original in January, but it's still a repeat project.  No wonder I'm going batshit.  I can't believe all these do-overs.  It's completely unprecedented, and way bizarre.  The Knitting Gods are clearly toying with me.  How sad is it to make FOUR projects twice before noticing that you are repeating stuff? 

I'm going for a motorcycle ride. Preferably on a road I've never seen before.