Starting Something

This weekend I seem to have contracted some sort of virus. A knitting virus that is. First, on Friday night I started some mittens. I know, it's a silly time of year to knit mittens but I've been thinking of knitting them for awhile and since they're colorwork (and will hopefully be a gift) I decided having extra time would not be a bad idea. I cast on and knit my little heart out. Sometimes colorwork is just what you need.

On Saturday morning I finished the cuff and moved on to the hand chart, the part with the actual Octopus. It was then that I noticed it looked a little small though. Too small. I tried to pull it onto my hand. Yup, barely fits me and I have fairly small hands. It needs a rip. (Although I might put them on waste yarn and try blocking first.)
I was so sad that these lovely mittens needed a ripping that I set them aside and decided to work on something else. The trouble was, nothing else that was already in progress seemed like a good idea. So I dug out some handspun that had been staring at me, begging me to knit it.

The staring at me was partly my fault. It didn't get put away in the Handspun stash, it stayed next to my knitting spot so I could see it all the time. It's the lovely two-ply fingering weight merino I spun awhile back. The amazing blues and greens were just calling to me. I dug around my patterns for just the right project and finally cast on Magrathea by Martina Behm. I knit along, using the recommended needle size through the set-up chart. It wasn't working. Too stiff. I ripped and went up to a size 5 needle. I started again. I knit through the set-up chart again. This time I kept going.

Isn't it lovely? Did you catch that?
I was loving knitting Magrathea and I was loving the yarn, but not together, it just didn't work. I think the blue-green handspun was just too plump or something. Not sleek and smooth enough. I ripped again and cast on Magrathea with this lovely purpley handspun. It's really difficult to photograph this purpley-pink color, it is so much lovelier in real life than this photo suggests.
Well, that solved it right? I could knit away on something lovely while I had the mittens on a (hopefully brief) time out.
Except, that didn't solve it. I still had some blue-green handspun wound up and yelling at me. I was also tired last night, too tired to pay attention to a chart. Something had to be done.

At this rate, I'll never reduce the number of UFOs in this house like I intend to. Oh well, at least I'm happy with what I'm knitting right now. (Let's not think about that too much, at this rate all my needles will be in projects.)
Hopefully these should get me through this week which is fraught with real-life stressors.