Lisa writes: "...are there just some knitters that are doomed to never wear anything that they have knit? Or is this just a phase that all knitters go through? Like adolescence?"

AH - the slump, many times experienced when making a transistion. Like from scarves to sweaters - or knitting to finishing. I've been in one myself - the sweater you see above has been "marinating" for a few months, when my goal was to finish it sometime last winter.

What made it re-surface into the GetItDoneNow pile? Well, I wanted to have New Clothes. AND I had a deadline to shoot for - a trip that needed this hoodie. This made me re-focus my energies. Lisa - you are not alone - all of us slump on the timeline occasionally. What really helped me was starting to knit with others - in the KIP group, in public - or if you can't geographically swing it - virtually, in a KnitAlong (KAL). I think the common goals of a KAL, along with the support system it offers, can maybe help you jump the final hurdle and walk that runway!

Discovered in my needle stash was a cool circular I'd forgotten about - one with a hook on the end. When I first bought this, I didn't notice that feature and was pretty POd when I unwrapped it until it dawned on me what it was really good for - PickUp'nKnit! Yeps, you just use the hooked end like a H@@K! and then slide the picked up stitches down the cable on the rest of circular needle.

Above you see the beginnings of a band around the hood of my sweater. It is made from DK weight yarn so I'm picking it up in a ratio of: pick up 5, skip one - or 5/6. I think you can see the little gaps between the groups of picked up stitches. That's where the skip one is. Here's another view:

It's really easy to count your total stitches this way too - just count the number of groups and multiply by 5.

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