Telling Your Overachiever to SHUT UP

I've been feeling a little disheartened with my knitting as of late. I have only completed a few small projects versus last year's set. Last year (by this time), I had finished four sweaters, two hats, one pair of socks and one set of fingerless gloves.  This year thus far, I've only finished three pair of socks, two hats, one set of fingerless gloves, one fair isle set of gloves, and one sweater (sans buttons). I feel like such a slow knitter.

Now, to be fair to myself (and as Sandy has pointed out to me), I've started two very large projects -- the Knit Swirl Coat (a circular coat with a BAJILLION stitches) and an Aran cardigan (involving a ton of cable charts), and I've been spinning quite a bit. These projects have taken up quite a bit of my time

The Knit Swirl coat is so big that it can only be worked on at home. And the Aran cardigan requires attention to the cabling so it's definitely not mindless knitting. Plus when you work on a singular project for an extended period of time, it tends to bring out the doldrums for me.

Consequently, I've started a bunch of small projects to alleviate those doldrums or when I wanted something mindless so I could converse with other people. Some of them I've finished (socks) and some are languishing as my fickle self decides what it wants to do.

It's little wonder that I've finished as much as I've done.

However, there's that part of me that thinks I'm a slacker and that I should have gotten done more. I'm sure everyone has that part of themselves that is the overachiever who wants to MAKE ALL THINGS. 

And sometimes, she does get the better of me, and I feel a little bit sorry for myself even though I know better. But every know and then I have to tell her to STFU because I can only do so much in the hours I've given, and I'm doing as much as I can, when I can.  

Consequently, I was super excited to have finished the back panel of my Aran sweater recently and started on the right front panel. Luckily, the right front panel is much smaller than the back panel, so the knitting is going a bit faster, which makes me so very happy .

I feel like I've finally made some progress on the Aran sweater, which will help my Overachiever to calm down a bit so I can actually get some crafting done.