Quirks

I think everyone must have some knitting quirks. It's a law of nature. I am the sort of goofy person who spends a lot of time wondering what other people's quirks are and if I'm completely crazy or just kind of normally crazy. In the interest of full disclosure, here are the quirks that belong to me and Tejas (if I'm completely crazy, please don't tell me; I'd rather not know):

• If I don't cast on a second sock immediately, I get distracted by another project and the second sock will not get done for at least three months. I've learned this the hard way. No matter how pretty I think the yarn/pattern/sock is now, something else will look prettier once the first one is done.
  
• I don't like to look at my hands while knitting stockinette, garter, or sometimes even 1x1 or 2x2 ribbing. I can read and knit at the same time very easily, and it actually bothers me nowadays to look at "simple" knitting. So I save plain socks and stuff to do during books or lectures.
• Knitting without looking at it was one of the most useful things I ever learned. (See knitting during lectures, above.) I am a fidgety sort of person and have trouble paying attention without something to occupy my hands. Knitting = lifesaver.
• When I'm upset about something, I knit until all hours of the night. It doesn't make me less upset, but it's soothing. (Tejas knows by now that if I make a beeline for the needles and knit with grim intensity, I need a hug.)
• I hate frogging things, so I ask Tejas to do it. He does it gleefully. (I'm thinking of hiding my WIPs....)
• Knitting with bright colors, or lots of colors, makes me happy. I'm about five years old at heart.
• I like having finished knitted stuff...but it's not really the point for me. I will happily you give my sweater that took seventy-five hours to knit, or my lace shawl that took about 150.
• This might be because I love knitting lace, but I don't actually wear lace shawls very much. (At all.) (There's a pattern in Victorian Lace Today for a circular lace cape-y thing STRAIGHT out of Little Women and I want it with all my quirky little heart!! I would never wear it though, except maybe for halloween. But someday it will be mine!)
• I can knit Continental, but it makes my fingers hurt and my gauge go wonky. So I knit English style even though it ought to be slower and I have to drop the yarn to switch colors. It's faster and easier for me.
• I have never tried intarsia, for the simple reason that I've never seen an intarsia pattern I wanted to knit. (<3 <3 Fair Isle <3 <3)
  
• If I make a (big) mistake, I get really annoyed and throw the project to the bottom of the knitting pile and refuse to touch it for another six months. I'm childish like that.