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I owe 13

I don't know if I've mentioned them before, but I have a set of rules I've invented for myself to keep myself on track. Some are way too stupid for words, like I've never missed a karate class if I've been in town for it on a Thursday evening or a Saturday afternoon.

Others are about knitting.

  1. I must knit two balls of yarn per week.
    I think this rule might have originated because once I said I could knit a ball a week to a yarn store employee (at Romni Wools), and she said "surely you can knit two." So I've been obligated to knit more ever since.
  2. A completed project (finishing) counts as a ball.
  3. A swatch counts as a ball, if I'm happy with the product. This is a good thing, as it coerces me to swatch.
  4. In a project knit from a cone, a front, a back or a sleeve counts as two balls. So the most a project knit from a cone can be worth is nine balls. A shawl also counts as nine balls, if it's knit from a cone or a giant ball.
  5. I can choose at the outset how I wish to count it.
  6. Every time I finish a project, I can buy a new ball of yarn.
    This rule has been stretched over the last year or so to include cones, which means that my stash has increased.
  7. Every time I finish two projects, I can buy a new project. I am often in arrears. Currently, I am at -3, which means that I need to finish five projects before I can buy one.
  8. A submission package sent to a magazine or yarn company counts as a project.

Currently I'm working on my IK Summer '06 submission package. I have one project to complete that will be part of the package, I finished two already and I did two swatches for those, and have another garment to go. To be honest, I probably will not finish the fourth garment, but will just do a swatch and hope they love it (I don't expect IK to accept more than one garment... but if they did that would be cool, since the projects each have taken me about 11 days average so far).

So how did I end up owing 14? I have no idea. But, if I finish the front of the IK garment (its name is Artemis) by tomorrow, it counts as two balls and I'm down to twelve. And if I finish the whole thing next week (it's a tank knit from a cone of Silk City Spaghetti) I'm down to 11. If I finish the swatch as well, I'm down to 1o. If I swatch the last project, Aphrodite, I'm down to 9. If I run out of yarn... Well, I'm screwed.

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