What's In Your Insanity Closet?

I'm a sucker for fair aisle. I haven't knit but a pair of mittens and a hat using that technique, but whenever I imagine my knitting future a multitude of fair isle sweaters and cardigans pop into the picture. So when I saw Knit Picks' Dogwood Blossoms Sweater kit I had to have it. Seriously, isn't this purty (check the link for much better photos), especially since the kit costs less than eight trips to the espresso bar??!

And so today a big Knit Picks package arrived. In it were a standard letter-sized instruction booklet of twenty pages and lots of yarn:

Sooooo exciting, right? Which is why I ran to the Hubs. But instead of doing an enthusiasm dance, you know what he said? This:

"You better put this into the insanity closet."

Huh?! The only meaning I could deduce from this cryptic remark is that my wonderful husband thinks I'm crazy. Now, after reading the instructions I might agree that there's a little bit of truth to it, but Dude!, be a bit less discouraging!

In any event, I've been mulling over the concept of the "insanity closet" all day long. I think mine contains this other fair isle sweater kit that I bought last year, the yarn that I got to make Nancy Bush's Crown Prince Square Shawl, and possibly a small number of other perhaps-too-ambitious projects. *sigh*

Though I do think that I may be able to make this cardigan just in time for me to have lost the baby weight (don't ask, and I won't have to lie) so that it fits. I've decided that's going to be a year-long project (losing the weight, that is), and perhaps my knitting resolution for 2011 could be to finish one large fair isle project. (Either Dogwood Blossoms or the other one that I have, which technically isn't fair isle but a traditional Norwegian pattern--or is that all the same?). Hmmm... I have to think about it.

And while I do so I'm engaged in mindless knitting. In the most boring mindless knitting there is: stockinette stitch in the round. Once my mom found out that both my brother's girlfriend and I were pregnant she went on a Debbie Bliss shopping binge and got enough Baby Cashmerino to make two of these:

Now, she turned out to be rather busy this fall as well, and while she started the Carryboo for grandson #1 (baby Paul Alexander was born December 14, yay!), she neither finished that one nor started the second Carryboo. Instead she sent the yarn my way, and since Wednesday I've been knitting my fingers bloody to get it done in time. This is what I got so far:

Don't let the picture fool you; this thing is gigantic! At this point the bunting (which I knit in the round, not, like DB suggests, flat) could multipurpose as a strapless top for someone not-so-slim.

Oh... and you know what? Just as I was searching for the Carryboo link (see above) I came across pattern corrections: apparently the bunting is supposed to be much, much narrower! That makes perfect sense, but now it's too late to go back. I still have the upper back and hood to knit, but probably I won't bother lining the Carryboo (because I don't know what to do with fabric and needle).

I keep you posted. In the meantime, why don't you tell me what's in your insanity closet?