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Finishitis is... {Candleflame}
... waking up in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep because you've started trying to calculate, in your head, how many stitches you have left on your project before you can start binding off. (About 4,360, in case you were wondering... ;) )
It's especially amusing to me because while Sarah and I were up at the Sheep and Wool festival, several women noticed me working on the shawl while we were at the dinner (about which I hope to write more later today). We chatted about it a bit, and some of them noticed me the next day and told me that they had went and looked up the pattern on the web and had been mightily impressed that I was able to hold the whole thing in my head; apparently it is a 30-row repeat, and so they figured I had somehow memorized every stitch on each of those 30 rows.
I tried to explain that I had condensed it down to an algorithm so I didn't have to remember nearly as much and I could pick it up anywhere in the pattern and know where I was: it's got increasing and decreasing sections of knitted stitches, which are all separated from each other by borders of two purl stitches. If you're in an increasing section, then when you get to the middle stitch of that section you do the k-yo-k increase. If you're in a decreasing section, then when you get to the stitch immediately before the middle stitch you do the sl2-k-p2sso decrease. When you're on the "back" side you don't do any increasing or decreasing, you just reinforce the pattern on the "front" side (so on the back side you do groups of purl stitches separated by borders of two knit stitches). When you get to the end of a row in which you decreased down to one stitch in the decrease sections, you cast on three more stitches (two for that border and one to be the middle of a new increase section on that edge). You go stitch your way across the back and then cast on three more at the other end (same thing as before). You also switch at that point--the increasing sections become decreasing sections and the decreasing sections (which now only have one stitch in them) become increasing sections. And that's basically it.
Now, that probably would suck for someone who was trying to figure out how to start it, and that's why the pattern is good to have. However, I think that's a great way to go once you're a few rows in, because it tells you what to do wherever you are without requiring you to know exactly how many stitches or how many rows you've done. The most stitches that you'll ever have to count is four, when you're trying to figure out whether you've gotten to the middle stitch in the last increase row or the one-before-the-middle-stitch in the first decrease row of a repeat. And now I think at some point I'll have to write up an entry on Algorithmic Knitting Patterns...
That, or a book, just because I think there should be a book out there with that title ;)
It's especially amusing to me because while Sarah and I were up at the Sheep and Wool festival, several women noticed me working on the shawl while we were at the dinner (about which I hope to write more later today). We chatted about it a bit, and some of them noticed me the next day and told me that they had went and looked up the pattern on the web and had been mightily impressed that I was able to hold the whole thing in my head; apparently it is a 30-row repeat, and so they figured I had somehow memorized every stitch on each of those 30 rows.
I tried to explain that I had condensed it down to an algorithm so I didn't have to remember nearly as much and I could pick it up anywhere in the pattern and know where I was: it's got increasing and decreasing sections of knitted stitches, which are all separated from each other by borders of two purl stitches. If you're in an increasing section, then when you get to the middle stitch of that section you do the k-yo-k increase. If you're in a decreasing section, then when you get to the stitch immediately before the middle stitch you do the sl2-k-p2sso decrease. When you're on the "back" side you don't do any increasing or decreasing, you just reinforce the pattern on the "front" side (so on the back side you do groups of purl stitches separated by borders of two knit stitches). When you get to the end of a row in which you decreased down to one stitch in the decrease sections, you cast on three more stitches (two for that border and one to be the middle of a new increase section on that edge). You go stitch your way across the back and then cast on three more at the other end (same thing as before). You also switch at that point--the increasing sections become decreasing sections and the decreasing sections (which now only have one stitch in them) become increasing sections. And that's basically it.
Now, that probably would suck for someone who was trying to figure out how to start it, and that's why the pattern is good to have. However, I think that's a great way to go once you're a few rows in, because it tells you what to do wherever you are without requiring you to know exactly how many stitches or how many rows you've done. The most stitches that you'll ever have to count is four, when you're trying to figure out whether you've gotten to the middle stitch in the last increase row or the one-before-the-middle-stitch in the first decrease row of a repeat. And now I think at some point I'll have to write up an entry on Algorithmic Knitting Patterns...
That, or a book, just because I think there should be a book out there with that title ;)