WIP Wednesday - What to do next?

I don't actually have a work in process right now. And neither does Shelagh. And we don't like it. But I thought this might be interesting to write about: how do we decide what to work on next? 

For me it starts with the yarn. Sometimes I look at my stash--or my sister's stash!--and fall in love with a particular yarn all over again. That rush of excitement when I look at the colour and feel the squooshy texture and I remember why I bought the yarn. I have a couple of cakes of yarn that do that for me and the one I'm looking at right now is "Mean Tangerine," a sport-weight yarn by Waterloo Wools I purchased at the KW Knitter's Fair back in September.

Mean Tangerine is 100% Blue-faced Leicester (BFL) wool yarn in a wonderfully happy variegation of oranges. It's so bright and cheerful--and so unlike my usual preference for blues and greens. When I saw it, I absolutely had to have it. I know I want a pattern that will show off the beautiful shades of orange and I think a simple stitch pattern will do the trick. Oh, and I have 250 yards.

For me, and I think I speak for Shelagh too, the process is falling in love with the yarn and then looking for a pattern that will highlight it. We have been purchasing a lot of artisanal yarns lately, yarns spun and/or dyed by very creative women, and I--we--want to continue that creative vision by choosing exactly the right pattern.

So far I've tried two different scarf patterns, knit about 1-1/2" and simply knew each one wasn't working. Ugh.

I did look for more patterns online and in magazines, but I just couldn't find something I liked. So I started looking through my Stitch Guide. This is a handy and really inspiring little book. It's so inspiring that I sometimes get carried away and start thinking of other yarns when I look at some stitches. And sometimes that isn't good because I feel like I'm cheating on my current project or yarn. Is that weird?

My cake of Mean Tangerine on my Stitch Guide. What you don't see are all the flagged pages for stitches and yarns!

So, I have found a beautiful stitch that I think will show off the various orange colours of this yarn. Next step: test swatch and working out the number of stitches and rows and creating my own pattern. Send your positive vibes my way: I'm hoping third time is the charm!