(You are looking at some Random Oleanders because I have not had the time to style Random Yet Artful Knitting-in-Progress. My apologies.)

I am in need of some travel knitting here. Normally, the fun of rooting through my yarn and pattern stash to find a project that meets the narrowly defined requirements of travel knitting is fun. At the moment, however, I find myself caught between the fun of finding the perfect new project and the annoyance of tidying up the aftermath of a bout of startitis.

Background 1: I have a slightly anal-retentive obsession with finishing projects. When I want to mix it up with a project for every occasion, I work on a whopping two projects at once. If you remain a reader, you’ll get used to the neurosis.

Background 2: Crafting types define startitis as the overwhelming urge to start every single project that comes to mind. A few weeks ago, I was seized with this malady, and the accompanying delusional conviction that departing from type would be liberating.

You may pause here to shake your heads and chuckle at the naïveté.

I got three projects fired up before realizing my mistake.

Back to the issue at hand: I have two sweaters, a romper, a hat, and a shawl on the needles. If one satisfies the “mindless” requirement, it fails miserably on the “must fit comfortably in a satchel” requirement. I have one shawl in the queue that would be mindless enough and only uses a teeny skein of lace weight…but I’m not sure I could bear having another UFO.

Has anyone here traveled successfully with a sweater? If so, I’d love to know how you pulled it off!