And no, it doesn't mean I finished an old one. But I did take an inventory (I was trying to turn up a pair of size 4, 16" circular needles). I am now trying a needle checkout system -- when a pair of circs leave the notebook, a note needs to be place with the project name they are in. We'll see how it goes!
But I started the Bon Bon Shawl anyway! It's a kit (which I often have bad luck with -- run out of yarn that kind of thing) but I saw it on the wall at Home Ec Workshop in May 2010, thought about it all summer and sent my credit card number in.
So now, after looking at it and reading and re-reading the instructions for more than a year, I dug in. I cut and wound yarn for 2 days and am only halfway through all of it. I wish I had taken a picture of the kit before I started, now it's just a mess of color and string.
Before I cut and wind more, I decided I needed to knit some to see if my cutting and winding technique was a good one. I think it wasn't, so I am going to knit for a while and see if a better technique appears.
Also, I am digging around looking for splicing techniques:
Braided Splice: The yarn I have is two ply. After about 1.5 inches, one of the plies I split broke off, so my join area is only 1.5 inches long. Also, this is pretty time consuming for the number of ends I have.
Spit Splice: This seems slightly faster, but less appealing. However, this is what I tried for the remainder of my join test. This video stresses the felting aspect of the procedure.
I'll keep researching!