I'm intimidated by my unknit sweater

There. I said it. I admit it. The damned thing intimidates me.

I've had the yarn for my Sesame sweater for nearly four months now, and not done anything with it. I swatched in October. I swatched again earlier this week. And not just my usual half-assed version of swatching, in which I knit a few rows, get tired of knitting it, measure, come up wrong, and go "eh, it's close enough." Oh no. I actually swatched like They say you should swatch. I knit up my little 4"x4" square, complete with a few stitches of garter stitch on each side, and a few rows of garter stitch on the top and bottom so it'll lay flat. Then I measured. Then I washed the swatch. Then I dried the swatch. Then I measured the swatch. Then I measured the swatch again. And I came up spot-on.

I have my needles.
I have my yarn.
I have my pattern.
I have my cute little square that tells me I'm good to go!

Yet I haven't cast on for this thing yet. I'm coming up with all sorts of reasons for it, too.

"I need to finish this hat because it's on a deadline." Technically true. But I don't have to have it done for another two weeks. And when have I ever finished something early when I could drive myself mad knitting it the night before?

"I have so many unfinished projects. I should finish some of them before I start another." Ha. I can hear some of you giggling from here.

"But I've got the project for my KAL!" This is how we can tell it's getting bad. I found a pair-of-socks-a-month knitalong that I joined. The last one of these I joined, I didn't even make it through the first month. I'm sure this won't be any different, but it's a little worrying that I'm seriously trying to use it as an excuse.

Really, I just need to man up and start the darned thing. I've looked over the instructions, and they seem very step-by-step and clearly written out. The toughest thing about this is probably the seaming, and I won't have to worry about that til the end. So why have I not started it yet? I don't know. Best I can think of is I'm intimidated by it. I've built up the idea of knitting a sweater so much that I don't want to do it.

This is ridiculous. My first knitted project was a pair of socks. "Start with a scarf!" I was told. "But I don't want to knit a scarf, I want to knit socks!" I said. "But socks are hard," I was told. "I don't care, I'm going to knit them."

And that's how I've always done things - by being too stupid to realize that I can't.

So, I really have no excuse. I need to just jump in. I need to stop being a wuss and just knit it. .....after I finish my hat.....