The tension is killing me

I've knitted one ball of the black yarn on my Skiers sweater already! I have 12, so, as usual, I am doing ridiculous calculations to see if I need to buy more.

But that's not the main point. The main point is, Lookee here, I made some zigzags!

The pattern says to use a separate length of red for each line, which I thought crazy at first. So I just went along with my one ball of red and my one ball of black. Eeeuw! Especially on the circular needle, twisting around with only 3 or 4 inches of knitted fabric below, I was not happy knitting one red stitch and 5 black ones across the row. It was hard to keep the tension right and I was loathe to leave a float of 5 stitches, so I had to hoick the red up in the middle, which didn't actually add to my pleasure at all.

I finally decided to follow orders, so cut myself 13 lengths of red. It worked quite well, except that instead of being too tight, that bit of knitting is too loose! Actually, I don't like doing colourwork... what am I doing making this garment at all... all is lost... gimme back my lace!

Ah, 6 rows of plain black has now calmed me down and I am about to start on the skier! I think I'll be more able to keep my tension on this part, since it's more or less one big blob of colour in the middle. Stay tuned...