I've been avoiding. Avoiding all my projects lately. Admiring and planning new ones. Why? Why can't I just get myself to buckle down and finish what I've started?
I think I have a few reasons.
I noticed that this winter, when Brad was going through one of his Cluster Headache cycles (wasn't THAT fun?), I did a lot of stress-knitting. I knit and knit on my East Meets West Satchel. It was therapy for me. Then, later, in the spring, when Holly was going through the whole celiac diagnosis process and we were trying to process all of it ourselves, I knit on the bag, too. You could see where I started, and then when my tension got tighter was when we were going through a really rough patch in dealing with our new life. I became determined to finish it. Worked and worked and worked on it. It's actually blocking right now. During this time I also spun some yarn. More therapy, more meditative work.
But then something happened. I just didn't feel like knitting. I didn't feel like spinning. I didn't feel like doing much of anything. I did pick up some other projects (which I can't show--they're going to be gifts at some point), and have been working on those off and on, but not a ton. It's like I lost my mojo. I think it was part of the whole process of going through all this emotion, dealing with learning how sick our little girl is and how her life and our lives would be changed by all this. My brain was busy with other things, I guess. I needed the time to focus and process the whole thing. Let me clarify, though. I wasn't a wreck, I wasn't seriously depressed, I wasn't freaked out to the point I wasn't functioning, none of that. I just didn't feel like doing any of my craft projects (which is weird for me).
Things are starting to feel more normal now. During my "dry spell", I kind of made myself do something crafty every once in a while, just because I knew it would help my brain. I've gotten a little bit of a start on Christmas projects, so that's good. Yesterday, I visited my friend's store, Shepherd's Choice, for the Sidewalk Sale that everyone in downtown Anoka's doing. I grabbed some soft, fuzzy alpaca yarn in stunning colors to make something special with (can't beat 30% off Blue Sky Alpacas yarn!). I actually cast on that project last night and it seems like what I have been needing to get me back in the swing of things. Today I started going through my project basket, organizing, entering things into Ravelry. I have a zillion unfinished things. Which isn't all bad (I like having a variety of things to work on normally, like one simple project, one lacy project, one colorwork, or one sock, and so on), but my UFOs (UnFinished Objects) are growing, which isn't a great thing. So far, I've found six knitting works in progress, I have one other non-knitting project going (and one other in planning stages), and then there's the quilt I need to finish, and the spinning to do, plus I have five large garbage bags full of raw, unprocessed alpaca fiber from my parents that needs to have something done to it. I also have another bag of raw baby alpaca I bought from Judy down the road sometime last year.
Part of me wants to get through these things, get them done, get them out of the way. But then that's not the whole point of these pursuits--the point is to do them slowly, carefully, to enjoy (or try to enjoy through the moments of frustration) the time spent on them. I just need to get back to working on them at a slow and steady pace, that's all.
I promise my next post will actually be about my projects.
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