Apparently presents from Christmas 2019 are still en route (oops!)

While going through my project bags and ridding myself of excess creative weight, I may have found a scarf that I remember knitting for my mother two years ago for Christmas. It’s done – completely finished and ready to wrap. I just had no idea where it was this whole time. That’s my bad.

To make matters worse, this was a yarn that my mother had specifically picked out when we were shopping that year. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were in Maine doing some shopping and we stopped by into a local chain craft store, and when we passed the Red Heart aisle (which I usually skip) she headed down and became entranced with this skein. “It’s so soft and pretty, with the purples and the greys,” she said. “If you were going to knit something for me with this yarn, I wouldn’t be upset.” Well, I went back when she wasn’t paying attention and I picked it up intending to knit this scarf for her for Christmas, and then left the damn thing in a damn bag for two years!! Thankfully I was smart enough to pick up more than one skein and stash them all together, so I have enough still here to whip up a hat for her. A scarf AND a hat – she’s gonna have no choice but to forgive me.

The pattern is the Quilted Lace Ascot, from Pam Powers. The yarn is Red Heart’s Boutique Midnight in Shadow.

Project: Clean up

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I’ve decided to restart my creativity by restarting my work. See all the bags in this picture? Every single one of them – 9 in total – contains a knitting project that I started and abandoned. I had the best of intentions but never went anywhere, and I think part of the reason why I’m struggling to pick up my work is because I’m paralyzed by decision making. Which project do I go back to first?

The short answer is going to be “None of the above”. They’re all getting fogged. I’m pulling apart what I can, reskeining the yarn, and deleting the project from my Ravelry notebook. If I really want to work on that particular pattern, I can always go back to it. But I can’t keep sitting here waiting for one of these bags to call to me. I need to be more proactive about clearing out my mental backlog.

Fresh start means fresh creativity.

I picked up a project today for the first time in months

Someday, this will be a scarf

Not saying I worked on it. But I picked it up and looked at it and considered my progress and determined what was left to be completed. I’m taking that as a minor victory.

Searching for Creativity

Today is the official start of my search for creativity. My muse is out there, somewhere, waiting for me to call her home. I just have to find her.

When the COVID quarantine madness first started for me in March 2020, I lost my workout routine. The gyms were closed, and I wasn’t leaving the house to go to work anymore, so it became very easy to become very lazy. I can’t exert any effort or energy – I’m on lockdown! A few months later, as my body started to atrophy and my mind became foggy, I realized that getting some semblance of a workout routine back into my life was needed to maintain my sanity. And because it can be done anywhere without any special tools, I veered towards yoga. I started practicing yoga daily, for at least 10 minutes per day. Even though it’s not a high-impact activity, it makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something and it keeps me from hunching over like an old lady.

With that in mind, it only makes sense that my search for creativity heads in a familiar direction. There’s a lot of literature out there that says that yoga can greatly benefit creativity.

Perhaps the greatest benefit is to those burnt out creatively. Working too long or hard at one project can leave a person even more stressed that when they started. Through yoga, we can reattune ourselves to the emotions that inspired us in the first place. We can unwind from the physical stresses work can put on us. This is especially true if the creative practice involves repetitive motions or physical activity. Even if it’s a mostly stationary job, moving your body even a bit can release some tension built up.

https://www.tomorrowsworldtoday.com/2019/01/08/january-8-using-yoga-to-boost-creativity/

Any time I’m looking for a new yoga routine, I head straight to Yoga with Adriene. Her YouTube channel is jam-packed with routines for any situation. Need a break during the middle of your workday? There’s a chair yoga routine for that. Need something quick to wake up your muscles in the morning? There’s a routine for that. Need something to help clear your mind and balance stress, reduce anxiety, or lose weight? Routines for all of those. Thankfully, creativity is right up there as well. This 40 minute Yoga for Creativity routine should help to centre my energy, loosen my muscles, and awaken my mind. And, as an added bonus, I actually find yoga to be an enjoyable activity! I’m going to try going through this every day for a week, and see if it makes any difference in terms of how I look at my knitting bag.

Oh, and once I’m back in the knitting groove, Adriene also has a yoga routine for loosening up your fingers, hands, and wrists. Perfect for people who hold knitting needles for extended periods of time!!

Back at it……in theory

Ever have that moment when you stumble across something that you used to work on, and you can’t remember what happened that made you leave it behind? That was me, today, with this site. Why did I step away and stop posting? I honestly don’t remember.

Lately I’ve been struggling with my creativity. I don’t know if it’s because of the quarantine and my resulting depression/anxiety issues. I don’t know if it’s that I’ve become bored with my knitting and I need a new challenge. What I do know is that I need my muse back. Maybe this site is what will spark that fire again? Maybe I need to talk about knitting and think about knitting to help focus my knitting? Who knows. I’ve been in lockdown for weeks with another few weeks to go, so if I’m going to explore the boundaries of my inspiration, this is probably the time to do so. It’s not like I have anywhere else to be.

Square #10: Mitered Square

I was saving this pattern for closing to the end, because I figured it would be a straightforward and non-problematic knit. I moved it up the list though, with the whole “having to knit a lot per week” problem. And it turned out that this WAS a straightforward and non-problematic knit. I love when a plan falls together 🙂

I learned a few interesting things during the creation of this square. First, I got the chance to practice the Navajo knitting technique, which I had been wanting to try for some time. Downside is that I worked through an entire skein of Lucy Neatby’s wonderful Celestial Merino in under three hours. That’s always slightly depressing — it’s one of those yarns that you want to keep just for giggles. The upside is that I was able to take this wonderfully fine yarn and bulk it up to the right weight for my squares.

Second, I realized after I had finished this square, that I have very few bright yarns in my stash. I should fix this. I don’t know when I became so neutral and monochrome. It’s a little depressing and sad.

Third is that Richard Branson is slightly crazy and extraordinarily strange and somewhat brilliant. It’s amazing what you learn on Netflix.

Movie: TEDTalks: Icons; TEDTalks: Chew On This / Beverage: Pepsi / Snack: Less of a snack and more like dinner, specifically leftover pepperoni pizza

Square #9: Checkers Square

Two squares in one week isn’t bad, but I still have a lot of catching up to do.

 

 

I like this square. It was a fairly simple knit, and I had the whole pattern memorized within the first repeat. I also did some self-back-patting on the decision to use a variegated yarn for this square. I think the colour changes worked well with this pattern, much better than a solid colour would have. Overall — quite pleased.

Movie: Freakonomics / Beverage: Iced Tea / Snack: Grapes. Lots of grapes.

Square #8: Double Moss Stitch Square

I’m still trying to play catch up with my squares, but this was a relatively quick and easy pattern to muddle my way through.

 

There are a couple of rows that ere off in this — I couldn’t keep track of which part of the four-row repeat I was on — but the great thing about this pattern is that the mistakes just blend into the background to become unnoticeable. I think the choice of a variegated wool helped with that. Over all, this was done through a couple of lunches and a one-hour power knit before I lost the light yesterday afternoon. Highly successful.

I’m going to try — TRY! — to make it through another square this week. I might get at least halfway done. That would work for me.

Movie: No movies, but did watch a couple of TV shows and a soap opera / Beverage: Coffee with caramel / Snack: None — got my calories from my coffee 🙂

falling behind

Okay, it’s possible that I’ve fallen quite a bit behind on my knitting schedule. But I have a really great excuse! And it doesn’t involve a dog eating my homework!!

I threw my back out. I wish I could say that it was done while training for a marathon or some other equally athletic endeavour, but the truth is that I tripped on a pair of boots on my way out my front door, and there was some falling and some twisting and some popping and then some pain. After a few days of pain and then a trip to the doctor and another trip to a physiotherapist, I found out that I had dislocated the left side of my T3 and T4 vertebrae.

For those of you who, like me, are not doctors, here’s some medical info: your vertebrae are sitting in such a way that they’re almost double-jointed. Think of it like they’re sitting in a cup. If you stand straight or lean backward, the bottom of the vertebrae move in the cup to the front of your body. If you lean forward, the vertebrae move back. I dislocated the side that goes to the back. Basically I was fine if I was standing or laying straight, but as soon as my body started to lean forward, the cup was broken and wasn’t being supported correctly. If you think that this sounds painful then believe me — you would be correct! Thankfully my physio guru is also trained in spinal manipulation, and she was able to pop the bones back into place. After a few weeks of stretching and medical attention, I’m finally able to move around normally again.

How does this affect my knitting you ask? I couldn’t sit. I could lay down fine, and walking around was no problem, but sitting on anything — a chair, the couch, my car, etc — was excruciatingly painful. I must admit that I tried knitting while standing and found myself slouching, which caused pain. Don’t even get me started on the “knitting while laying down” exercise. Suffice to say, I went for three whole weeks without knitting a stitch.

So, here we are at the end of the second week of March, and I’m three weeks behind in my squares. I’ve decided not to call an end to my goal. Instead we’ll refer to this as a slight gap in time. I’m going to aim to have four squares done by the end of next week. That should catch me up.

Unfortunately, I think I do have to say that I utterly failed in my monthly project resolution. Nothing was ever STARTED on my socks. It’s sad, really. I am still going to make them, as I’m determined to make my first pair of socks. But it’s going to have to be on my own schedule rather than something set.

Square #7: Basic Rib Square

After last week’s cable nightmare/triumph, I needed something quick and easy to work on this week. It doesn’t get much easier than a basic rib pattern.

Of course, this wouldn’t be one of my projects unless something went wrong. In this particular case, it was a overestimation regarding the amount of fig coloured wool I had left. Instead of a 9×9 square, I have a 9×7-inch square. That said, there does seem to be a little bit of stretch to the wool, so I might be able to pull out the dimensions a little when I block it.

Quick, painless, and relatively thoughtless. Exactly what I needed this week.