photo by FreckledPast (ravelry username)
I am in a knitting funk and am desperately trying to get out of it. I’m not sure what is going on, probably the weather, but I haven’t knit a lot since about April. I keep trying, but I’m just not feeling it. I have so much yarn, I really need to use it up. Every time I look at it, I feel the guilt come over me that I’m not using it. It sits there taking up valuable space and dust while I do other things, like enjoy my summer with my daughter and read all the books on my Kindle.
But I’m trying to get back into the groove of knitting. I signed up to join the Ravellenic Games (although it’s not been much help so far). I am making an effort to go to knit nights again, although other things keep coming up to keep me going. I’m even making an effort to attend our monthly Fiber Guild meetings. Above all, I’m trying to make myself just sit and knit while watching television. But after a busy day at work, then taking my daughter to gymnastics, then making and eating dinner and cleaning up, I’m exhausted and have little energy to do much of anything besides sit for 30 minutes then go to bed.
Summertime Tunic
I have made significant progress since the Olympics started on a summer tank for myself. Of course, now I think it might be a tad too big, but I’m going to finish it regardless. Just so I can have that accomplishment. I’m hoping it will be an incentive to pick up the pace. I’ve started a beautiful lace shawl for my mother that I’m enjoying, but lace is tricky. I need to pay attention to what I’m working on, so I don’t mess up and this one has several charts with different row and pattern repeats. So I have to keep track of all that, which requires more of my brain that I’m sometimes willing to give on those evenings where all I want to do is sleep.
So, anyway. Back to the guilt. I probably have yarn going back to 2004 in my stash. That’s the year I started knitting and crochet. That’s 8 years, sitting in a drawer, bag, bin, or on a shelf collecting dust and generally feeling unloved. In the months before my unofficial hiatus, I was in a big kick to knit down my stash. My favorite group on Ravelry is called Stash Knit Down. Seriously. We try hard to knit down our stash, go “cold sheep” on buying new stuff by having challenges, writing down our goals each month, and facing the music if we cave and buy more yarn. I’ve knit more stuff with this group than I thought possible. But of course, that went to the wayside as well. My interaction with my fiber friends fell through the cracks. And that’s something I’ve also tried to rectify to no avail. I might surge forward for a day or two, then fall again.
It’s crazy how this cycle has become a pattern for me. I think I have big knitting adventures for about 4 months of the year. I start out strong in January at the start of a new year. Then as the weather turns warmer, I fade out and by mid-April, early May, I’ve fizzled completely and can’t make a stitch to save my life. As desperately as I try to stick with it, it just doesn’t work. I’ve done this for several years now. But for some reason, this year, it’s been harder to get back on the wagon, so to speak.
The newly acquired stash
In my attempt to reconnect, I went to the guild meeting this past Thursday. What happens? I choose to attend the meeting that includes a yarn dyeing demonstration (with goods from the demo to take home), plus a lady that brought a large trash bag full of yarn for a free-for-all. And being the sucker that I am with yarn, I couldn’t resist. Let’s just close our minds to the oodles and oodles of yarn I already have at home, eating me with guilt that it’s collecting dust and feeling unloved. Nope. I have to grab two gallon sized bags full of more yarn to bring home to make the current yarn feel a bit less lonely, as it now has a few more friends to keep it company, while I’m off spending quality time with my Kindle.
Do your hobbies leave you with feelings of guilt?
