New projects, old projects

Look! A new sock project! But this got started because I finally finished an old sock project, a pair I started for Mr Robot literally years ago and then never got round to finishing.

Sometimes I wonder whether I really need all my notebooks – the one tracking my knitting, the one recording my sewing projects, this year’s one where I note my working hours and self-care – but honestly, I’d never have been able to complete those socks if I hadn’t noted the leg shaping down in my knitting notebook. Notebooks are good. And with those notes to hand I finally finished that pair, and Mr Robot’s been revelling in how warm and comfy they are while I’ve been enjoying not having them nagging at the back of my brain.

He likes plain socks. 

I didn’t do a ‘Make Nine’ at the start of this year. I didn’t finish 2019’s Make Nine, and I certainly didn’t complete 2020’s, and decided to not set myself goals for this year because I’m trying to live more in the moment and not plan out every part of my life – overplanning feeds into anxiety. However, I did finish a few things last year, including a pair of skully mittens for a friend for Christmas. My friend's a big fan of the Gideon The Ninth books, and the symbol of the Ninth is a jawless skull – hence the skulls on the back of the hands are without jaws. I'd wanted to decorate the eight skulls round the cuff with the symbols of the other eight houses, but ran out of time and had to get the mittens in the post. Given my December deadlines it was an ambitious project getting them done at all.

I’ve spent the first part of 2021 slowly finishing off things, or at least getting a little closer to finishing off things, telling myself that every stitch done is a stitch closer and counts and is important. Instead of focussing on one big end result and seeing completion as the only thing that matters, I’m looking at the progress and enjoying the process of doing things. It feels good to be creeping closer to the end of things.

Of course, now my head is full of NEW THINGS I could be doing, and I’m having to hold myself back from racing into them. No more fabric till I’ve sewn more of the stuff I already own. I do have one thing I can start without feeling guilty; my lovely friend Andrea bought me an online goldwork embroidery course for my birthday.

Do you ever get the urge to start a load of new things all at once? Maybe it’s spring and the promise of brighter days; this always feels like an energetic time of year. I know some of my blogging chums are also struggling with being worn down and burned out… all I can say is, keep on creeping along. We’ll all get where we’re going in the end, and even if we’re moving slowly, better days are rushing forwards to meet us.