GETTING OUT OF MY KNITTING SLUMP

Feb 2, 2016

I feel like I've been in such a huge knitting slump lately. I keep casting on hats, and then not finishing them, leaving them sitting on various surfaces around the house until I give up and rip them out, adding the yarn back to my stash.

The trouble isn't motivation - I know I want to keep knitting hats and giving them away. My heart breaks daily with the need I see all around the world, right outside my door, and everywhere in between. I just haven't been able to make my fingers follow my heart this past month or two.

Then, on this snowy stay-inside day today, I think I figured out the problem. I knew my student teaching would take up gobs of my time (for good reason!) and so I had decided in late December that I was going to commit myself to knitting just Sandoval Hats for the first four to five months of the year. A pattern I know by heart, I assumed it would help keep me knitting, while not occupying too much of my brain space as to become a nuisance.

Turns out, I need a bit more variety than that! While I've always kept myself occupied with Sandoval hats, I've always  had another hat (or something else) on the needles at the same time, giving me variety and some much-needed interest, it turns out. So I took a few minutes earlier today to dig through some of my "want to knit" hat patterns, and decided to go back to a designer I know and love dearly - Jane Richmond. Jane has become a friend over the years (albeit an online friend, as we've not yet had the opportunity to meet in person), and I count myself lucky for that. Her designs are minimalist and aesthetically pleasing, simple to knit while never boring, and just exactly what I needed to bust myself out of my knitting slump!

I grabbed some cauliflower Cascade 220 out of my stash (de-stashed to me from a friend in Des Moines) and cast on Renfrew while Lou was sleeping, and I'm already almost halfway done, by knitting slump officially kicked!

(pictured above, clockwise from top left: Extra Slouch | Begbie | Renfrew | Wellington)

Post a Comment

Instagram