Stuck
I miss knitting. I have this awful gnawing feeling inside me; first I thought it was my research, which is sort of stalled at the moment for various reasons. I’m having a hard time conceptualizing some of it, which makes it difficult to go look for specific stuff in the archives – and while randomly losing myself in the catalogues is providing unexpected joys, these aren’t enough to tide over my anxiety that I should be More Organized And Have Something To Show At the End of My Sabbatical. Then I thought it was just the usual exhaustion that comes from so much travelling – I just booked a whole lot of tickets for many more trips over the next few months, and just looking at my itinerary is tiring me out. But it’s not just all this. I’m a bit out of sorts because I haven’t knit anything substantial since May. Here’s what I have to show for my efforts:
One lousy sock, a foot of lace, and some cables. I can’t even bring myself to properly cast on for the second sock, even though the anklets my sister has asked for should not take more than 2 days to knit, really. The lace is, well, stalled, and the cables for the Tweedy Aran Cardigan are so not calling me to extend them even though I know they have the potential to look like Neither Hip Nor Funky’s gorgeous version.
It’s not like I don’t want to knit these. To paraphrase the great George Costanza, it’s not them, it’s me. It has been hot, to be sure, and not really wool-handling weather. But it has also frequently been quite pleasant, and it’s not like my work is keeping me too busy. For some reason, I’m just not picking up the projects and enjoying them. I have actually been helping my mum figure out a couple of simple baby projects, but she’s the one knitting them.
Any ideas on how to overcome this? I so want to get back to it, cause I do miss it. I haven’t been on Ravelry in ages. Sometimes the threads, knitting and non-knitting, seem so distant. Even apart from Big Issues Debate, so much of it is so totally removed from any non-US concerns that it depresses me. Surfing all my friends’ blogs and seeing the gorgeous stuff they are making or queuing on Ravelry is increasing the gnawing feeling, plus after having been off Ravelry for so long there was virtually a deluge of new patterns. I thought of junking the aran cardigan and making something simpler – like I need yet another stockinette hoodie, but maybe it will give me a sense of accomplishment. Any pattern suggestions? Anybody else in the same boat as me (trying very hard not to use the words “knitting mojo”…..)?
