Are you a knitter or a crocheter, or are you a bit of both? If you are monogamous in your yarn-based crafting, is it because you do not enjoy the other craft or have you simply never given yourself the push to learn it? Is it because the items that you best enjoy crafting are more suited to the needles or the hook? Do you plan on ever trying to take up and fully learn the other craft? If you are equally comfortable knitting as you are crocheting, how do you balance both crafts? Do you always have projects of each on the go, or do you go through periods of favouring one over the other? How did you come to learn and love your craft(s)?
I’m pretty much a monoga-crafter. I can crochet (and weave) but I am constantly drawn more to knitting than anything else. I have to be diligent about picking up other crafts. That’s why I have an fabric stash that hasn’t been touched in years, though I do hope to get some sewing done this year as well.
There have been times when I was burned out on knitting, and I turned to crochet (I didn’t weave at that time). I haven’t had one of those periods of burn out recently—I’ve been pretty good about pacing myself and just saying “eh” when I don’t feel like knitting.
At the beginning of this year, I had big plans for getting a lot of knitting done while also making time for other crafts. But then this became the Year of the Babies, and I love crafting for babies, so I’ve been doing a lot of baby knitting—Thursday night, I cast on for another baby sweater that I’m designing (kind of as I go, so that’s going to end really well), and I need to knit up another baby blanket square, and a baby toy, before mid-May. I mean, I don’t have to. I’d just like to. But I also know that if not all of that gets done before the baby shower, it will be okay.
That’s probably the biggest thing I’ve learned over the last few years: the Art of Letting Go. Babies, especially those in utero, don’t really care if you get something done “on time.” Outlining your priorities, in any task, be it crafting or your professional life, and understanding and accepting that other things are going to have to slide, has been incredibly liberating. There’s not really anything I do in a day-to-day basis that is life or death. I could even skip feeding myself for a day and be okay (cranky, but okay).
This sort of veered away from the original prompt, but you know what? That’s okay, too.
We really shouldn’t be hard on ourselves over knitting, which should be a source of more pleasure than pain.
So true! I think it’s that need to excel that some of us have that leaves us beating ourselves up over playing with yarn.