As usual work commitments have taken over lately. Perhaps because of this I've been pondering the question of how do we create time for knitting? It seems to me that we need to be just as creative with this as with the craft of knitting itself. At the moment for me this involves have a number of projects on the go, some suitable for the commute to work, some for crashing out in front of the telly and some for days when I have more free time to plan out a design or work out a complex pattern.
However, it's also important that the time we do manage to create for knitting is of good quality. I lost a knitting needle at one point on my commute this week and being deprived of an ability to knit felt very frustrating. Although I rushed off to get another pair of needles at lunchtime (and a nice new bag to put them in!) being "knitting-less", however briefly, turned out to be an opportunity to take stock of how I can turn it into just another busyness. On the one hand I know how scratchy I get when I don't have the basso continuo of rows of knitting to support the soundtrack of my life. At the same time we sometimes need silence, which is expressed in musical scores by pauses and rests! It's very important to me that there should be a meditative aspect to knitting, sitting with the yarn and needles as a form of spiritual practice. It's not always like this, of course, but it is part of the process for me and one that I'm trying to develop. I'm always struck by how my relationship with my knitting reflects my relationship with whatever else is going on in my life: times when things seem to flow well and there's a sense of rhythm and being in tune with the universe; other times when things are stuck or frustrated and generally feel out of key. I need to make sure that knitting happens in the good spaces whenever possible.
It was my birthday on Monday and my darling husband heeded my request and managed to track down two (eco-friendly) glass heads to show off knitted hats. The one on the left has a hat I bought on Fair Isle last summer and the one on the right has a hat I knitted ages ago, plus the North Star scarf I made from Donna Druchunas' book Arctic Lace.
And finally as they say, the good news is that my blog is now interactive. So if you've read this far, please leave a comment. Let me know what you think about the blog , tell me when knitting happens for you and what projects you are working on. I will send a free pattern for my lacy leaf collar to the sender of the best first comment I receive.
