Tuesday 2 August 2016

Monogamy Again (or: One Thing at a Time)

For a little while there, I was making all the things at once. I was working on my Weasley Jumper, while casting on my Cornish Lilli Pilli, pottering away at my Christmas 2016 stockings and had even started a successful sock.

I'm not usually someone who works on loads of things at once. I'm very much a one-thing-at-a-time kinda girl so that I can give whatever it my full attention.

So, with so many things on the needles, it al started to feel fragmented and fraught. Little bits here and there ended up feeling like no actual progress was being made on anything.

Perhaps I really am just a monogamist at heart.

I've put my Cornish Lilli Pilli into temporary hiatus so that I can focus on my four Christmas stockings. Ideally, I'd like these to be completely finished, with hand stitched initials, pom-poms and mini Christmas jumper decorations, by the autumn.

I have no other plans for making Christmas gifts, so this way I can focus on some just-for-fun Christmas makes.

My plans for the time being are to streamline my life a little more. To do as much as possible to remove things that feel like pressure and create anxiety. I don't have the time I used to have - I need to accept that and embrace a new way of doing things.

I have had 'design alphabet' in my bullet journal for weeks now, making me feel anxious about my lack of progress. So, for the time being, I've scratched it from my list. Stockings first, then pom-poms, then designing and stitching the initials, then the mini jumpers.

And suddenly I can breathe again. There's no sense of guilt when I choose one project over another, no feeling of failure when I add something to my to-do list for the umpteenth time. These days, I come in and I pick up a stocking and I work on it for the mindless, simple pleasure of it. The next project will be there when these are done, as will the next and the one after that.

Maybe one day I'll be in a position to knit all the things again, but for now I'm trying to tackle everything one bite at a time, instead of biting off more than I can chew.

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