Hello! Today's post is not as much knitting related, but more about what I was up to lately back in the end of last year. The second part of 2021 was very rough on me and, at first I tried to mantain my work rhythm and carry on as if life was "normal", but quickly I realized it was unsustainable and I was very close to bring myself to a burn out. If you know me, you probably have already noticed that I am a super introvert who likes to keep busy: I am always knitting, reading, cooking, or doing something around the house. I can't sit still and relax, it stresses me out. But after I had surgery in october things got complicated and I did not have the mental space for anything that would take more than a 60s concentration of my part.
And, at first I tried to push through, ignore this and keep on going, which led me to have such a horrible mood that even I was finding it hard to live with my own self. And, to no surprise, no work came out of it: I could not finish any designs, I could not come up with anything new, I could not develop anything, nada. With all this internal turmoil, I thought I should just let it go and see this phase through. But how can someone relax when their primary relaxing activity is stressing them out? I thought I should cast-on something different, easy, and sort of freestylish. But it couldn't be knittning. Ever since knitting became my work, I love to knit, but it is always an active brain activity. I am wired to pay attention to what I am doing and learn from it. Learn from the techniques used, the wording and pattern writting, the photography, the inspiration the designer had, etc etc etc.
So I dusted off my crocket hook and decided to make a big scrap basket to store all my projects by the sofa (they have always been by the sofa, but embarrasingly laying loose on their project bags). I searched around Ravelry and found this great free pattern that was exactly what I had in mind, and then dove in my stash to get all of those left-over yarns out of the depths of my closet.
I made a first attempt, which was frogged after I finished the base because I found it to be too flopy and I was looking for a more sturdy basket. I worked the base for 22 rounds, all with increases, and holding 4 strands of assorted weights together. No fuss, no complicated stitch patterns, not even any loose strands waiting to be woven in! Just rounds and rounds of single crochet stitches, one on top of the other. Here it is:
And I love it! I can't express enough how much I loved working on this basket, but I am going to try:
kept my hands busy so I could mentally and emotionaly relax and process everything I needed to
huge stash buster! In the end I was searching for more scrap yarn around the house to incorporate in the basket (wasn't very hard to find though...)
helped me with the guilt and anxiety of using up almost all of those "what the f*ck I was thinking when I bought this"? skeins
made a messy corner of our apartment look much more put together now
a great pallet cleanser that allowed me to revist a well loved but almost forgotten crafting technique
And I could go on! If you think your house, or someone's you love, could benefit from this lovely basket, I can't recomend it enough. Cast it on today and I promise you will find joy and peace on every stitch of it!
This post is already too long so I am going to say bye for now and I will come back in a few days to tell you what I was up to in January. Bye!
Ps: the partially destroyed sofa arm is courtesy of Cachupina, of course....
Comments