I decided yesterday that I was taking a sickie. Allergies, the after-effects of the party on Saturday night and a busy weekend had me feeling too tired and headachey to concentrate on work. What did I do instead?
* Ordered a flicker, and some new reeds for my Knitters Loom.
* Looked though some knitting magazines and my stash.
* Doodled some crazy garment designs using weaving, crochet and knitting in mad combinations. (I doubt I’d ever make them, but it was fun playing around with ideas.)
* Stressed about that mis-addressed sock yarn order, and how the shop hasn’t emailed me since last Wednesday.
* Wrote lists.
I’m a bit of a list addict. Sometimes I’ll write a list of things to do, then rewrite it each time I finish something on the list. When I write lists of knitting projects, I’ll usually write at least two.
You see, no one knitting list ever covers everything I want to know. A list of the things I need to have can be completely different to the one of projects I want to do. Or the projects waiting in the stash.
Yesterday I started with a list of projects waiting in the stash, and included a list of things I need. Then I copied that into a new document and sorted them into a “Priority List”. I listed the projects I’d most like to tackle and finish next, then divided them up over the next five months.
Then I decided this might be better titled “The Wishful Thinking” list.
But there was another purpose to doing it this way. To combat hand pain, I decided I needed to have a weaving project listed under each month. Some knitting projects, I realised, might be better done in crochet or weaving. If I can vary the sorts of hand movements I make, I might have less problems.
Then I decided that spending hours making lists was a sure sign that not knitting was making me a tad obsessive. Last night, after weaving the first coffee-coloured stripe of the Mocha blanket, I actually knit a little on the chocolate socks, finishing the heel flap. My hands were a little stiff, but not sore. I think the rest has done me some good… physically. Not sure about the brain, though. Looking at the doodles I did yesterday, I may just have been edging on madness.
I don’t think I should comment on your lists there. They are mighty …. organised.
I’m far more free form – buy a whole heap of unrelated yarn, cast on a whole heap of unrelated projects all at once, leave them all over the house and then freak out because none of your knitting ever amounts to anything.
My mum is an obsessively organised and tidy person. My dad is messy and an ‘accumulater’ (as opposed to a collector, who has at least got a reason to keep things). I didn’t end up halfway between, but instead have Jekyll and Hyde mood swings that allow me to make messes, then clean them up, then make messes, then clean them up, then … you get the picture.
So with yarn I buy stuff that I’ll find a use for, or design stuff to buy yarn for, and every couple of months I get it all together and come up with a plan.
Which I may or may not stick to. One thing you learn growing up with parents like that, is that being one extreme or the other is no fun at all in the long run.
See that makes me feel better cause I am like that too with organising – Jekyll and Hyde.