Read from the Beginning

Ribbed Stitch: When You Can’t Follow Instructions 

Erica, Free

This is just a simple combination of stitches I already know. Why did I choose to knit a 2×2 ribbing in a cotton yarn that has very little flexibility? Because I wanted to start a new swatch but I didn’t want to follow instructions. The first two swatches were more like a warm up, a very basic reintroduction to knitting, which was nice. I feel ready to move on to something more advanced, something that keeps my hands busy while I watch TV, but I don’t have enough energy to read instructions. 

Work has been such a drain on me lately. I had to deal with a particularly ornery customer today. They wanted an update on their order status, which I can understand, but we just didn’t have the items in stock. We should have had the items in stock and we should have notified the customer that the items were delayed. I also should have known the items were delayed as the person designated to answer customer calls. But no one tells me anything AND I’m not allowed to pass calls on to anyone who is actually responsible. 

It’s worth clarifying, by the time someone calls, there’s nothing anyone can actually do unless we somehow have their items in the building to be screenprinted or embroidered. I can check to see if we have the items in the building, but chances are we have the base item for a different order. If we do have the items, I can find out where they are in the queue but I can’t change the queue. And I can’t do anything about who ordered them and why they were ordered so late because I don’t do the ordering, and I’m not allowed to forward calls to the person who does. I tried to put together a report showing the correlation between the orders we are getting complaints on and the time it took us to order for our supplier, but my boss does not care at all. 

That’s why I come home from work and, instead of working on a new stitch, I am knitting a small sample swatch out of yarn that has no elasticity. It’s not really what I want to be doing, but it is what it is.

-Erica

Refreshing Reads: When you need something distracting and different

Carolyn, Free

As much as Bridget annoys me, she has someone who is recommending good books to her. The last few books she has read were quite a departure from her normal reading. I’m not sure who this person is, but I do know that she gets her books from the library and she does not take them with her when she leaves for work, which means I get to read the books while she is gone.

I will be reviewing the books here. These won’t be full-scale book reviews, just enough to bring your attention to an interesting book. And I want to be clear, I will only be reviewing the books that I find interesting, regardless of when they were published. These are not going to be sponsored reviews meant to drive sales numbers or boost the popularity of a new book. This is just meant to highlight a title that is new to me that I find somehow interesting. If you want to read any of these books, I recommend getting them from your local library.

-Carolyn

Brioche Stitch

Brioche Stitch: New Things Are Exhausting

Erica, Free

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. That’s because I’ve been so exhausted that when I get home, all I have the energy to do is sit on the couch and watch TV until I fall asleep. I want to be knitting, but it’s hard to learn something new at the end of the day. 

Honestly, it’s always been hard for me to learn new things. I’m not sure why. A lot of things come naturally to me and so I’m not used to it when things don’t. And when I say a lot of things come naturally, I mean at a surface level. I’m definitely a jack of all trades, master of none type of person. All that to say, the brioche stitch was a bit of a challenge. 

The brioche stitch was a good place to start. It was something I’d never tried before, but always wanted to. And the instructions were nice and repetitive. Once I got the feel for it, it was smooth sailing. I really like how it turned out, and I’m excited to make some patterns that include this stitch in the figure.

The swatch has some mistakes, but I decided not to go back and redo it. I like the reminder that I was learning and wasn’t perfect. Plus, now I know what to look for in the future and can understand what happened and how to fix it. It’s a nice, low-stakes way to get used to imperfection.

-Erica

Cats Read Your Tarot Cards

Free, Harry and Dash

A new question, this time from a friend: What is my biggest obstacle right now and how do I move past it?

The cards: Ten of Cups Reversed (I forgot to take a picture for this one and the next one)

Harry’s Answer: Your biggest obstacle this year is an interpersonal one. Someone you thought you were close to will expose themselves as a fair weather friend. This happens as people get older and lives evolve. It will feel like a betrayal at first, but try not to take it as such. That will only sink you into a dark spiral. Treasure the friends you have. Make new ones. Put your best self forward. Living well is the best revenge.

Dash’s Answer: This is why it helps to always be on your guard. I don’t mean never letting anyone in (not for you, at least. But that is how I operate). I just mean that people change, even if you’ve known them for a while. Treat every interaction as an opportunity to learn more about the person you’re interacting with and when you learn something that changes your mind about them, be open to it. It will help you in the long run, I promise.

-Harry and Dash

Cable Stitch Swatch

Cable Stitch: Being Money Poor and Time Poor

Erica, Free

One reason I started this project is because I’m a little short on funds right now. Like most of the world, my salary has not kept pace with increased prices and I don’t have as much money for fun stuff. That includes both activities outside of home and spending money on my hobbies. This swatchbook is nice because I had already bought the yarn and I’m using instructions I can find for free on the internet. (I did buy a small kit of knitting supplies because I didn’t have a cable needle)

The trouble is, I’m time poor in addition to being money poor. I do so many things myself since I can’t afford to buy stuff or outsource the parts of my life I don’t want to do. Meal prepping takes time. Shopping around for the best deal on things I actually need takes time. And of course, maintaining the possessions I already have so I don’t need to buy new ones takes time. 

Then, I have my actual hobbies. In some cases, I purposely chose time-intensive hobbies so that I don’t accumulate as much stuff. My first foray into knitting resulted in more scarves than I knew what to do with, but no desire to learn a more advanced technique. Now, I’m committed to learning new things so that I can actually make things I want to wear, and possibly things I wouldn’t be able to afford on my own. But I don’t have the time anymore. I wish I’d been a little more disciplined and determined when I was younger and had less to worry about. But we can’t go back in time. Only forward. 

Anyway, cable stitch. I can do it now. I tried with the cotton yarn and that was a bit of a bust, but luckily I had some spare acrylic yarn from a past project and that worked out great! I’ve always wanted to knit a cable sweater and knit interesting designs into the cables. Now I’m one teeny tiny step closer! 

-Erica

Strawberries in a bowl

The First Harvest: An Exercise in Reframing

Ella, Free

Another post that I meant to publish a lot sooner when it would have been much more relevant.

Planting a garden often leads to visions of abundance and self-sufficiency. For every container of strawberries Erica buys at the grocery store while her own very small strawberries are ripening, I know she envisions herself filling one of these containers with her own strawberries. 

This is almost never the case with a garden of that size. There’s not enough sun, the soil is not fertile, no matter how much she does to improve it, and the space allotted to her is fairly small. In her head, she knows this, but that does not stop the dreams of harvests abundant enough to put a dent in her grocery bills. 

Nevertheless, Erica was delighted by her first harvest of eight tiny strawberries. I had braced myself for the disappointed meltdown. It is so easy, when everything else is letting you down, to prop all your hopes and dreams on one aspect of your life. But instead, Erica found the joy in her eight little strawberries that together probably weigh as much as one grocery store strawberry. Instead of trying to replace her groceries with her garden food, she chose to see these little ones as a bonus. An extra treat in her day that made her look forward to coming home from work every night.

-Ella

The Second Harvest: At Least Someone’s Eating

Ella, Free

Erica’s reaction to her meager first harvest was commendable. I had hoped her second harvest would be even more bountiful to buoy her spirits, but that hasn’t been the case. There are many reasons for this, some environmental and some personal

On the environmental side, the light there isn’t great. It’s partially blocked by her neighbors garage, her own building, and the trash cans. There’s also the fact that squirrels and opossums have found the garden and have fewer compunctions about eating unripe fruit. We’ve also had a drought earlier this summer which certainly hampered growth. 

Erica and I aren’t completely without responsibility either, though. She’s had a lot going on lately. Between work, her health, and just living her life, she’s had a lot to deal with. Standing outside for 20 minutes on a 90 degree night and watering her garden. She also was a little overzealous in her planting and now the garden is difficult to move around in and some plants are crowding each other out. 

She seems okay with it, though. Despite a relatively high start up cost compared to her other projects. Some of it is just a learning experience, certain things just don’t grow well in her yard, maybe a bush tomato would be better next year, fresh kale is great, but it’s hard to keep the caterpillars off it. Plus, the strawberries are in the ground now. They’ll be there forever no matter what she does. 

It can be hard to see a new project fall into neglect, especially one you were so excited about. But sometimes that’s necessary in order to attend to more important needs. Erica dreams of growing her own food. She’s at least trying a little. But she also doesn’t have adequate time or ideal space. She also needs to take care of her mind and body first.

I also haven’t been as helpful as I could have been. I’ve been more focused on helping Erica with things like cleaning and meal prep than gardening. She’s in a good place with all that now. And Jane is helping her. So now it’s my turn to tend to something I’ve been neglecting. 

-Ella

Linen Stitch

Linen Stitch: Don’t Let an Arbitrary Moment Dictate the Start of Something New

Erica, Free

Or at least, choose your own arbitrary moment to start something new.

I did it again. I fell for the oldest trick in the book. I hoped that a single arbitrary moment in the infinite passage of time would completely change me as a person. My New Year’s Resolutions were lofty, and naive. There is so much I want to change, but so much that is also outside of my control. RIght after the new year, work picked up and I had to work a bunch of overtime. All the overtime made me sick, and even though I’m better, I’m still just tired. 

So, I came up with some … I don’t know …. I don’t want to call them resolutions. I guess some long-term, gradual goals that will hopefully help me feel like I’m accomplishing something and help me have a more positive outlook on life. 

  1. Keep working on this swatchbook. I’m really enjoying learning all these new stitches. Eventually, I’ll make a cover and move on to bigger projects that involve these stitches, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m done. I’ll be building my repertoire as long as I’m knitting. 
  2. Obligatory less screen time goal. But I’m not going to look at the numbers. That has never worked for me. What I’ve realized is that I turn to things like the TV and my phone when I’m feeling overwhelmed, but they also overwhelm me. The antidote to being overwhelmed isn’t to choose what overwhelms me, but to break things down into smaller tasks and remove stimuli until I feel better. I’m going to try to internalize that.
  3. Exercise more often, but in smaller amounts. Obviously, exercise is a very personal thing, and I’m not unique in having a fraught relationship with it. I have a lot of trouble establishing a consistent routine because I get either sick or exhausted so easily. I want to get a simple routine that at least gets me moving every day to help me through those periods instead of hoping they will go away. 
  4. Identify the barriers when I feel stuck. I get stuck so easily. Either I feel overwhelmed, or I’m tired, or not feeling well, or it actually is something external that I have to deal with but don’t want to. Sometimes it’s as simple as telling myself “you’re just tired, go to bed.” or “you don’t have to clean, just change the litter boxes.” But other times, it’s more complicated. If I take a second to think “What specific obstacle am I facing now?” and focus on that, rather than the larger end goal, maybe I won’t feel as overwhelmed.

How is it that I’m feeling more hopeful for the year in February after a truly awful January? I don’t know. I just hope (lol) that I can keep it up!

-Erica