barriers breached

braving the barricade – barricaded bravery

Usually, I blog when I have some crochet related news.  Today, I have not.  Well, that is not entirely true, I do have a new baby blanket to show cast, but not really, because even though it is finished and ready, it is meant to be a surprise, so broadcasting it here now may kind of lessen the impact of the present received unexpectedly that I am going for.  The person I have made it for, well, two people, both mother and baby, might not read the blog or see the pictures, but I would know, and I would then question if my impatience of showing this crochet baby blanket off would be worth spoiling the surprise.  To compromise, let’s do a half way through two project post in its stead…  

I have been posting a lot of Instagram posts under #ispycrochet, which is my favourite game to play when I am watching any TV show, programme or film.  I pause the TV, no matter how involved in the events on the screen I am, and i take a photo of the one thing that is standing out to me in that moment – a significantly visible piece of crochet.  

It seems that crochet definitely IS everywhere… 

Recently, after watching a significant amount of sci-fi series, re-watching old favourites and finding new favourites, I find myself wondering, at random times in the day/s, whether I will actually be able to ever capture an image which brings together my two big interests: sci-fi and crochet. 

Other than, of course, in the context of me watching sci-fi whilst making crochet.  Then I remembered:  There has already has been one…  Can you find it in my old INSTAGRAM posts?  Why crochet should not appear in the future, or our current expectation of the futuristic world, I am not sure.

I have been back to crochet, since my last blog post, but I am finding that I am flitty.  I have two projects currently on the go, and I am changing and swapping from one to the other.  Not sure why, not even sure what the drive is, I am very unpredictable when I work in general, and particularly at the moment.  And as I might have mentioned before, I get bored easily.  I know from how eager I am to finish a project, how well it is suited to me. 

I wanted to challenge myself on this. 

The two projects I am currently chewing my way through are both an attempt at plain crochet treble (UK terminology) rows.  In a blanket setting, and to make modular crochet jumper.  And, I do feel I have come to a point where I have basically worked out how to keep the correct amount of stitches so that the work is even, and there are no unexplained alien abductions of trebles along the way.  Full disclosure: I was not able to keep the same number of stitches when crocheting trebles in a line at the start of this project.  I had to count them each row, and if I have to count, well then there is no point continuing, because I cannot lose myself in the meditative action that, for example working granny square style stitch always brings me eventually.  But I wanted more, I wanted to overcome this hurdle, and be able to find the rules that make it possible for me to automate my crochet process with this stitch pattern as i do with others.  And I suppose, it is an achievement in itself to say, that I think I’ve finally got it….  I am proud, because making a blanket and a jumper this way will mean less holes and therefore even more warmth…

Again, it is not true I have not finished a blanket between now and my last post, but this one I am keeping under wraps for now, as it is a present that I am wanting to give as soon as it is appropriate, so I have only included a very partial photo below.  I am very pleased with it and I may even write something close to a pattern for it.  Pattern writing has been a chore, always, and even though I have lots of novel ideas, I find it very difficult to actually take any time away from that which I want to do, to spend time tediously writing patterns. Time that I could be spending not learning to play the guitar or improving on my little teach-yourself-Spanish adventure… Maybe writing crochet patterns will become my next obstacle to overcome, we shall see.

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I do do New Years… 

I struggle in the winter.  It’s a dark, overly reflective time for me, and everything seems to be a little bit harder as it gets dark a little bit earlier each night.  New year’s winter sun, which comes once the end of the year is over, and once my birthday comes and goes, brings a new hope.  I am ready to plan anew, I am ready to set things in place and think of intentions. I am ready for the new cycle.  No matter how freezing, if there is sunshine in the air, I start smelling spring.  And it does, inevitably get warmer each time the sun does come out! I will take half a degree Celsius per day, quite joyfully.

There was something else that I finally felt properly in my whole self, very recently. You know, how sometimes we hear words, and they only sink in when we are ready and prepared to understand them properly…  My realisation about the new year’s sun being my favourite moment of hopefulness lead to another realisation: If you think of the year as cyclical, and if you, like me, struggle with the wintery evenings… 

No matter how hard it seems, how impossible you are feeling, winter will eventually be replaced by spring!

Thank You for reading.

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