Weekend Crochet

Starting my giant granny square blanket was a good life choice. I was really mentally burnt out when I started it, and progress on it definitely slowed down when I started getting my creative energy back, but it’s so nice to have a relaxing long term project like this. When I haven’t run the numbers on a new sweater design, or when I’m not in the mood to pick up stitches and start shaping a sleeve cap, it’s nice to have my blanket on hand to work on without having to think much.

Sweaters used to be that kind of relaxing long term project for me, but now I churn them out so quickly that they no longer have that leisurely long term feeling for me. I knit a sweater in about a week last Christmas. It was a serious a challenge for me to knit one in such a short period of time because I’m not really a fast knitter, but it really showed me how much I’ve sped up because sweaters used to be projects that took me months to finish. If I had a sweater on my needles, I rarely had to worry about running out of knitting, but now I try to plan 2-3 sweaters out so I know what to knit next. It’s nice to always have my blanket on hand for when I want something familiar and simple to work on.

I recently started my last skein of the white yarn. I was planning on being done when I ran out of yarn, but I haven’t even touched some of the second skeins of the contrast colors, so I think I’ll be adding at least two skeins of white yarn. I’m confident that I’ll have enough yarn to complete the third set of stripes, and I think I might even be able to crochet a fourth stripe of yellow and blue if I get more white. When I started this I was hoping to get it done by about this time of year, but now I don’t even care when it’s done which is such a weird thing for me. Even though it’s getting colder, as each row on my blanket gets longer I feel less of a focus on trying to get it done when I work on it because being done seems so immeasurably far away. Finishing, having my FO, and starting something new probably make up half of my motivation to get a project done, but that’s no longer the case with this blanket. It’s just so pleasant to shut off my brain and double crochet around and around!