Stuck in traffic.

That’s the closest I can come, metaphor-wise, to what’s happened with the designing lately, and the knitting in general, and the blog. It’s all starting to sound like excuses to me at this point; I need to just write.

I had a big thoughtful post all planned about the mental traffic jam that’s been holding me up, and inspiration v work, and a whole lot of other nonsense, and it’s all fled from me. I think my biggest mental block is that at some point I stopped thinking of myself as a designer and started thinking of myself as someone who used to design, back when life allowed me to.

I’m calling bullshit on myself for that one.

There are really for real things that I’m struggling with right now…my health’s still lousy, and I just changed jobs again, and I have three very active kids and an ex and a current partner who has his own family problems and I feel like I’m stretched so thin you ought to be able to see right through me. I’m still not all that good at working in the 10 or 15 minute spaces that are all I can seem to create some days, and I’m great at letting myself get crowded back out of the longer spaces I try to create, and I wonder sometimes how much I want to do this, given how damned hard it is for me to manage everything I’ve already got on my plate.

But every time I come back to it and ask myself that question, the answer is desperately. I can’t think of a damned thing I’d rather do. I love it, love working out the stitches and discovering how a yarn behaves and watching something brand new take shape under my hands. I love the way it feels to concentrate completely, and I love knowing that other people enjoy the results of my work. It’s insanely rewarding for me on so many levels.

Sometimes I step back and I think to myself, it’s only crochet, it’s only knitting, what does it matter?. But you know what? It matters. It matters to a hell of a lot of people, and it matters to me, too. It’s beautiful and practical and it brings us joy. And that joy carries meaning, even if it’s something as simple as bringing a smile to my face when I wash my dishes.

I have an odd feeling that I’ll be up earlier than otherwise in the morning. I think I have a swatch that needs my attention.