Finishing Up

It’s Day 7 of the 3rd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week! We made it!!

The final topic this year concerns balancing the crafts of knitting and crochet.

Well, I can’t say that I am all that balanced when it comes to the two crafts.  I can do some crochet.  But I’m definitely not as comfortable with that as knitting.  I don’t think that I couldn’t conquer that if I wanted to.  I’m just not in love with crochet.  I know…Stinky Lady.  I have seen a ton of crocheted projects where I’ve thought, “That’s amazing!”  But if the last project I crocheted was in 2010, I think it’s safe to say it’s not really a pursuit.  I use my hook mainly for picking up dropped stitches.  What can I say?  I like what I like. And knowing yourself is just part of life.

On the other hand, I love knitting patterns!  But the best thing about them is, I don’t feel I have to follow one to make something I want.  I can enjoy the freedom of making up something as I go with the seemingly endless combinations of just two simple stitches. Now, when I do that, sometimes it works out right off.  Sometimes there’s some trial and error.  Still, I suppose I loved knitting enough to get to that point.  That says a lot.

If there was ever any craft that threatened my knitting time, I think you might know it by now.  Yup.  It would have to be handspinning.  I adore it. I believe it has a lot of the qualitites of knitting in that it relaxes me and allows me time to mull over and contemplate things.  But it does seem to have a life of its own.  After all, it takes me a few days (sometimes more) to spin a project.  Life gets in the way and before you know it, you’ve spent a week or even months spinning on the same project! Truth be told, the same happens with knitting.  But, I like spinning so much, I know by now, it’s an activity that’s around for the long haul.  So, I tend to try to balance the time out for both activities by knitting with my spinning projects.  Now, I don’t feel that’s necessary to feel fulfilled with spinning.  I’ll never look at an unused handspun skein and say, “Well, that was a colossal waste of time!”  The act itself is really enough.  But to feed my inner knitter, it just makes sense to knit up what I spin.  So, they kind of feed into each other and I like it that way.

In fact, if you’ve followed along, these pics are the finished photos of the mittens and hat for the Girl Child made with mostly my own handspun (well almost finished-they’re still unblocked).  The yarn for the accent color is by Brown Sheep. She really didn’t like posing for those photos earlier on while it was still a WIP. But, when I finished one and put it on her hand, I could tell she thought it was pretty cool. ;)

In short, I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting a kick out of knitting with my own yarn.

I mean, how cool is that?!!!