This has been the first year that I have not slacked off much on my knitting/crocheting for the summer, although it is somewhat out of necessity for me at this point. I am not particularly fast with the stitches and have a few projects with deadlines coming up: 2 that are gifts for next week which I finished today, one for next month, and I am already getting requests for Christmas. The other reason is that the work is relaxing and therapeutic when going well and work has been stressful so I have needed the outlet. My plans for seeing totality fell through too, but we got sun and a good percentage here so I got some fun pics, I will post tomorrow when I get them off the camera. 2024 it's on though!
I did knit a couple of baby hats a few weeks ago for my coworkers who are having a baby in October, but that's been the only real FO I've felt like I needed to finish, and baby hats are not much of a time commitment. Every year I think I'm not going to procrastinate any Christmas knitting but I always do. This year I don't plan on doing any, and if any gets done then that's just a bonus. I definitely understand the therapeutic aspect of keeping the hands busy. I've kind of been in a weird funk lately and need to -make- something. With the cross-stitching I get to fulfill that need to create. I've been really enjoying seeing peoples' pictures of the eclipse, so I'm looking forward to seeing yours too! In 2024 Keifer and I are going someplace where we don't have to travel the day of to see totality. Possibly somewhere in Texas, but the path is so open to possibilities that we have some time to plan.
Cross stitching is rad, and I always liked the finished products I made a lot better than things which I had knit. Easier to undo mistakes, and it felt a bit more portable to me. That being said, i really like the physical sensation of knitting. It's mindless in the best way possible, at least when you're only knitting variations on a rectangle, like I do. I had some truly stupendous anxiety during the home stretch of my senior year of college, and was knitting about 2 scarves a day for 2 months. It was a small thing, but knowing that I was actively creating something every day made the bigger problems feel a lot more manageable.
Have you ever tried crochet? Has the ability to mindless like knitting once you get used to it, but also has the ability to easily undo mistakes, as you only have one live stitch at a time (unless you're doing Tunisian). Plus it is, I think, easier to do circular and other shapes with crochet (see the Crochet Coral Reef: http://crochetcoralreef.org/ if you want to be amazed at what can be done with yarn).