I don’t know why lately but knitting has been super low on the priority list lately. Maybe its gardening season, maybe its utter exhaustion due to my job. Normally the knitting helps with stress but I’ve been rather disinterested in it lately. I’m sure this will change once we head off to the cottage next weekend. Cottage is always great knitting time. I think I just need to find a project that doesn’t feel like a slog. I have two on the needles (one of which I started last summer) but they’re both seeming rather impossible at the moment. I’m thinking it might be time for socks again (I have a ridiculous amount of stashed sock yarn). I’m not totally sold on the idea though…

After the great success of the felted cloche, I felt like I wanted to play around some more with felting. I bought a bunch of Paton’s Classic Wool for this purpose, and decided to try to make a felted tote, for my friend Larissa’s extra special birthday, of which the year number will remain a well kept secret.

Even something this simple felt like a bit of slog though and I just couldn’t stay interested. I had plenty of time but because I slacked off on it so much I had to finish it in a huge rush to have it ready in time for the big day.

I finished it at 12:30 a.m. on the last evening of free time I could depend on before her birthday, so I had to throw it in the machine right then. Because of that, I couldn’t really keep an eye on it and pull it out before it shrunk too much. As a result it shrunk by as much as 75%, and while it looks terrific, it’s not really a tote anymore. It’s more like a cute handbag.

I’d like to try again and I have more wool to do so, but I think I need to shelve the idea until I’m feeling more motivated. I need to make something small and instantly gratifying, and probably something more for me than anyone (a lot of my knitting has been for gifts and I’m thinking knitting burn out is probably a big part of my problem.

This is the first time in years and years I’ve felt disinterested in knitting. I really do think its because so much of my energy is going into growing things, but its also been a challenging spring, and I think I’m a little off my game so to speak. I miss my big dog for one thing, something terrible, which was expected but I didn’t really know how I’d deal with it. I know, I know, knitting makes everything easier to cope with, and that is normally true for me too. But lately… not so much…