Last fall, I picked up crocheting again for the first time in several years. Got hooked. (Heh heh.) Made several items very quickly. Learned to knit. Made a couple things there too. Basically, got obsessed and had yarn in hand basically every day for five months.
And then, sometime around February of this year, I just...stopped. With three projects in the works -- one a simple little cowl mostly in stockinette. One, my first sweater for myself, mostly in garter stitch at the moment (the February Lady Sweater). One, a cute scarf working cables in crochet. None of these are particularly intimidating projects, yet somehow, I find myself scared to pick them up, scared of messing them up. When I think about yarn now, the only thing that doesn't seem scary is maybe crocheting a little baby afghan in dc -- something so simple and small that I can't mess it up. And my daughter just doesn't need any more blankets, dangit. And I don't know the gender of our new baby yet, so not sure what to make for it. Plus, I don't know that the solution to having three unfinished projects hanging over my head (one an overdue birthday present) is to start a fourth project!
I know this feeling. I get it when I haven't written for a while, this fear and tension that I have to just push through to start again. I think this is what some people call writer's block. Is there such a thing as knitter's block? crocheter's block? I've never had this happen to me with crafting before, and it's weirding me out, people. I think maybe it's because I care more about the yarn than about any of my previous short-lived craft endeavors?
I'm going to actually go over to my table now and pick up the stupid yarn. That's the only way I know to get through this kind of mental nonsense. See, I do know how to fix this problem myself, at least in theory. I promise to do a few stiches this morning. At least five, okay? Five stitches. It's ridiculous that I have to say it out loud to make myself do five stitches. But if I didn't embarrass myself by posting about it, I know I wouldn't have actually done it, and I would have gone another week, or month, or year, with those three projects just sitting, accusingly, on my dining table.
So thanks for listening, and for not laughing too hard.
I wonder whether this is related to the crash after a project is finished phenomenon that you mentioned earlier. I am coming to believe that the writer’s block I get in actually writing up the results of mathematical research that I have finished is based on fear of such a crash when I am done. No doubt the crash is far less acute when finishing a yarn project, but I wonder if such a factor might be a sufficient disincentive to stymie actual work on a project. I think it is for me.
Maybe it’s a winter sport? I haven’t made anything except those two easter bunnies in a while, and they took forever, when they should not have. Oh! I posted those pics on FB. Need to do that.