It cracks me up a bit that I would even consider it appropriate to post a picture of perhaps one of the more unkempt areas of my daily life. Ha! This is my projects in process corner. Or perhaps it is more accurate for me to call it my active projects in process corner. There a quite a few more that haven't been worked on for so long that they are now tucked a way out of view. Like, for instance, that beautiful alphabet embroidery sampler that I began 2+ years ago? Why yes, I am still on the C. I do want to learn how to embroider, and I do want to learn to sew well, and I do want to make and make and make. But the truth is: I barely have time to knit.
Which, of course, you know and I know is absolutely not true. Not exactly anyway. I would love to have more time to knit but I am pretty sure that if I did have more time that I wouldn't use that time for knitting. I would use it for the things that I love a little more than knitting. Not to negate knittings role in my life. I love it. I am passionate about it. I have a relative degree of skill at it. And perhaps, most importantly for me, and what brings it most to life for me, is that it is one of my primary connections to my matriarchal lineage. I come from a long line of handworkers. On both sides really, but the crafters on my mother's side are so pronounced that they are my connection.
My Granny passed away when I was 19. She had been a long time knitter and needlepointer and when she passed had a stack of unfinished projects (like any devout knitter!). My mom and her 2 sisters divied them all up and got to work completing them for her. I think that the year that my grandmother was passing was the year in which I really learned how to knit. We would all sit together, aunts, cousins, sibblings, and we would make things with our hands. It connected us. It breathed life into the fabric of our family. It allowed us to grieve and it made us whole.
Now, almost 20 years later, that is still what we do when we are together. We love each other through our craft. It is not perfect, I know, but it is our way. (I have been through my fair share of therapy to relearn effective ways to communicate, love, express etc... and I still savor the antiquated sweetness of this gift of my family.)
So, why not enough time? Why not enough love for the craft? Simple. There are things I love a bit more. So I allocate more time for those things. I had to learn the lesson of that. That not everything that sparks my interest or even my delight are the things that I should give my time to. And that was a hard lesson for me. I am so Vata, as I think I have shared before, and spreading myself thin is my jam. I excel there! And I have simply had to learn that in order to give myself to something and develop mastery there, I have had to make choices.
I like to practice yoga. I like to teach it, read about it, think about it, write about it. I like to be outside in almost any capacity: walking, biking, gardening, splashing around in lakes and swimming holes. I like to grow and prepare food. I like to explore the world both near and far with my children and husband. And I like to knit. But mostly in the late evenings after the kids are asleep or on Holiday with my mom, and sometimes, sometimes, on a lazy Sunday morning on my porch.