Confessions of a Wayward Knitter

I have a confession to make... I have at least five active, incomplete knitting projects. That's right: incomplete. Most of them are nearly complete, but they are still incomplete. In fact, I have not completed a knitting project since June 1.

During the past few months, I have been knitting, and it has been a true balm for my soul. But my energies have been so unfocused, completion fiber-wise seems to elude me.

My unfinished Spencer sweater sits patiently on the work table in my studio; a light summer shawl hangs lazily on the back of a rocking chair.

A fabulous grey bag sits bundled by my bed awaiting its final decrease rows and shaping; and the feather & fan shawl that taught me the limits of knitting in church is tucked inside my tote bag for knitting on the go.

We all know that the creative arts are healing. And in my quest to rebuild, it seems as if I have been searching for an artistic quick-fix, something that I can do in a few short hours and achieve the endorphin rush that comes with completing something created by your own hand. A pick me up as it were.

So to that end, I started sewing, drawing, decoupaging and watercoloring. I even contemplated sculpture.

I joined a sewing class and finished my very first project...a tote bag! Unfortunately, the teacher went on vacation, and won't be back until October. I was supposed to be working on a quilting project in the meantime, but I got started drawing, and got distracted.

I found that I enjoy drawing, and I did some rather creative images, but a friend of my was extolling the virtues of watercolor pencils and as you can guess I jumped on that bandwagon!

I enjoy watercoloring with the pencils, but I want to learn how to do it "for real" like with brushes and everything. So I am trying to find an affordable class that works with my schedule otherwise, I will have to watch the videos on the Internet, but I dont think that will be the same.

In the meantime I turned to decoupage. I found a box of 2-inch square tiles by a neighbors house and thought they would be great to decoupage and turn into magnets. What fun! ...now what do I do with them?

Then I realized that the third anniversary of my Quit date is coming up. As of December 10, 2009, I would have NOT smoked 21,000 cigarettes. Can you believe it! Can you imagine what 21,000 cigarettes would look like?

Well I wanted to create that visual. So I set out to collect 21,000 cigarette butts to create a sculpture. OK, now while it seemed intriguing conceptually, it presented several challenges practically. First, picking up other peoples cigarette butts is nasty. Second, they stink to high heaven even if you keep them in a Ziploc bag in the garage. And can you imagine how long it will take to collect 21,000 cigarette butts!!!

No, in the end, I realized that I have been multitasking, which of course translates to not getting very much done over a long period of time. So I here and now, I am committing myself to finishing the aforementioned knitting projects first. And once I have done so, I will then move on to some of the other activities.

I think I will continue to pursue the sewing, drawing and watercoloring though, but with proper training and the appropriate amount of time dedicated to each craft.

Ta,

Eryka