Knitting is how I calm down, how I make time to reflect, and how I keep my fingers busy while I am listening to an episode of This American Life or binge watching TV shows (one more season of Buffy to go!).
When I am in a stress-relieving product-knitting mode, the sweet nothings are perfect.
When I am in a stress-relieving process-knitting mode, I need a blanket to work on.
I discovered this fact my junior year of college. It was a busy, busy year, my craziest yet. I had no time to drag along a pattern book or consult a chart. I also had a ton of medium-sized balls of yarn leftover from previous projects, and my favorite circular needle free. So, I started knitting a shawl with the nearest ball of yarn I had at hand. When it ran out, I grabbed another, and another.
Pretty soon, I had a project that needed to be carried around in its own bag. Even when I was only halfway through, it was a little lap blanket as I worked on it, and raised quite a few eyebrows. But it was exactly what I needed--a no pressure project that I could continue for as long or as short as I wanted--and I could always put it down with no fear of losing my place if I picked it up a day or a month later.
It was fantastic, and I spent the whole school year bouncing between little, more intricate projects and the blanket before I decided it was time to cast off. This is the end result.
I have gotten a lot of use out of it; when I did research last summer, the place I worked was very chilly. I began to bring a sweater everyday, despite the 85-95 degree temperature outside. When the sweater didn't help, I threw my blanket in the bag as well. It did the trick--and it was fun to have all the vestiges from different projects keep me company as I worked.
I don't have a project like that presently, but I can feel a big process-knitting mode coming on; we'll see where it takes me!
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