Knitting Mojo

I love to knit, I find it really relaxing to just sit and knit while you’re watching TV or reading on the Kindle or something. But recently I kind of lost my knitting mojo.

I couldn’t decide what I wanted to knit. I have about a hundred knitting pattern books and so have somewhere in the region of several thousand options for things that I could potentially knit. And not one of them had anything I actually wanted to knit. Not even Ravelry, with all those millions of patterns, held anything of interest for me.

It wasn’t like I missed it much either. I’d just acquired my Wreck This Journal and Finish This Book as well as my new rat babies, so I had plenty to be occupying myself with. Not to mention the fact that I had the freedom to read whatever I wanted for the first time in quite a while (well, without worrying about falling behind on my coursework). And I’d gotten a brand new phone.

These are all kind of excuses for not feeling like knitting. I think a large part of it is because knitting is such a great tool for procrastination. When I should be studying, knitting is a great alternative because it’s not just like sitting playing on your phone or reading a book; there’s an actual end result, so it doesn’t look or feel like you’re procrastinating.

Except you are. And you know it.

Now I don’t have any coursework to get done by a particular deadline, I’ve got loads of free time to knit and my mojo up and left.

I did a bit of knitting, but my heart wasn’t in it. In the end I decided that it was silly to keep falling over knitting stuff in the bedroom if I wasn’t going to do anything with it. So I sat in bed one night just over a week ago and looked through all my Jean Greenhowe pattern books. Eventually I decided that I wanted to make something from the Knitted Animals booklet through that extremely technical method better known as ‘Eeny Meeny Miny Mo’. Then I passed it to Mr Click to get him to select a pattern.

Duck family from Jean Greenhowe.com

He chose the knitted duck family. And this is one of my completed ducklings:

The family consists of two ducklings, each wearing a little bobble hat, a baby who is still in its shell, the mum and the dad. Thus far I’m part way through my second duckling and I’m going to have to make some alterations to the parents because I’ve not got very much white yarn left.

I've already finished, but not photographed the girl duckling and at the time of writing this post I'd finished knitting, but not sewing up her hat. These ducklings make for a nice instant gratification project because they're so quick to knit up and look dead cute.

But I’m enjoying being able to knit again and I’m determined not to lose my mojo again. I’ve got lots and lots of yarn to use up!