In The Middle

I am familiar with being in the middle. Born the middle of three daughters, I am of the opinion that the middle is a great place to be. At the very time that I was driving my older sister crazy, I knew exactly how she felt because my little sister was doing the same to me. When I was a jerk to my little sister, I knew what she was going through because my older sister had treated me the same way. This has given me a unique perspective on life, and I feel it has made me better able to see different points of view, and has made me a more compassionate person. However. Being in the middle is not always the best thing.

Anyone who has ever undertaken a lengthy project can attest to this: the middle sucks. You've already figured out how to accomplish what you need to, and now you've lost interest completely. You've already put hours/days/weeks/months of work into it, with the same or more left yet to do. What once was exciting and new is now boring as hell, and the idea of stabbing yourself in the eye with a spoon is preferable to spending one more minute on this stupid godforsaken project that you never wanted to start in the first place.

I have now been working on my Capstone project for two months, and we have two months left to go. And it shows. Morale is low, motivation is even lower, and the stress and craziness of finishing school and finding a job is sucking up all the time and energy we have, leaving none behind to work on our project. As producer, I am tasked with getting my team out of this bog, while I'm drowning in it right alongside them. I'm in it so deep it's hard to see the way out, and harder still to drum up the motivation to start the long, hard slog. So what's a girl to do? As with most things in life, I turn to knitting.

Looking around my apartment, I see a dozen projects that are waiting patiently for me to finish them after I put them down for 'a short break' during that boring middle section. Here's my wall of shame:

The beginning of a sweater.

A scarf I started last week.

A scarf to match some fingertip-less gloves I made.

Detail

A lace scarf I started in high school.

A lace shawl started several years ago.

A lonely mitten.

A silk scarf for my mother.

Same scarf for my mother.

Musical gloves for my mother - sorry Mom!

The sleeve from the Sweater from Hell - look for this
again in an upcoming post!

Had to bring knitting to see Star Wars
Episode 1 in 3D, and this was it.

I only got this far because I ran out of yarn :(

So clearly, I have been defeated by the dreaded middle a time or two in my day - this doesn't even cover the projects sitting at my parent's house! So, here are my three tips for getting over the hump and actually finishing projects, knitting and otherwise:

1. If you can afford to, give yourself a break from it; however, avoid giving yourself an open-ended break. Set a time or date when you will get back to it, and make sure you stick to it.

2. Try to remember the things that you loved about the project in the beginning - make yourself fall in love with it all over again. Staying enchanted can help you finish it!

3. Try looking at it from a different angle. Sick of that stupid cable running up the front of your sweater? Put that part on a stitch holder and get cracking on those sleeves you've been dying to try. Getting bogged down in paperwork? Switch to a more hands-on part of the project for a bit until you're refreshed and ready for another go. When becoming bored and/or frustrated, working on a different part of the same project can help to keep you interested and sane.

How do you guys get over that hump in the middle of a big project? I'd love to hear your ideas!

The Point of Counted Cross Stitch

At first glance, counted cross stitch seems like kind of a silly pursuit. Explaining it to someone usually starts off enthusiastically, and then trails off towards the end once the incredulous stares of the listener have broken through our outer crafting haze. "So, I'm going to look at hundreds of tiny little boxes with different symbols in them on a big piece of graph paper, find the color thread that corresponds with that symbol, and then create an exact replica of the graph paper, box for box, on a piece of cloth with tiny stitched 'x's!" Right... There are times when I am working on a cross stitch piece that I am baffled. 'Why exactly am I doing this?' I ask myself, 'and why is it so freaking fun?' It doesn't look, sound, or in any way remotely seem like it would be an enjoyable pursuit. This craft can cause pain in the wrists and hands and inflammation in tendons from repetitive movement. It strains the eyes and can cause back and neck pain from bending over the cloth. This is a craft of patience; larger pieces require hundreds of hours to complete and often go unfinished for years. It is not a craft for the faint of heart.

And yet... I have gone for weeks at a time happily cross stitching for 8-10 hours per day, every day. I have used up whole vacations on cross stitching, and I sometimes find myself staying up until 3:00 in the morning with a looming 7:30 wake up call, zoned into my work completely. Its simplicity is addictive, its rhythm mesmerizing. Unlike knitting, where the end of a row can easily be used as a good stopping point, calling for a break in cross stitch is much more arbitrary. It is easy to get into a mindset of "just one more stitch, just one more" or "I'll go to bed after I finish this section, this flower, this color...." Before you know it, five hours have gone by - and your piece looks practically the same as it did that morning.

Finishing a big cross stitch project is like running a marathon: you feel completely relieved, proud of yourself, and like you probably won't do something like that again for a long while. But, as with those addicted to the rush of a good run, we cross stitchers inevitably get the itch in our fingers, start taking down the pattern books and idly flipping through pages. We are driven by the promise of a good cross stitch pattern - a rewarding finish, and a fantastic journey.

Below are some pictures of my current cross stitch project - a medieval sampler by my favorite fantasy cross stitch designer, Teresa Wentzler, in her book, The Best of Teresa Wentzler: Fantasy Collection. It's got everything I like in a pattern - a story, a lot of detail, and an eye-catching finished piece.

A portion of the pattern

What the finished product will look like

My progress so far

Detail

Fun Fact: The only cross stitch piece I've done that I still have (read 'have not given away') is a tiny image of Henry Vlll that I picked up at the Tower of London last spring; it hangs on the wall of my apartment. The one of Queen Anne, still in its wrapper, sits un-stitched on my bookshelf after my boyfriend's mom pointed out that it would probably be some sort of bad karma to have those two hanging up side by side in our place of residence.

The Knitter's Next Journey

I think it's time. It's been coming on for a while now, but I think the time might actually be just about here. With each new craft project I complete, I feel a sense of extreme happiness, pride, and relief, followed almost immediately by a feeling of shame and guilt. The words, "I didn't really create this" scroll across my brain and I dump the shawl/scarf/hat/sweater into the closet. Whenever people compliment my knitting and say that it's amazing that I can do stuff like that, all I can think to myself is that I'm a liar.

Ok, yes, technically I did create the thing that people are looking at. Technically, I picked out the yarn, needles, and pattern and then used my two hands to carefully stitch hundreds of little loops together and create the object that now can be used as a warmth-provider/beautiful accessory. Sometimes I have even spun or dyed the wool myself (I feel a bit better about those). But the truth is, when it comes down to it, that all I really did was follow a set of very well-written instructions. Someone else put tens or even hundreds of hours into writing that pattern - trying different techniques, working out the math, sketching and swatching and probably cursing in frustration at the stupid pattern that simply WON'T come out the way it is in the imagination. 

Am I proud when I finish a difficult or particularly satisfying project? Yes, of course. The look on my mother's face when she opened her cross stitch sampler Christmas present was priceless and I wouldn't change it.

But in the end, it's not really my own work. I often can't sell it, and my sense of accomplishment only reaches skin deep. So, what's to be done? Wallow in my feeling of un-accomplishment for the rest of forever? Don't think so.

In less than four months, I will no longer be a college student, but a graduate, an alum, an adult (well, kind of an adult). I will be moving to a new city, with a new apartment and (hopefully) a new job. Let's focus on the new apartment aspect. In my mind, I don't really picture most of the apartment, I only have vague images of what it might look like that are a bit fuzzy around the edges. But one room/space stands out clearly in my mind. Lining the walls are bookcases with knitting books and novels, as well as sketch books, how-tos and magazines. Above and around a counter space with a sewing machine are storage spaces, cabinets, and drawers with craft supplies neatly categorized and cataloged. Natural light from a large window splashes onto a large wooden table with graph paper, pencils, and yarn scraps strewn about it, and one entire wall is made up of corkboard with various sketches, swatches, and half-finished pieces pinned to it. Next to the window, a computer screen shows design software with the beginning of a sweater, and a comfortable chair in front of it affords a view of the bustling city street below. The word "studio..." softly whispers it's way across my mind whenever this happy daydream takes me, and a sigh of longing inevitably escapes me. This is my next goal, my next step in the knitter's journey: design.

The first knitted item I created without a pattern -
 a felted bag for my Nana to hang from her walker and carry
items with her. Closes with velcro, handles button on.

Knit for Those in Need

The event I put up in the sidebar did not leave a lot of space to explain the project my roommate Liz and I are working on right now, so I thought I would post about it as well!

Living in Burlington, winters become frighteningly cold, frighteningly fast, and anyone walking around downtown can see that we have our fair share of people in need of warm clothing as the temperature starts to drop. To address this problem, Liz and I thought it would be a great idea to combine two things we love - helping people and knitting! To this end, yesterday we went to our local yarn shop, Kaleidoscope Yarns (an AMAZING store, by the way), and picked up a skein each of Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool to get our project going. This is a bulky-weight yarn made of 100% undyed Peruvian Highland Wool; It is soft and warm, and very reasonably priced at $15 for roughly 437 yards. We are both working on simple garter stitch scarves right now, and we welcome anyone who would like to join us!

Our long-term goal is to get a group of people working on this project with us, and, depending on the response we get, try and team up with COTS, our local homeless shelter, Kaleidoscope Yarns, and our school. According to the COTS website, they are urgently in need of blankets for twin- or double- beds, for anyone who is feeling ambitious :). For now Liz and I will simply be walking around Burlington handing out our wearables, and we will take it from there. Our vision for the future involves the yarn and needles being paid for by the school (we're poor! lol), and an organized group meeting to teach classes on knitting techniques, enjoy each others' company, and knit for charity together. For now, though, we are just starting small and seeing where it takes us!


If you are interested in helping out:
We are looking for warmth over fashion - no acrylic yarns please! :)
Feel free to make anything you would like, in any size you would like - all donations are appreciated!
If you do not want to spend the money on postage to send your knitting to us, feel free to do the same thing in your own area! (Please make sure you are being safe if you choose the walk-around-and-distribute route over the donate-to-local-shelter route).
Level of knitting skill does not matter. Garments need to be functional, not perfect. :)
If you do decide to mail your knitting to us, please just put a note in your package specifying that what you are sending is for Knit for Those in Need.

Thanks for your help, and keep knitting! :)