During the first month of quarantine, I spent a lot of time on Reddit, specifically r/knitting. At first it was inspiring and motivating to see people pump out sweater after sweater, blanket after blanket. There was a lot of “ohhhh I want to make that!” and “I’ll bookmark that pattern and make it since I have so much time at home to do nothing.” But it never really materialized.
Soon, instead of being inspired by someone posting their “3rd quarantine sweater off the needles (+2 pairs of socks, 3 blankets, and 800 baby hats for NICU babies),” I was deflated. Knitting became daunting and stressful. I hadn’t made one thing yet, in fact I’d had to restart the same shawl five times.
That’s when other posts started to appear, both in the knitting feed and in other groups. They all centered around one main theme “It’s okay. Because it’s not.”
Quarantine, the times we are living in right now, the current state of the nation and the world, it’s not okay. It’s not normal, it’s not comfortable, it’s not our “day-to-day” and it’s okay to not function like it is. A few posts mentioned that we’re all going through a grieving process for our normal lives. People are handling the grief differently, which is about the only normal thing happening. Some people are numb, some people are angry, some people are over achieving just to keep their minds functioning. All reactions are OKAY. It’s all okay, because we’re not okay.
If you keep starting a project only to put it aside within minutes and it’s taken you a month to go one inch, that’s okay, do what you need to do. If you can’t keep your hands off your needles and you’re pumping out project after project, sweater after sweater, rock on! I bet you are comfy as heck right now in your cozy bliss. And if you’re like me, struggling with the quiet room to think that was always a benefit of knitting, but is now too much, that's okay too. We all need to find our new “okay,” our new normal. We need to give ourselves room to breathe and room to understand the emotions that are flowing through us every day. Only then can we establish what is best for ourselves.
I finally finished that shawl by the way. It’s my only quarantine project to date, and it’s not my favorite, but it’ll work.
So yes. One quarantine project is done. I’m working on two more, one knitting, one crochet. The knitting is a simple pattern. Too simple really, so I have to listen to an audiobook or watch a show at the same time to keep my mind at peace. The crochet project…. Well I’ve taken it apart five times, so it’s getting there.