Stress Management and other tales

Ever since thinking up a title for this blog I've been thinking about the use of knitting as a form of stress management and I've certainly had a chance to put it into practice over the last couple of weeks. A very stressful situation at work has had me reaching for the needles on a nightly basis as soon as the children have done 'bath&bed'. But no complicated projects for me, thank you very much. I've been obsessed with simple garter stitch projects (dishcloths mainly) that I've been cranking out at a frightening rate - how many dishcloths does a girl need? I've managed the odd simple sock project but feel unable to master the challenge of anything more complex.

I'm knitting a second Hap Blanket but am unable to progress beyond knitting the centre, garter stitch square. Every time I try to start the pattern repeat for the border everything goes pear-shaped (literally) and I have to go back to the dishcloths. It's as though my brain can only deal with so many things at once and after that it can't be held responsible for it's actions.

So, I've given up trying to fight it and am relaxing into more simple garter stitch projects for the time being. I'm currently reading Mason-Dixon Knitting and I love their approach to colour and style. I'm also very taken with a simple garter stitch shawl that I've seen others doing on Ravelry - Mara.

It's time to embrace simple knitting - either a garter stitch baby blanket or a shawl I think. And hopefully I will emerge on the other side, a slightly saner human being. Or if not, at least I'll have something snuggly to throw over my head and hide from the rest of the world :)

No knitting photos today - but a soothing photo of one of my favourite places ever...