Hey! How are you? I am feeling a bit better today! Phew! I have been resting and eating nice (vegetarian) food and watching Jane Eyre for the zillionth time with Ari and STILL working on Max’s blanket.
I was thinking about why I love to make things which take a long time. Quick things are fun to make too, but I really love the commitment of a slow project. I guess I am a total sucker for a long term craft relationship. For instance, I love making crocheted blankets. A lot. I have been thinking about WHY I am so enamoured with the blankie, while I have been making Max’s.
Firstly, I really love to make things for other people, a LOT. I love that they know they are totally worth those thousands of stitches, because they are super special to me. But it is more than that.
Getting to know each other :: I love to watch the blanket unfold before my eyes, in a way that I decide on. I love to watch the colours come together, see the stitches race row by row in little clusters and smooth lines. I love to feel them gather their ‘blanket’ weight, as they grow from a strip, to a bit, to a fully fledged LOT! I love to weave in ends and snip loose threads and stitch edges and repeatedly fold and tug and admire as I go. I love to lay it down on the clean floor and look at it from afar. I love to fold it up nicely and see how that looks too. I love to show it to other people, to talk about it and to see the whole thing grow in one chatty, woolly, blankie bundle.
Spending time together :: I especially love these long winded projects hanging about the place, making cameos in our everyday life. Watching a particular movie together with the blanket growing slowly on my lap. Having a chat and tying on a new colour. Collecting a new ball of wool or searching for scissors while someone makes a tray of tea and biscuits. Whole weekends of nice times, picking the blanket up and doing a little bit. Putting it down and making dinner, or feeding the cat or putting a log on the fire.
Getting comfy :: Usually these kind of long winded projects take a couple of months to complete, so each blanket clearly marks a particular time in our life. Each blanket is sort of like a rather woolly craft diary. Each blanket is a tribute to the time it took to make, and the things that happened then. Each blanket is a remembrance of why I chose that colour or where a row was finished or who was nearly having a baby or which stitch was my favourite or who doesn’t like pink…!
The end :: I get sad when I finish this kind of project and we have to ‘break up’. Sometimes I shed a tear. I’m a total long haul gal. And even though I feel QUITE sad and empty, filled with blanket grief, when I hand it on, it’s so super satisfying at the same time to finish a project you are proud of, and to bestow it on someone you really love. And then start another one… (Which seems a bit shallow, but it helps with the grieving process. Kind of a rebound scenario, but with better intentions and a woollier result!)
Does this make any sense to you?! Do some of the things you make mark certain times in your life? Or do you make and then forget how you got there, kind of like pregnancy and childbirth?! Or something? Do you feel craft grief? Do you bounce straight into a new relationship?! Are you shallow like me?
xx Pip
Pip I have read this post several times and it has really inspired me to create a blanket and feel the joy of seeing it grow. I have a picture of your zig zag blanket and I would love to try something like this, if it is possible could you please let me know where I can get the pattern? Thanks again for the insightful writing, Michelle
Dear Pip,
I absolutely adore your blog, but I loved this post especially because its so true!
I'm currently making a baby quilt for my best girlfriend's first baby – she's due in a week so I'm nearly done, but I will almost be sad to finish because I've enjoyed making it so much, watching it change and evolve as I have lovingly hand stitched every inch of it (I forgot that I don't actually have a sewing machine when I got the brilliant idea to sew her a quilt, so the whole thing has been done by hand.
What on earth will I do when its all finished?
Anyway, I mostly wanted to tell you that your blog is just so inspiring, quite frankly – it's ace. I'm just spewing that I only discovered it just now, I could have been following it all along. I will definitely be back for regular visits!
I love this post Pip, you have beautifully describe how I feel at the end of each crochet blanket project.
Sometimes when I am loving the blanket it goes from being a single blanket to a extra large king because I prolonging the breakup.
Every crochet project has your DNA via your hair that gets caught up in the wool, sometimes the kids hair and even the dog.
I haven't had the courage to start another big blanket after completing one for my brother last year.
Once aganin Pip, love this post!
oh i do most certainly feel the same… i've just finished a blankie and am feeling a bit forlorn…
i can't seem to find the motivation to take pictures and post it off so instead i'm moping and reading blog posts and deliberating over what to have for lunch!
glad you're feeling a bit better!
xo
Oh my Gosh! I just finished a blanket that i started when i was living in New York for a year. Now back in Australia, i was putting of finishing it because i was over it. Then i finally did finish it and i got super sad 🙁 missing New York! Need to Start a Brisbane blanket i think!
This is such a relevant post for me to be reading today. I am joining the last two rows of a blanket today, and I feel that sense of happy and sad; the first lot of yarn that started it all was bought from a charity shop on a day at the seaside with my husband, and the floral squares that I have used were just an attempt at something fancy and I was so proud when they worked out. Then the comedy of having to spend £20 on yarn to finish it (after the initial outlay of £2.50 for 5 balls of yarn). It's a huge thing to finish a big project, and I'm sure I will start something else as a reaction to it! x
Totally relate & some times have a few items on the go & swap from one to the other, I can keep them with me longer then! I am going crazy at the moment though as moved into are new home the shed hasnt been finished yet so all my sewing things are stuck in boxes I might have to just take over the kitchen for a while trying not to as I will end up staying once the sheds built HEE.
i definitely suffer from "craft grief". i think i enjoy the process much more than the object, in most cases. the bigger the piece, the sadder i feel when we part ways. especially if it's something i'll never see again.
I love everything you've put here. I'm on my third blanket (only really happy with the last 2) and am already planning the next one. New to crochet, I love making blankets now. Its an addiction. I love that i don't have to sit at the sewing machine for this too! (and that it can be done infront of the TV!)
Miss 9 is crocheting everyday now – took it to school today!
I get super sad when i come to the end of a good book or film because I know I'll never experience it for the first time again!! Not the same with crafty things. I'm already thinking about the next project while finishing the current one! Glad you are feeling better 🙂
I'm a total craft tart. I have more crafting 'one night stands' under my belt than any decent woman should admit too. I should be ashamed, but even as we speak, I'm picking up crochet hook.
P.S. I see you had crumpets today too. I loved my crumpets with cherry jam so much today I took a photo too!(on instagram)
Yes, I always feel attached to things I give away. I always want to see them again when I can. I remember the movies I watched, what I was doing. One time I knitted a cardigan while I was traveling. My friends and I knitted all our loved ones into it (saying their names with each stitch) and I wore it everywhere for months with the memory of them close to me. I still have that daggy mohair cardigan 20 years later.
PIP!! You are amazing! I think I might have craft ADD, because I have never seen through a long term project… I am an instant gratification kinda gal… but I did start a rag rug a little while ago, and i am determined to finish it – I am estimating 3 months… THankyou for always being such an inspiration xo
I can relate to this too. The idea of a flirtation, making eyes at fabric, yarn and patterns, the infatuation and obsession. When the relationship starts I am there for the long haul. Sometimes reality sets in and although I love it very much, some brighter, cuter thing comes along and takes me down a different path. When I come back I feel like I'm home again and then when I finish, snip that last thread, I can let go pretty easily.
It is called Craft Closure. The item is worn, gifted or sold and I feel content that i can move on, safe in the knowledge that the result of my infatuation is in loving, grateful hands.
Hi Pip, I can relate to the love affair, the adventures one can go on with a crafty blanky or book. Sometimes I get so immersed im counting down the minutes at work so I can speed on home to my darling scissors and paper. My poor bf hehe. Ive enjoyed reading everyone else's posts too great to know im not too crazy and there's other nutty knitters out there too 🙂
So true! I feel the same! -x- Rozalinde
I loathe starting or ending any knitting I do mostly because I struggle with casting on and casting off – so I tend to procrastinate a bit more than I should with the middle part of the process. That's why the scarves I knit are usually so loooong!
What a beautiful post! It's lovely to read someone describe something they are so passionate about.
I love a big project, but I also tend to have about 387 projects on the go at once…oops, I guess that makes me a floozy too!
I love your blankets, and a similar one is on my 'to make' list.
I'm curious about what is on your crumpets…here we have honey or golden syrup, but that looks like vegemite!?! Am I missing a delicacy?
x
I must confess, I'm a bit of a tramp. I'm already thinking of my next project (and the one after that) whilst I'm working on the current one. In fact, I often have it waiting in the wings.
I do feel that grief though, once I've finished a good book, and often miss the characters as if they were my real friends.
thank you for such a beautiful post Pip …
I relate to this so much, it makes me want to make something time-consuming in wool again (after many years hiatus)
Wow, that kind of blew me away Pip. I find it difficult to commit to such a long term project (but been married 13 years so commitment issues are not the problem!) I prefer quick projects, quick results, (hopefully before I get restless, give it away, feel good and move on.
But now you have given me a new perspective! I would love to do a blankie but not sure I can commit…! Maybe if I can see it through your eyes I might just manage a long-term crochet relationship!
Thanks Pip xxx
For sure. I have at least three days when there's a very good chance the intended gift may never actually get to the intended person because there's this almost overwhelming desire to KEEP. But usually the giving outweighs the keeping. I LOVE that version of JE. So well done. I'm re-reading the book now.
I think Im a bit of a craft floozy. I like long projects and I usually have a few things going on at any one time, I can't help myself, I have needs.
I love the process of craft, the reverence in laying out colours and the excitement as the project starts to come together, but as soon as it's over I'm usually more focused on what I can work on next then what I've just completed.
Sometimes I look back on projects many weeks or months later and think "wow, did I really make that? All by myself? Noice!" and other times it's more like "what was I thinking? Those colours are hideous together!"
Great post!
Oh my goodness. This post absolutely sums up everything I have been thinking the past 2 weeks while I work on a blanket to give to a cousin for her baby.
I look at this blanket and each section reminds me of which bit of Downton Abbey I was watching when I made those stitches… What I made for dinner when I put it down for a while…which of the kids was watching quietly one afternoon and which one was being noisy…
And yes, I am feeling sad that we will break up soon, but also excited that it will be posted off and (hopefully!) cherished by our family members far away. Then I will sigh, take a deep breath and excitedly pick out a new ball of wool and start the first kazillion chain row or "5ch, sl stch to form a loop" on my next blanket. Off we go again.
Squeezy cuddles to you Pip.
Sandra Fox.
Pip, I feel that when I finish writing a novel, too. The story consumes me for such a very long time that I can't imagine ever being done with it. I feel separation anxiety around leaving my characters…I'm still looking over my shoulder for them long after they've Gone To The Printer. LOL! Have a lovely day! jx
Yes i can see where you are coming from. i like the idea of a blanket diary.Unfortunately, though, I am a shallow crafter and want quick fix projects. I always have been to my mothers horror. Maybe it's because I never sat still in my wifey days and now my spare moments are spent lying down, falling asleep. Perhaps I shall become a TV watcher one day again and take up my long winded (4 years?) stripey blanket which I still adore and which is in shades of pinks, yellows and whites. Wishing you moight get lots of wintry, snowed in days (so to speak) to enjoy. Cherrie
There's definitely a slightly lost period after one project's finished and the next not yet begun. This sometimes continues if the next thing I start isn't the right thing; I miss my old knitting and often have to put the new one aside and try something else until I find the one I'm meant to be doing.
Have you ever had this feeling when you finish a book? I do, all the time. I finished 'Indelible Ink' by Fiona McGregor the day before I had my baby, and haven't really found the right book since. Same goes for knitting, actually – it's all a bit restless!
I hate getting to the end of hand quilting a quilt & am constantly thinking of excuse to make another one so I can get back to the quilting part. Any excuse will do! So I guess that makes me a rebound girl too…