Knitting, grief, and sadness

In this episode I talk about how all I can manage to knit right now is a super simple hat. 
(Content warning: death of a pet)

Music Credit: Ketsa "Day Trips" 

Transcript

[instrumental intro music, upbeat with trills and bells 

Music Credit: Ketsa, “Day Trips”]

Holly 00:34

Hello! It’s a really quiet Sunday morning here. My kiddos aren’t even up yet. And I’m just sneaking on here just to say hello. I am so grateful you're here. I’m Holly. I knit and and I talk here about my 12 -step recovery work and just as a quick reminder you should take what you like and leave the rest. I’m only speaking from my own personal experience. So if it's not vibing with you, let it go. Take what you like and leave the rest… whether it's the knitting or the recovery stuff. 

Holly 01:12

I also just wanted to give a brief warning that I'm going to talk about some sad things in my life, which includes the death of my pet so if that's...that's too much for you... I wish you well and I will see you next time. 

Holly 01:32

I just got back from vacation. Actually, wow, it's been a week now but it's been a weird week. We got back from vacation last Sunday and while we were on vacation we had some sad news. Our dog suddenly had a fever and got sick and died. Thankfully we were within driving distance so I was able to drive back and see her before I had to say goodbye but it was just not quite the vacation I had planned.

Holly 02:02

I'm devastated. We're all devastated. She was just the sweetest... the sweetest member of our family by far and the most loved I think and she was just a really good friend. I don't know. If you, you know, are somebody who has an addiction in your family, you know how important pets can be, especially to have that reminder of what unconditional love looks like and what detaching with love looks like. [laughter] She detaches with love, right? She does her own doggie thing and also doesn't really care what’s going on with me. And she's just been with us through some really, really hard things and she's just been a really wonderful companion. And so the kids and I are just really, really sad.

Holly 02:48

And you know when crisis hits, sometimes it's filtered through some of the other aspects of addiction, which include finances and emotions and emotional triggers and so you know it was a rocky week and then this week was really quiet when we got back and really started grieving.

Holly  03:10

So that's where we're at and of course I'm knitting through all of it but I have to admit I'm kind of lost. I'm a little bit lost in my knitting projects and very much lost in my rhythm of life and I'm also struggling with some issues and challenges at work. <y work is really ramping up. The kids are getting ready to go back to school. I just feel like this is this momentous moment where I need a lot of energy and I don't have it. And so I'm trying really hard to work my program and to use the joy of knitting to help me stay sane at this moment. And so not surprisingly like I'm knitting really simple things and I'm also trying to set myself up for a moment when I'm ready to take on some more complex things. So the first thing I'm doing is that I'm trying to finish my summer shawl. That feels like something I can do. 

Holly 04:12

I was playing an epic game of yarn chicken throughout this shawl. It's a multicolored brioche shawl so it's not the end of the world if I had some yarn shortages, but I very much wanted it to be balanced. I had this gorgeous dark purple yarn that had some tonal effects and then also a little bit of light pink in it. It's just so so pretty and then I realized after I had done some knitting on the brioche shawl that I was going to run out. I started with the purple yarn. It begins with a 1 color brioche band and  then you go to a 3 color brioche pattern and then most of the shawl is a two color brioche chevron pattern. So I did the first band--the one color brioche-- and the three color brioche and then I thought wait a minute. I’m going to run out of this guy.  I wanted it to be balanced so I thought I could definitely introduce new colors in the chevron stripe portion but I wanted to save enough to have enough for the ending and I did that and so far so good. It's pretty close. I am finishing it up this morning. And so that's kind of where my focus has been. It’s good I’m just finishing up. I think I'm in the right headspace right now for weaving in a million ends because I'm just so sad and I can’t focus. This is grief right and it’s hard.

Holly 05:42

You know I've been used to… hard weeks in the past, especially because I love someone who struggles with addiction. There have been some really chaotic weeks. But I think I'm used to the energy level of addiction-related grief, which has deep lows but also some really strong highs. It can feel like a roller coaster ride with the ups and downs. 

Holly 06:15

And this kind of feeling is just different. It feels like depression. It’s a kind of quiet sadness. So weaving in a bunch of ends is exactly what I need to do I think. I'm also just trying to stay still and rest, knowing that the weeks ahead have a lot of stress in them, especially with the on-ramp to school. My kids are really stressed out about returning to school. They haven’t been in school in person, so they’re a bit more anxious this year and I'm also returning to school in person and I guess I’m also extra anxious about that too (laughter).

Holly 06:56

I also want to put in a plug for hats as vacation knitting. I know that socks are the go to classic for vacation knitting but if you listened to my last recording you know I can’t find my dpns. So there’s no sock knitting for me. I guess I could do magic loop but that always drives me a bit bonkers. I finally just broke down and ordered another set of double pointed needles. Hopefully they'll come and I'll be rocking the socks soon because I think shorty socks could help right now. They’re so fun and it could be good to kind of clear out the stash yarn making some fun shorty socks. 

Holly 07:40

So I do want to give a plug for hats!I found a really great free pattern on Ravelry. It’s a different one than the one I mentioned last time. In my grief and also the stress of being on vacation while grieving, I ended up remaking this hat about four times. I just needed to be knitting to hold myself together. But the end result is really great!

Holly 08:17

So I ditched the ribbing hat and went instead for a pattern called the seaman's cap on Ravelry. It's an old pattern. It's been in my queue since when I first joined ravelry in 2008! So it's a classic and it's a classic for a reason. It’s a simple hat: it has a ribbed brim and then just switches to stockinette stitch.  I knitted it pretty much as written but I decided to make the ribbed brim extra long --about 8 inches--so that it looks like those hipster hats, where the brim, when folded up, covers almost the whole hat. I wanted that vibes. And she lives in New York City and it can get really, really cold in the winter with all the water around. She works in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn and she walks a lot. So if it's a super cold day she can fold that crazy brim down and just have extra warmth around the ears. And it just came out really great. It's in this really beautiful pink yarn-- it’s a crazy hot pink shade-- and I was a little worried it was going to look like the hats from 2016 (laughter) but it doesn’t. It just looks like a really great hat in a shade of neon pink. And I think the classic style helps to tamp down that association. I made one of those hats, I loved those hats, but hopefully we’re in a different moment now. So that’s one of the projects I’ve made.

Holly 10:00

I also used shelter yarn to make a second hat for her partner. And Shelter is a very different yarn. I think it has less yardage? They're both worsted weight yarns, but the uncommon threads pink yarn has like 240 yards and the shelter yarn has about 140. So I’m a little worried that I don’t have enough yarn. And it’s about stash busting so I don’t want to buy another one (though I may because the hat with the long brim is just so good). For now, I think I'm just going with the rib pattern and I hope that the finished hat comes out okay. It’s very easy knitting, although I have to say the shelter version of the Seaman's cap is not giving me as much pleasure, partly because of my worry about having enough yarn. I’m also using these fiddly metal needles. I was on vacation so I didn't have everything with me and now it’s on these slippery needles. I don't know. It’s just not as fun as the other hat so I may end up frogging it.

Holly 11:39

I just can’t seem to make decisions (laughter)! That's where I'm at right now so I wanted to talk about that! (laughterd) because I think that's part of our knitting too. Sometimes I’m sad or I’m in a high-stress moment and can't focus on complex things. 

Holly 11:52

So one of the things I'm doing right now is that I'm trying to get myself sorted and ready for when I want to cast something new on the needles. I don't necessarily have a lot of desire to do huge, big things but what I can do right now is that I can finish up my shawl, weaving in yarn ends. And I can make sure I’m sorted, replacing my dpns and making sure that all the bits and bobs are in the bits and bobs bin....in case I ever want to make a Penguino sweater by Stephen West, all my fingering weight yarn is waiting for me (laughter). I even went through my Ravelry and updated my projects so that it wasn't continuously suggesting yarn from my stash that I don’t because I'd never hit finished on the project page. 

Holly 13:31

I know this feeling won’t last forever. And hopefully soon I’ll just remember the happy times with my sweet, sweet doggo.  But I really could use some good thoughts. So thank you for tuning in. It means a lot to me. I hope wherever you are that you are having a really awesome August, I hope that it’s relaxing and that your knitting is going well and that you have beautiful materials to work with and that it’s going really well. But if you are like me and are having a tough moment, then I’m sending you good thoughts. 

Holly 14:02

Thanks again and I’ll see you next time! Bye!