Friends, I have been in a knitting-blogging-creative rut. I finished the hat I will show you below over 2 weeks ago, and am just now getting a chance to blog about it. All my other knitting feels ‘stuck’ for one reason or another. I seem to have lost my crafting mojo and so have been majorly procrastinating the following:
- making the pom-pom for my Fidra hat,
- knitting my current socks because I lost the index card on which I drew the chart and I can’t be bothered to draw another,
- knitting my sockhead hat because I need to look up how long to make it before decreasing and I feel like I’m almost there,
- knitting my baby sweater because I need to wind yarn for the trim color
- winding yarn because I lost an integral piece of my swift when I moved a couple of moths ago and have yet to locate it,
- organizing my yarn bins, in hopes of finding that piece of my swift, which would also clean up my room, and
- spinning, because I’m too lazy to not sit on the couch in the evenings.
There are things I want to do, and the impulses to do them are there, but by the time I get home from work, I would just rather curl up on the couch and read or watch TV or sleep. This is not normal for me. Prior to pregnancy, that sort of blatant inactivity wouldn’t happen before 10 pm, and TV-watching was ALWAYS accompanied by crafting. Now it’s happening at 7 pm and I’m feeling too physically tired to do anything crafty, so I’m losing all of my productive evening hours, and going to bed early to boot. I’m just going to go ahead and blame the fetus, but still. I feel like I’m wasting away my last few child-free months of crafting time!
Anywho, onto the hat.
Malabrigo Mecha in Vaa, click for project page.
I started this simple, waffle-stitch hat when my coworker announced that he was moving on to bigger and better things. And since he was my science buddy at work, he got a hat. I used Malabrigo Mecha in Vaa, one of my favorite thicker-weight yarns for gift knitting (the other is Malabrigo Chunky). Mecha is a single-ply, superwash Merino wool that is (in my opinion) thinner than the bulky weight at which it’s listed (and definitely thinner than Mal Chunky). I cast on 72 stitches and used size 9 needles, which gave me a nice tension and a perfect size, and the hat took me about .
I’m particularly enamored with the way the decreases worked out. Since I couldn’t be bothered to write down what I did, I will probably never be able to replicate it, but I know that I decreased later than I typically would and more often per round in order to get a very fast, concentric-looking decrease.
And that’s all I’ve accomplished lately! My Fidra hat is nearly there, though (just one pom-pom away…) and I’m hoping I can find that swift piece soon so I can wind yarn more easily and get moving on some other projects I have in mind.
What do you do when you’ve lost your crafting mojo? How do you get your groove back?
Woolen Diversions 
The hat looks great! Those are some pretty decreases. I’m kind of in a knitting funk because I haven’t cast on for anything new this year besides from a couple of swatches for a new shawl design. The energy/mojo flows and ebbs so I just roll with it. Trying to force it will just make knitting a frustration and I don’t need any extra of that.
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That’s a good point. These things come in waves, so it makes sense not to try to force it.
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I think losing creative mojo is quite common in pregnancy, since it happened to me and I’ve heard from lots of others on Ravelry that they’ve experienced the same thing. I don’t have a good solution, though, other than do what you feel like doing and wait it out – it’ll probably pass! Relaxing without a project in your hands is still relaxing, which is great. (My loss of knitting productivity was worst in the first trimester, and it has come back somewhat on its own. My blogging mojo has been dead for ages, though, and I can’t blame that on pregnancy.)
Hat looks great – that colour is beautiful!
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Thanks for the reassurance! It’s such a strange feeling, the lack of knitting mojo, and opposite what you see/hear with many people learning to knit during pregnancy.
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That hat is great! Love the pattern and the color….
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You have every right to be lazy in your condition, but I also understand the frustration. Maybe once spring hits things will get better.
Lovely blue hat 🙂
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Lovely hat! Sometimes it’s a good thing to take a break, and in the meantime you can always browse on Ravelry or Pinterest for interesting new patterns you might want to start on!
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Love the texture of the hat. When the craft slow down hits I usually just do other things. I figure it will come back when it’s time.
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Well, other than growing another human, you’ve been a bit under the weather. While not growing another human, I too have been under the weather and find it difficult to stay awake and do things. I don’t know if this is a lack of mojo or just fatigue.
My most recent bout with loss of mojo seems to have been well combatted by reorganization. I realized that all my working surfaces were covered and that I was sick of moving things from one pile to another, albeit more tidily. There was a great purge of papers and I feel more energized.
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It’s the February doldrums. Everyone I know is either sick, recovering, and waaaay behind on everything (myself included!). Glad to know I’m not the only one!
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