Day seven: 3rd April. Your knitting and crochet time.
Write about your typical crafting time. When it is that you are likely to craft – alone or in more social environments, when watching TV or whilst taking bus journeys. What items do you like to surround yourself with whilst you twirl your hook like a majorette’s baton or work those needles like a skilled set of samurai swords. Do you always have snacks at hand, or are you a strictly ‘no crumbs near my yarn!’ kind of knitter.
I learned a long time ago (like around that second child) that my time is really not my time anymore. I'd probably be ecstatic to have a chunk of time that I knew every day would be used for knitting. I just don't. Whatever time I would hope to eek out for myself and call "crafting time" or "me time" would wind up being such a colossal joke that it makes no sense doing it. Believe me, I've tried and all that ensued was hilarious laughter. So, I stopped trying to categorize that part of my life and I started fusing it into the other categories of my time. And it works for me. It's more fluid. I like to think of it as a more "wholistic" approach because it's weaved into the bits of time I have throughout the day rather than all in one shot.
I knit just about anywhere. I like to knit while sitting...or walking...or at mostly stop lights when driving...or waiting for food to get done...or during an informal meeting for work. It really doesn't matter. Well, I can't say that. I don't knit on the toilet or while eating (though I do knit while cooking). And if I feel like I'm in a place where something will get on the yarn, I do put the holster away and wait cautiously until the coast is clear. So, I guess I do have some boundaries. But when all is said and done, all I really need is my holster with my knitting and I'm good. On the really busy days, just having the knitting in the holster on my hip is enough for me. It's that comforting.
Knitting this way sometimes causes me to have to find more compact ways to take a pattern along like within a mobile app on my iPod or pre-printed on a card. I can find loads of PDF files for knitting patterns on the web that go nicely on the iPad through GoodReader. There are more and more downloadable knitting books being made that can be read on the iPad through Kindle or iBooks. Thank God for that. If I can't find those, I will also use my own limited memory, restricting myself to patterns that I can remember easily or where it's so repetitive, I can read the knitting so I can always pick up where I left off.
These days, I'm just never too far from my knitting.
