Tis the season where you get totally bogged down in pretty much everything and end up a whine-y mess on the floor, having trouble just doing the basic sort of functioning. Well it is for me anyway.
I'll be square with you, I already have depression, the kind that requires a touch of medication at the super stressful times in life. Which is right now. The last 6 months has been really rough and with the death of my grandmother and the difficulty with money I'm pretty much at my wits end. Of course I'm currently in provider limbo while we wait for our insurance to kick in so I can go in and get back on a dosage. Needless to say, my temperament isn't really at its best.
The fact that day in, day out my life is the exact same with only occasional contact with people outside of the 3 family members I live with, and consists mainly of cooking, cleaning, and arguing with a 2 year old, things get a little depressing for someone who's very social and seriously lacking in stimulus after a really active social life for myself and my daughter in Cali.
Today I hit a wall. Crying off and on, having difficulty even functioning. Everything has been a struggle and I haven't even had the wherewith-all to work on the socks. Finally, with hubby home and wrangling the child after I starting to cry yet again and admitting to being depressed, I decided I had to do something to take my mind off of things. Honestly, the 4 inches of stockinette stitch on the socks weren't going to cut it, so enter Annabella by Anna Aponte
I bought a beautiful hank of Cascade Sierra in Dark Cyan, determined to make up another pair of fingerless gloves for my MIL (she's always cold and the golden Goldilocks gloves I made her are lovely, but for one of her jobs that has yellow as part of her uniform). I'll admit, it was a random search and a sudden feeling of fearlessness that I decided that this had to be the pattern for me!
Now, once the rush of the pattern search wore off I was suddenly full of misgivings once I looked at the directions. It included (GASP) a chart! and all sorts of fabulous shorthand. Luckily, even though I'm a novice I've gotten to the point that I can read a row "recipe" and know what it means, the chart, however, gave me palpitations. I really started to rethink my stance on the gloves, maybe a simple pattern...
UPDATE:
Who just tore out 4 hours worth of work because they were unhappy with the left ladder and the fact that right after this picture was taken there were two mistakes. THIS GIRL! Yeah, I was pretty much to the point that I was all ready for the thumb gusset. For 2 pattern repeats I'd been telling myself "oh its not that bad, who would notice?" But since it wasn't for me I demand perfection! Which means that tomorrow is a knit-a-thon! I wasn't planning on doing the dishes anyway...
UPDATE AGAIN:
One down one to go! I have no regrets frogging it, it turned out beautiful and now I won't have those 2 little slip ups forever marring my love for these gloves :) Seriously, my next project won't come in pairs...except I have a lady who wants two pairs of the double rib gloves, and well a friends bday is coming up and she loved this pattern so I will be making one more pair.....okay so my goal is to be doing something NOT a glove by February. I'm thinking a shrug for myself or something. The skies the limit!
I'll be square with you, I already have depression, the kind that requires a touch of medication at the super stressful times in life. Which is right now. The last 6 months has been really rough and with the death of my grandmother and the difficulty with money I'm pretty much at my wits end. Of course I'm currently in provider limbo while we wait for our insurance to kick in so I can go in and get back on a dosage. Needless to say, my temperament isn't really at its best.
The fact that day in, day out my life is the exact same with only occasional contact with people outside of the 3 family members I live with, and consists mainly of cooking, cleaning, and arguing with a 2 year old, things get a little depressing for someone who's very social and seriously lacking in stimulus after a really active social life for myself and my daughter in Cali.
Today I hit a wall. Crying off and on, having difficulty even functioning. Everything has been a struggle and I haven't even had the wherewith-all to work on the socks. Finally, with hubby home and wrangling the child after I starting to cry yet again and admitting to being depressed, I decided I had to do something to take my mind off of things. Honestly, the 4 inches of stockinette stitch on the socks weren't going to cut it, so enter Annabella by Anna Aponte
I bought a beautiful hank of Cascade Sierra in Dark Cyan, determined to make up another pair of fingerless gloves for my MIL (she's always cold and the golden Goldilocks gloves I made her are lovely, but for one of her jobs that has yellow as part of her uniform). I'll admit, it was a random search and a sudden feeling of fearlessness that I decided that this had to be the pattern for me!
 |
| one of the many beautiful examples |
Now, once the rush of the pattern search wore off I was suddenly full of misgivings once I looked at the directions. It included (GASP) a chart! and all sorts of fabulous shorthand. Luckily, even though I'm a novice I've gotten to the point that I can read a row "recipe" and know what it means, the chart, however, gave me palpitations. I really started to rethink my stance on the gloves, maybe a simple pattern...
Then today hit. I'm scraping along, only doing the bare minimum interaction and functioning (seriously, I have to feed my family, lord knows what will happen if I leave them up to their own devices?!?) and I decide that it would be the perfect thing to do! Of course a niggling voice in the back of my head says "that is waaay too complicated! How are you going to handle it if you mess this up? You'll frog it and feel more sorry for yourself AND angry!" I decided to ignore that nay sayer and started. What better way to ignore the world then to be reciting a formula in your head?
I started out with trepidation but got through the border rows with no problem at all. I didn't even have to keep looking, I've finally got to the point that I can knit the stitches as they present themselves without too much thought. Feeling a little better. Start pattern row, managed no problem. Feeling better. Second and third row pass uneventful while I still give it my whole attention and ignore the shrieking that's going on in the background. I decide to try the chart, suddenly all those lines and swirls make sense, OH MY GOD I"M ACTUALLY READING A CHART! (its a big deal, when I HAD to take band back in 6th grade I could not read music to save my life). I did have a mis-count during the pattern but I managed to back up, I lost a stitch, managed to pick it up, and saved the pattern after sweating it out. I felt better. Ever row I feel a little bit better.
Is my depression gone? No, its still there, but I'm not feeling so hopeless and incapable of functioning. I can still create something beautiful that will bring someone a little bit of happiness. Am I neglecting my family? A little but they can function without me, and quite frankly, it wouldn't kill them to be a little more self sufficient. I'm doing something for me. I feel accomplished. I feel like smiling. Not even meds can always do that :)
So far:
UPDATE:
Who just tore out 4 hours worth of work because they were unhappy with the left ladder and the fact that right after this picture was taken there were two mistakes. THIS GIRL! Yeah, I was pretty much to the point that I was all ready for the thumb gusset. For 2 pattern repeats I'd been telling myself "oh its not that bad, who would notice?" But since it wasn't for me I demand perfection! Which means that tomorrow is a knit-a-thon! I wasn't planning on doing the dishes anyway...
UPDATE AGAIN:
One down one to go! I have no regrets frogging it, it turned out beautiful and now I won't have those 2 little slip ups forever marring my love for these gloves :) Seriously, my next project won't come in pairs...except I have a lady who wants two pairs of the double rib gloves, and well a friends bday is coming up and she loved this pattern so I will be making one more pair.....okay so my goal is to be doing something NOT a glove by February. I'm thinking a shrug for myself or something. The skies the limit!
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