Catherine's Crochet Corner

I have been rather…absent, over the last few weeks. In fact it’s over a month since my last blog post 😮 and even on Instagram, I haven’t been all that active/invisible.

It’s been a hard few weeks in Real Life, for various reasons, and I’ve ended up in rather a state of over-exhaustion, which has had an impact on my creative abilities. In other words, I am rather in a slump, crochet-wise.

I have still been crocheting, but not in any spectacular way. By which I mean I feel everything I’m doing is terribly pedestrian, uninspired and dull.

Mostly I’ve been working on a stash-bust…thing. I had quite a lot of yarn left over from my Yarn Advent Calendar, and I decided to use it up in plain granny squares, partly because it was a nice portable project, and partly because of my aforementioned lack of inspiration. At the start I didn’t know what I’d turn all these squares into – a cushion cover? a blanket? – but it has now evolved into a wall hanging, because my mother has decreed it so :p I’m waiting for wooden rods to arrive, to put at the top and bottom so it will hang nicely, and I’ll have a bit of work to do then, making a little channel for the rods to go through, but it’s essentially done now.

It’s 31″x40″, roughly, and will be slightly longer once it has the rods. I love how all the different colours seem to just work when combined. I bought some undyed yarn (Blue-Faced Leicester 4ply, like the Advent yarn) to join it all, and used The Patchwork Heart’s wonderful continuous join.

It’s a lovely result…….but not terribly inspired in the sense of the pattern. Three-round grannies, something like 220 of them, and it has kept my hands occupied but not required any brainwork.

Which is what I need right now; I need things to keep me busy but that don’t need too much brain. I have a half-baked idea for my next blanket design, but I just lack brain power. It’s not going anywhere, this idea, but I’m just not able to start right now 😦

So I’ve picked a selection of colours from my stash and I’ve started working on a C2C baby blanket.

Neither particularly inspired nor requiring much in the way of brain. The result will be pretty, but it’s sort of busy-work.

Inspiration – and motivation – will come back. I know this. I have been this over-exhausted before, and no doubt I will be again. Meanwhile, I just need to accept it. Rest, recuperate, and not beat myself up about not having the energy to design right now. It will come back.

However, to end this blog post on a slightly more upbeat note, I believe it’s this month’s issue of Crochet Now magazine that features an article from yours truly, all about freeform crochet. Available digitally or in print 😀