Sewing Mojo…Lost & Found

Several years ago I went through an emotional crisis that nearly took my life. I didn't just wake up one day and my life fell apart. Rather, gradually over several years my life collapsed from the inside. (Similar to the termites we had our house treated for recently. You don't see the damage until there is a lot of it.) Sewing was a victim of my crisis. No longer did it bring me joy. It was work, but nothing worked out right. Zippers were crooked, seams uneven, sleeves sewn in backward, buttonholes looked homemade. Sewing became a chore and gradually I stopped. I did, however, continue to buy fabric and patterns for a couple of years (and I have a nice stash of both now). But eventually I even stopped buying those things. Then I let my swatch subscriptions lapse, I quit visiting online fabric & sewing sites, I even let all my sewing magazine subscriptions lapse, except Threads, but even they just piled up, unread.

Several months into therapy I started not sleeping. To fill the nights I started knitting again after years (like 20) of not knitting. I discovered several podcasts I really liked and I would listen to them as I knitted the middle of the night away. Knitting was soothing to my soul. The rhythm calmed my brain. The repetition of the pattern met my need for order in my life. When I couldn't figure out life, I could sit down and knit a complicated pattern and feel a sense of accomplishment. Unlike life, if I made a mistake in my knitting I could rip it out and reknit it. I could fix the mistakes in knitting!

In addition, the yarn was soft as it flowed through my fingers. There was something about just touching and feeling the yarn that reminded me of something. Something buried deep inside me, something I couldn't quite reach. Knitting gradually reawakened my love of sewing. I didn't realize what had taken place until recently. But just feeling the yarn in my hands reminded my subconscious of how much I loved handling fabric. When I visited my LYS—oh my! all the colors, the textures, the possibilities! For some reason I found yarn much less intimidating than the fabric in my stash. Knitting projects seemed much less intimidating than sewing projects. And after a year or so and multiple successful knitting projects, the yearning to take a piece of fabric in my hands and create a garment surfaced.

So here I am again. Brimming with ideas to sew, shopping my stash like crazy with a new dilemma. How to find time to knit and sew since I am sleeping all night again!