Ten Tips for Dealing with the Knitting Doldrums

This is a guest post by Stacy Lee of GoldenBirdKnits.com.

We all experience the knitting doldrums once in a while—those times when you temporarily lose your enthusiasm for needles and fiber. Here are ten tips for reigniting your creative mojo.

1. Spend an afternoon browsing the local yarn shops in your neck of the woods with no particular goal in mind. Look at store samples, glance through patterns, and touch everything. Be open to inspiration, but don’t try too hard to find it. (Tip: To avoid impulse shopping, write down the items that catch your eye so you can think about buying them at a later time.)

2. Allow yourself to frog some of your UFO’s. Let them go without guilt. This will create physical and mental space for starting fresh new projects.

3. Collect the yarn from your stash that you secretly hate and donate it. Again, this creates space for new, more exciting yarn to arrive in your life (see number four).

4. Splurge on a skein of luxury yarn in a fiber you have never knit with before, like cashmere, sugar, milk, silk, or qiviut. Select a one-skein pattern before you buy the yarn so you have a plan in place to use it.

5. Invent a creative way to reorganize your stash. For example, display the prettiest skeins in baskets or bowls around the house. Or, sort yarn by color palette rather than fiber.

6. Make a date with the latest of issue of your favorite knitting magazine. Take it out to lunch or curl up on the couch with it. Don’t worry about picking out a project or trying to understand the patterns, just let yourself enjoy the articles and photos of hand knits.

7. Surf knitting websites and blogs. One way to do this is to go to Ravelry, click on the search magnifying glass, and then click “sources.” In the Pattern Source type box, click the “Website” check box. You’ll get a list of thousands of knitting sites.

8. Read a knitting-themed novel or collection of essays. The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood and Knitting Heaven and Earth by Susan Gordon Lydon are excellent books. You may find something interesting at a secondhand bookstore or the library.

9. Watch knitting videos on the Internet. Knit Picks has a great selection and there are an endless number on YouTube. You can learn a new technique or simply listen to tips, techniques, and design ideas from other knitters.

10. Take a break from all things knitting. Forget about it for a while. It will be there when you return.

For more patterns and tips from Stacy, don’t miss her designer profile on AllFreeKnitting!

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