Change as Self-Care

For me self-care is turning out to be more than just doing nice things for myself. It's making changes in what I do and how I do it to avoid problems and be realistic as well as kinder to myself.

I was looking through my photo archives and found this pic from last year around this time. I was within eight weeks or so of finishing my calendar mood blanket, and it already covered our king size bed. That was when I realized I'd made it a lot bigger than the original pattern, probably due to my choice to use thrifted worsted weight yarn, the bigger hook I employed, and my hand problems creating bigger rather than smaller stitches.

As I recall I wasn't really upset about it -- stuff happens when you make stuff -- but now I think I need to start actually checking the gauge before I began a crochet project. I've always eyeballed it since, well, forever, and it's time to stop doing that to avoid disappointment.

For a while now I've been forbidding myself to get back into beading (I spent quite a few years drowning myself in beads and beaded quilting.) The fact is that I love beads and I will happily spend hours beading even the smallest project, like this mini-quilt I just made. Yet back then it was taking over my creative life, and my arthritis often made it difficult to manage the very fine work involved, resulting in much frustration, too.

Over the last three or four years I've been pretty strict with myself about beading too much, but this year I don't feel like denying myself any longer. My arthritis is winning, so why not have some fun now and then with the million or so beads I still own while I can still hold a beading needle? Makes me happy.

I've been scheduling my creative time pretty ruthlessly this year, as I've been busy with the day job, my family life, housework, strategically cooking and shopping to stretch our food budget, etc. I only start a project if I know I can work on it (and if my hands are working well enough to manage it.) That's why I haven't begun making my pink-only quilt project, because I'm afraid I won't have the time to give it the proper amount of attention it requires (and deserves.) I'm also afraid that my vision won't translate into fabric.

It's deadline week as I'm writing this, I started my granny ripple stitch throw this week so I could have a mindless project to work on during my breaks. But I think the next project (no matter what!) will be the pink-only quilt. If it doesn't work out, at least I will have tried. That's always better than not trying.