I have no idea why I am blogging about this but the topic popped in to  my head and hasn’t popped out so I figure I needed to comment on this whole topic.

Knitting is a personal thing for people. Some people knit to create, some knit for the tactile interaction, some knit as a form of meditation…( there are so many reasons and I can’t name them all. I have been knitting for about five years now it has been a real life changer. I don’t even want to think about  how my life would be if I had not come across it when I did. It has enriched my life in so many ways. I tend to try to focus on the positive ways it has enriched my life but  ones but one of the negative ones is the one that has come from being so dialed in to social media and the interactiveness of Raverly; What I am talking about is the non knitting related concept of “Keeping up with the Joneses” You know where you see what is going on in your Ravelry group, Discussion boards, or at your local knitting group and get sucked into the vortex of what everyone is doing.

Sometimes it creeps up in the form of seeing how often one of your friends is casting on, sometimes it is buying what your friends or someone on Instagram has, and other times is might be trying to one up your friends on the number of  “likes” or “favorites” they get, but they all kinda amount to the same thing. being influenced by what is going on around you. It can be exhausting and to be honest expensive too. I have and continue to be guilty in participating in this concept of trying to keep up with the Joneses, but this month I have been trying to “unplug” from it a bit.

I don’t know if it is a desire to work on whatever I feel like or that I am not buying yarn for a while but at least for the next month I am thinking that  I am only working on projects that are slow, tedious and  have been  on my project page( No I am not a masochist). I figure at one point or another I decided I was committed to the project so why not recommit?

I am going to focus on getting them done and just enjoy the process of knitting with no attention paid to new yarns being released or new patterns. I have figuratively put my hands over my ears and going “lalalala” to any outside noise. It is kinda nice, like a personal challenge to see how much I can do in a month. Not only am I getting to connect with projects that I  haven’t really been committed to but I will be able to make a big dent in them this month (did I mention I have 75% done on my Cashmere Ombre Wrap?).  I have been trying to fit in a couple rows on  some of my bigger projects, the thought of giving myself permission to work exclusively on some of my languishing WIPs means I might even finish something:)