3 Important Reasons to Stop Crocheting, but Move Forward in Your Creativity
Inside – Should you take a break from crocheting? Use this blog post to decide if you need to stop crocheting, and take a break.
Do you ever feel like you need to break up with your crochet hook? The reasons to stop crocheting are reach a mile long, but the result is still the same – you’ve left your crochet hook. Instead of spending the evening sinking your fingers into your current project, you’re eating a tub of ice cream while sobbing on the couch, because you miss your crochet hook.
In this blog post, you’ll learn about 3 important reasons to stop crocheting, and how to keep creating yarn despite the breakup.
First, it’s important to figure out why you just broke up with your best friend – the crochet hook.
- Are your hands, wrists, shoulders, or back in pain?
- Are you feeling uninspired by your hook?
- Are you going through a major life event, and your crochet-focus isn’t there?
I’m a firm believer that once we figure out WHY we’re acting, feeling, or reacting in a certain way, we’re better able to navigate the situation. The reason you’re in heartache may be crystal clear. But if you’re just not that into crocheting at the moment, you may need to dig a little deeper to find out why the inspiration fled.
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Your Achey Breaky Heart… Wrists
Is this year your banner year for crocheting?
You’re on a roll. Knocking out project after project. The WIPs (work in progress) are truly flying off your hook! You’d be a prime candidate for the Yarn Olympics. The only thing standing in your way is PAIN.
If you’re a crocheting fiend, and start to have pain (not the occasional ache), but persistent pain… STOP crocheting. Put that hook down and rest your body. If you’re anything like me, and willing to push your body to its limits.. repeat these two phrases after me…
- In pain? No gain. You will not gain anything by crocheting through your pain. If you think you’ve seriously hurt yourself… call the doctor. Keep your body healthy so you can crochet for as long as you live.
- Your yarn will always be there. The cool thing about a WIP is that it doesn’t unravel itself. After a good rest, your project will still be there, at the very stitch you left it at.
- Pro Tip – make detailed notes with hook size, yarn weight, and where you left off in the pattern. Pin it to your WIP so it doesn’t get lost.
Pro Tip – Soothe your aching joints with 1-2 drops of peppermint essential oil mixed with your favorite lotion. Massage into hands, wrists, and forearms right before you go to sleep. Your arms will feel better in the morning.
Everything is a Blur of Inspiration
Has your inspiration dried up, and left bits of dust all over your hooks? First, don’t beat yourself up that you, the yarn artist, don’t want to yarn today, this week, or this month. We all lose our cro-jo (inspiration to crochet) from time to time.
If you’re firmly planted in this camp, here are a few Don’ts and Dos to help you navigate during this time. Take what you need from these tips, and leave what you don’t.
- Don’t stress about any WIPs laying around. (Even that present for your niece’s new baby that needs to be finished because the baby is due today.)
- DO pack up your projects and get them out of sight. The last thing you need is your half-completed projects willing you to push through, and make your attitude worse.
- Don’t go to social media looking for crochet inspiration. I’m side eyeing you Instagram. These platforms do wonders for artists to share their work. However, if you’re a stuck artist, scrolling through a constant stream of joyful WIP pictures will make you feel worse about your non-existent desire to crochet. Comparison steals joy, y’all. Don’t play with fire.
- DO try another creative medium. The best thing I can do when I don’t want to crochet is to create…. a new recipe, plant some flowers, play legos with my son, or paint watercolors with my daughter. Our creativity and art need changes just like what we feed our bodies.
Sometimes, we love yarn SO MUCH that we wring and wring all the creative juice out of it. Give it the space it needs, and your cro-jo will come back to you.
Stop Crocheting because Something Major is Happening
Ah, the glory of the unexpected – it makes life lovely, interesting, and difficult.
If you are going to a rough season – a loved one is sick, you’re sick, your partner lost their job, you’re going through a divorce, the business you built failed, a natural disaster took out your home, you’ve had a miscarriage – you might need to put down your crochet hook. The sadness, ugliness, despair of living grabs our heel when we least expect it, and sucks the life out of the things that give us life.
The best thing you can do when a big life event happens, is to know what you need. We all need something a little different to get through it.
You may be the type of person that needs to crochet to help process your situation. Keep on going! However, sometimes we hide behind the Crochet Coping Mechanism, clinging to the hope that crocheting will make our situation better. But in reality, it’s distracting us from facing the difficulty head on.
If you’re walking in a season of difficult pain, I encourage you to search your heart, and be honest with yourself about what you need. The best self-care is honesty, not what everyone else is doing.
Other major life events are joyful, exciting, but nonetheless exhausting. Maybe you’re embarking on a move, or you recently had a baby. Maybe you grew your homestead from a flock of chickens to a herd of goats. Maybe you’re finally getting your dream kitchen, and there’s a layer of construction dust on all your surfaces.
Sometimes we need to take a break from crocheting because there isn’t enough time do to everything well. Like I mentioned earlier, your yarn and WIPs will always be there.
Don’t Delay to Stop Crocheting
The worst thing you can do is force yourself to crochet when it’s not the time, place, or season. It’s like bringing your project to a doctor’s appointment. You pull it out, remember where you’re at, and you’re about to insert your hook when your name is called. It’s the pits to WANT to crochet, but you’re constantly interrupted.
Instead of forcing yourself to crochet, try these ideas..
- Get outside and go for a walk
- Write about why you can’t (or don’t want to) crochet
- Pick another art form (painting, cooking, dye som yarn, or flower arranging) to keep your creativity engaged
Remember – it’s okay to look at your life, and refigure how your hobby fits into it. Like water pouring over a cup of ice… Fill your life with the priorities (family, work, school, caregiving, home chores), and then pour crochet over it all. Crochet will be settle exactly where it needs to rest.
Did you want more encouraging thoughts on life + crochet? Then, join the HDY Trail Crew – a weekly newsletter full of encouragement, yarn, and crochet.
High Desert Yarn is made possible by YOUR support. Thank you for reading this blog post, and helping build High Desert Yarn. Happy Creating, Joanna
