Filling in the Blanks
Get a pen and paper
Grab a paper and pen, and write down one word of your choosing for each part of speech:
Noun
Adjective
Adverb
Noun—Thing
My Favorite Fellow Knitter
-ing Verb
Adjective
Verb
Onomatopoeia
Same Favorite Fellow Knitter
Adjective
Adjective
Now tuck that list away until the end of the post.
As a kid, I loved Mad Libs. Once I remembered what an adjective was, I had so much fun reading off the zany stories my friends and I would concoct. The more bizarre, the better.
Wouldn’t it be nice if that could be our outlook toward how we fill in the blanks (aka choices) in life?
Daily we face choices—dictating our words, actions, and thoughts. For me, sometimes those decisions are easy and straightforward. At other times, I take weeks to make a decision, and then still question myself for more weeks, or even years.
Perhaps that is one of the things I like about knitting. Once I choose a yarn, needle, and pattern, I have few decisions left to make. For those projects that I know will require additional considerations, I can save them for times when my emotional-decision-making bandwidth is more accessible. When that bandwidth is less forthcoming, I can knit a sock! Or a hat! Or a scarf! Or a blanket! Actually, the options for low-decision-making-required-knitting are extensive.
How the pandemic changed my _crafting_
A writer who I follow on YouTube recently published a series of shorts that addressed how the pandemic has changed how and what people read. I get that concept, because it changed (at least to some degree) how I consume media—books, movies, tv shows. However it also changed how I craft.
I seem to have more blanks to fill in these days, more decisions required. Given that increase, I often wish to have fewer blanks in my crafting. I am like many of my fellow knitters—I love Crafting, not just Knitting! I like to dabble in cross-stitch, embroidery, sewing, quilting, crocheting, painting, polymer clay, casting resin… the list goes on. However, my interests narrowed to knitting plus the occasional spat of embroidery during the pandemic.
More specifically, I mentioned a few weeks back about how much garter stitch I knit in 2020! For me, garter (knit flat) is the most basic knitting I can manage. (That is, if you exclude my aversion to weaving in ends in garter… 🫣) Fortunately during 2020, I found that garter has its own justifiable place in the ranks of knit fabric, and isn’t such a humble option as I had grown to believe. (Can knit fabrics have rankings??? Pretty sure, Yes.)
Garter fills a blank, as do all of the many and varied knitting techniques. And when you have a plan for how those work together, they are glorious. That being said, there is beauty in making it up as you go, too.
If you had a Mad Lib/Mad Knit pattern, how would it look? Would you be brave enough to knit that journey? I might, but it would have to be small. No Mad Knit blankets for me! (Although the more I think about that concept, the more intriguing it seems…🧐)
Filled In Blanks
Luckily, you’ve already filled in all the blanks for this next bit. Grab that list you made at the beginning of this post, and read your lovely story.
One evening, as I sat in my living room on my (Noun), I heard the most (Adjective) sounds from outside. I dropped my knitting and ran (Adverb) to see what was happening. Do you know what awaited me? A (Noun—Thing) sat on my porch. I couldn’t believe my eyes!
(My Favorite Fellow Knitter) came (-ing Verb) down the sidewalk toward me. With a(n) (Adjective) grin, my friend said, “How do you like it? I knew that would be perfect for you and you would (Verb) to have one!”
And, (Onomatopoeia)! That’s when I knew (Same Favorite Fellow Knitter) and I would be (Adjective) knitting friends forever. I hugged my friend and said, “Let’s bring that (Adjective) gift inside and go knit!”
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