Journaling

I've been keeping a knitting journal almost since I began to knit back in the early 90s.

Each page has a photo of the FO, a few strands of the yarn, the yarn label, and details about the cost and store. If you think the gauge swatch is there, you don't know me very well.

More importantly, I write down the story of the item. I don't mean who it was made for or what occasion, although that's in there. I mean the story: what was going on while I made it, how I felt about the yarn, my joints, the universe. I'll update it over the years: Am I still wearing it? Have I deaccessioned? Have I made another one?

I've also tucked in old knitting postcards as well as various articles and images.

Whenever I look at an old quilt, I wonder about the choices the seamstress made. Why did she piece? Where did this scrap from? Where that? That's what my knitting journal is for, theoretically--to tell the story.

To be honest though, months have gone by where I just tossed the yarn scraps, receipts, and leftover labels into my journaling box. With grades in, and only a 45-minute presentation (in costume, no less) due tomorrow, it was time to spend the better part of the afternoon updating.

I was afraid that blogging would keep me from journaling, but it hasn't really, to my relief. The journalling meets a different need, although both can become obsessively self-reflective. But there in my journal is the yarn tangling out the edges and the non-filtered story of my knitting.

I've no photo at the moment, because that would make sense, but volume 2 of the journal has made great progress.