Knitting!

One of the problems with this whole middle ages thing is that there are not a lot of things to knit, at least not until you get to the 16th century and even then all we really have any evidence for are socks and the odd mitten or cap.  I hate knitting socks, and most of the caps are kind of masculine looking looking, which leaves me with mittens.  How many pairs of mittens does one girl need, really?

As it turns out, there are four or five really lovely knitted silk relic bags in Sion which date to the 14th century!  Hurray!  Finally something to knit that is not a sock!  Luckily I don't mind the intricate color work too much, it's actually kind of fun, and surprisingly mindless if you aren't too worried about slavishly copying one of the extant bags.  I need to make some things for a largess basket for out local Twelfth Night event and fill out my prize stash (I don't like presenting prizes naked if I can help it, depending on the prize anyway) so I've decided to do at least one of these bags in wool as a sort of experiment.  So far so good, I am pleased with how it's turning out and I think once the little bag is done and gets all it tassels it will be quite pretty.

I've already got plans for at least one more, done in wool again, and am considering doing one in bamboo silk (since I have a bunch of it lying around) before I spring for real silk.  Keeping the tension even in silk might be a little trickier than wool,  which has enough natural stretch that it's pretty easy to keep the stitching even but I've done bead knit bags in cotton that I think I can manage it.

In looking over my blog posts and project progress for the last year, I'm feeling very discouraged and disappointed in myself.  I have not gotten nearly as much done as I had wanted to.  A huge part of the problem has been lack of energy.  So much of my creative energy in the last year has gone into my business and into projects for other people and for the barony that not much has been left for myself.  The business and commissions are rewarding and energizing in their own way, but all the work I did on the regalia and everything else for the barony was really draining.  This next year, I need to work on finding better balance so I don't kill myself trying to help people who won't appreciate it or getting myself into situations where I just feel taken advantage of.  That's not very inspiring.