Where Paper Ends and Yarn Begins
There’s a quiet kind of reset that happens when you change gears in a creative life. Not a full stop, not an ending, just a shift in rhythm. Today is one of those days. The glue, paper scraps, and layered ephemera of junk journaling are being set aside, at least for now, as I turn my attention to something waiting patiently in the wings: the knitting machine.
This isn’t a small project easing its way onto the table. It’s a temperature blanket that has been slowly building across 20 months, stitched through four separate years. It carries time in a literal way, each row marking a day that has already passed. The scale of it feels different from the start. Where a journal page is intimate and contained, this blanket is expansive. It spreads out, takes up space, and demands room both physically and mentally.
The transition between these two kinds of work is always a little jarring. Junk journaling pulls you in close. It’s detailed, tactile, almost microscopic at times. You hover over it, adjusting tiny pieces, aligning edges, deciding how layers interact within inches of your face. The knitting machine asks something else entirely. It pushes you back. You step away, look at the whole, and think in rows and length instead of fragments and clusters. Your body even shifts posture, moving from curled-in focus to something more open and measured.
There’s also a difference in pacing. Journaling can be quick, responsive, even a little impulsive. A page can come together in an afternoon, guided by mood and instinct. The blanket is steady work. It doesn’t rush. It asks for consistency more than inspiration. Row after row, day after day, it builds something that only reveals itself fully over time. There’s a kind of discipline in that, but also a quiet reward.
Coming back to a project like this feels a bit like returning to a conversation that never really ended. The colors already there tell part of the story. Cooler stretches, warmer spikes, subtle shifts that mark seasons and moments I may or may not remember clearly anymore. Picking it back up means rejoining that timeline and continuing it, even if I’m no longer in the same place I was when it began.
Switching gears isn’t about abandoning one creative space for another. It’s about letting each medium have its time. Paper and glue will be there when I come back, just as the yarn has been waiting for me now. Today, though, the focus shifts outward. The work gets bigger. The distance changes. And somewhere in that shift, there’s a different kind of clarity waiting to settle in.
If you’d like to see more of my work, feel free to explore my portfolio and socials. And if something here sparks an idea of your own, I’m always happy to chat about custom pieces.
