Since the last time I wrote here, I got a nice promotion at my full-time job, got pregnant, moved (about half a mile from where we were, but still), developed preeclampsia, spent a week in the hospital getting loopy on anti-seizure medication, had a baby, went on maternity leave, and went back to work.

This is Virginia. She is delicious. (information about the hat here.)

I’ve struggled to write here for a while, and I also struggled to articulate why I was having such a hard time. But then I read this post from The Wednesday Chef in which Luisa says exactly what’s been on my mind:

…it has felt dissonant at best to be immersed in the heady, joyful and exhausting world of caring for a newborn simultaneously with what has felt like the breakdown of so much that we as U.S. citizens hold dear about our country. I am heartsick and enraged by what is happening at the highest levels of government and by the many accounts of cruelty and intolerance trickling down to the population at large. But I am also heartened and proud of my fellow Americans who are resisting as best they can through protest, activism and civic engagement.

Having a full-time job, a three-month-old baby, and a side hustle (not to mention increased levels of civic engagement) doesn’t leave a tremendous amount of time for making stuff, but there’s not none. I just find myself in the not at all unpleasant position of having to be very deliberate about what projects are worth spending that valuable time on. Complicated cooking? Nope. But some knitting and a bit of sewing, sure. Not everyday, but again, not never.

I’ve been working on streamlining my wardrobe, which is a thoroughly pleasant task and one about which I’ll write more in the future. That process has really affected how I think about potential projects; basically, the finished project needs to justify its existence in specific ways, rather than just being fun or interesting to sew or a good way to use up yarn purchased without an end use in mind. In fact, I recently finished knitting a sweater, Carrie Bostick Hoge’s Uniform Cardigan in cast iron Shelter, pinned the pieces together, realized it looked extremely similar to other sweaters I have, and am unraveling the whole thing.

I love how the yarn knits up and this cardigan would have been perfectly good, but it’ll provide much more wardrobe utility as a pullover (possibly this one) (or maybe this one?) than as this particular cardigan.