Week 26, ‘Juggling Life’ and ‘Make Art Not War’

Week 26 already. This project has become part of the rhythm of my week. I love the structure of committing time to it, and to myself.

This week's panels are "Juggling Life" and "Make Art Not War".

Work is wonderfully busy (which I'm certainly not complaining about!), family life never slows down, and somewhere amongst all of that I've still been trying to make space for my own creativity.

Because that's the thing about making art. It doesn't have to solve the world's problems, but it can make your own little corner of it feel calmer, brighter and a bit more hopeful.

The biggest milestone this week, though, wasn't knitting at all. It was sewing.

I've finally started joining the back panel together using mattress stitch. At the moment it's really just a test piece to see if my plan actually works in real life rather than just in my head. Thankfully... I think it does!

The bottom row of triangles slopes up to the left, the next row of panels slopes up to the right, and I'll keep alternating that all the way up the cardigan. I'm also planning to alternate rows with the sand coloured background and the coloured backgrounds, spreading the word panels and picture panels evenly across the piece.

After six months of knitting individual panels, I'm finally getting a glimpse of what the finished cardigan might actually become.

My current plan is to save my favourite panels for the front, although I suspect that idea may go out of the window. Looking at the sheer number of panels this cardigan needs, I have a feeling some favourites are going to have to make a second appearance. Sometimes repeating the good bits is no bad thing.

For now though, I'm just enjoying watching lots of little ideas become one very big one. A reminder that even when life feels like a juggling act, making time to create something, one stitch at a time, is always worth it.