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Hello! Do you know Flemish singer-songwriter Raymond van het Groenewoud? He has a song called In mijn hoofd (Inside My Head). In it, he sings: ‘Inside my head everything is simple; Inside my head everything falls into place.’ And also: ‘Welcome, welcome inside my head (…) It’s great to dwell inside my head.’ It sounds incredibly zen.
Inside my head it is often like the current state of my sock knitting basket – overcrowded and tangled. From time to time, I dump everything out.
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The contents of my sock knitting basket onto the dining table. The contents of my head onto paper (I now know that this process is actually called brain dumping). When everything is out in the open, a soothing inner voice says things like: ‘There, there. Have a cup of tea and you’ll see that it’s not as bad as it looks.’ After that it’s time to take a deep breath and sort things out.
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Knitting tools go in a dedicated knitting tool basket, crochet things go in a crochet lace box, leftover sock yarn goes in with other sock yarn remnants.
Things I can do something about go in my Moleskine planner, ideas and question marks in various notebooks, and worries about things I can do nothing whatsoever about are sent back into the universe (the latter have a tendency to barge right back in at the moment, though).
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My sock knitting basket yielded three hankies with crocheted lace around them and four pairs of socks. After darning in the ends and washing them, these are now ready to be used, given away or sent off. Among them these socks:
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The yarn for these is Gründl Hot Socks Semila 4-ply. It’s one of those yarns that guarantee a matching pair of socks. It has a fluorescent green starter thread that tells you where to start for the first and for the second sock. In my experience, these yarns only work for shoe sizes 37-40 (UK 4-7, US 6-9). For smaller sizes the leg gets far too long and the toes are finished before you get to the special toe colours. And for larger sizes there just isn’t enough yarn. Another disadvantage is that with those starter threads a lot of yarn gets thrown away. Having said that, I think the effect can be very nice indeed.
Ah, that feels good. A tidy sock knitting basket with just one sock project and only the bare necessities in it.
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And also a clearer head. For now.
If you like, you can watch and listen to Raymond van het Groenewoud singing In mijn hoofd while he is trying out a new guitar here. And find a description of brain dumping more or less the way I do it here. Thank you for visiting with me – it’s always lovely to have your company. xxx