I've continued to work all through lock downs 1,2 and 3. So in theory, I've not had any extra time on my hands for extra knitting, crochet or tunisian crochet. But.... with no travelling, it has given some extra time. I would knit in the car, but less so on the train. Also, with so many zoom calls or similar (Especially when your eyes work like mine) I've found picking up a project and switching off my video I could rest/reset my eyes very useful. It's not something you can do when you're the speaker or the chair of a meeting, but for everything else - being creative whilst listening has been very helpful - and helped my concentration. I've always picked up a simple project when writing as it helps me think through what I'm writing - so nothing new there!
Therefore, this hobby of mine has assisted me in my work, and I have done more of it over the last 10 months!
Although I've coped reasonably well with everything (47 weeks shielding and still counting), and my mental health is still pretty much intact, I'm like many people in that I'm very tired and struggling to concentrate on many things. I can't concentrate on a pattern - especially when I've been concentrating on zoom calls and writing all day. I've used some of my time trying to sort my office space, which contains my yarn stash. I have inherited a lot of my stash from others who tried knitting but gave up, and I have left overs from different projects, so my stash is large (I hate throwing good yarn away!)
So I've tried to do small projects that will use up the stash, take little concentration (Other than commissioned Christmas presents), and be useful.
So in the summer I knitted a care bear for each of our neighbours (pictured at the top of this page) - they loved them!
I did some key worker bears and sold them (Money going to the Open Hands Trust)
There have been various other things - Rabbits, cats and dogs for friends and family, some baby clothes I'd made before so knew the patterns well etc. But now.....I'm using the rest of my stash to make gift bags. The majority are made using Tunisian crochet in the round. The back and forth of this style has a gentle rhythm that is calming and also producing some wonderful results.
I'm going to be selling these locally as this lock down eases - and will put up a new page on here with photos. Many raised will once again go the the Open Hands Trust
Above are some of the family and friends projects