Lauren Rad is the senior writer here at Myrth. From time to time, she’ll pop in with a personal blog post. This month, she’s sharing about how an enamel pin showing a knitting sloth helped her come to some important realizations.

In the weeks before Covid-19 shut down large events across the country and upended countless lives, I was lucky enough to attend one last, big event that has sustained me for months. The last weekend of February, I went to a huge knitting convention.

Yep, you read that right. A knitting convention.

They’re pretty amazing events. There are tons of classes on a variety of skills and techniques, speaker panels, fashion shows, and a huge convention hall filled with vendors selling an immense variety of yarn, project bags, and accessories. It’s a great chance to see knitter friends who live far away (people travel for these conventions), and it’s also a chance to meet new knitter friends. 

In one of the booths, I found a pin that featured a knitting sloth. Now, you might know we’re quite fond of sloths here at Myrth. In fact, we love them. We even have a sloth for a mascot (they’re named Daly).

So when I saw this pin, I squealed out loud, took a picture, sent it to Emma, bought it, and didn’t even wait to step out of the booth before popping it onto the canvas bag I was using to haul my project that day.

The pin has been there on my project bag ever since, and it reminds me of some important things.

1. The sloth reminds me to choose my hobbies and activities with intentionality. My energy reserves aren’t as limited as a sloth’s, but they’re not limitless, either. Whatever I choose to do, it requires an expenditure of energy. The sloth reminds me to save my energy for the things that matter, that is, either the things that must be done or the things I enjoy doing.

2. The sloth reminds me that there is value in doing something slowly. Most of modern life is focused on getting results quickly. Sloths don’t work that way, and honestly, neither does handknitting. A lot of people over the years have asked me why I bother knitting socks that take 20 hours for a pair when I could buy a 6-pack of them for a few dollars. The sloth helps me remember that not everything has to be instant to be good.

3. The sloth reminds me to embrace my own work style. In the knitting world, we joke about being either process knitters or project knitters. Process knitters knit because they enjoy the act of knitting itself, and project knitters are more focused on getting to the finished result. I am a process knitter, which usually also means I have several projects going at once and an entire stash of unfinished objects lying around. The sloth helps me remember that it’s okay to take my time and work on a project when it calls to me.

I don’t know when we’ll be back to having large knitting conferences again, but I suspect that even when they do open back up, they’ll look quite different from before. My sloth pin will be along for the ride then, too, reminding me how important it is to be resilient in the face of change.

Do you have a slow, intentional hobby that helps you find a moment of calm in your day? What do you enjoy doing? Share with us in the comments!

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