Comfort in turmoil times

A long break in writing, but there’s a good reason for it. We have now moved to and started to settle in to a new home country, Serbia! When I’m writing this, we have lived here for almost two months already.

The first month was a bit like being on a holiday, except that my husband was working normally. Our temporary home was pretty much empty, only including a bed (we had a travel bed for our baby), two sofas and a TV. We borrowed some basic kitchenware and towels, sheets etc from the Embassy and the Ambassador’s Residence, but besides that we were literally living from our suitcases. Thankfully, I had packed enough yarn for me to get by – although I had to start a backup project (with a new technique that I learned!) during the last days of our “traveller period” because I ran out of yarn (Mayflower Easy Care Cotton Merino) for my main WIP, the BiRTHDAY sweater by ANKESTRiK.

After a month we finally got to move to our absolutely beautiful permanent home, with two floors and a stunning view over Belgrade from two large terraces. Our furniture arrived the day after we moved in, so that went way better than I expected. And I was so happy to be reunited with my yarn stash! Even though I had to do some serious konmari-ing with that too before we left (which was horrible, but I was happy to donate some of the yarns to a nearby daycare center for the children to use in their arts & crafts), I still managed to drag a large sack of yarn-happiness with me.

Even though everything went really well with our relocation, and life has been running smoothly, I noticed that in the midst of all this turmoil I found a lot of comfort in the simple, repetitive pattern and the soft and squishy fabric of the BiRTHDAY sweater. Meditatively repeating the two-row pattern in a sweet rose shade has felt like a hug from a dear, old friend or a family member, that I already miss so much. Also I think it has helped me process the changes in my head and bring my focus back to what is really important: everyone is healthy and well, we are together and not all familiar things are lost or gone – I always have knitting.

I guess that is again one of the pros of knitting: you can always take your hobby with you, no matter where you go! I may have had to leave my synchronized skating team and my choir behind, but I still have my yarn stash, my needles and lots of ideas how to use them!

As things are starting to settle and life is getting back to “normal” (whatever that it), I hope to return to also more complicated projects at some point 🙂 You can check my queue and favorites in Ravelry to see what’s hopefully coming up in the future!