Heart on My Sleeve | A Feelings Journal in Yarn

The Heart on my sleeve| A feelings journal in yarn will be my largest knitting pattern of 2021!

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Have you ever struggled with mental health?

if you’ve been following me for even a little while, you may have noticed that I talk about my mental health quite a lot.

it’s not a secret that I have struggled with post partum depression, seasonal depression, and regular day to day depression.

I created this year long feelings journal project to help me find a pattern, learn something about myself, and create something beautiful.

Knitting has been the cornerstone of helping me cope with my depression, on days when I can barely bring myself out of bed, or get dressed, I can (usually) always find a moment to knit a row or two.

having knit a row, I can look back and see, hey, I did do something, and the ability to knit has brought me through the some of my darkest places.

I saw a crocheter on tiktok (@kit.valente) decide to create a “yarn feelings journal” I reached out to them and asked if I could create a pattern around that idea. Which led us to this moment, on the threshold of 2021.

Every day in the new year I am going to knit a row on a feelings journal garment.

I hope you will join me in a year long discovery of tracking our feelings, and getting them all down, (through yarn of course!)

The finished garment will be a multi-stylable shawl, blanket, scarf, poncho…

Each day I will write down my prevailing feeling, and knit in a corresponding color way, to represent said feeling.

I am committing to this for myself, and at the end of the year, I’ll have a really rocking garment that I can wear right into 2022!

I have developed a 12 month calendar and journal where you too can document your feelings.

This is going to help me document and move through my feelings through the year, if you feel like it would help you as well,

I have created a color wheel that corresponds with 20 different yarn color ways from KnitPicks, a calendar journal, a knitting pattern, and styling suggestions.

Here’s a little look into what the printables look like:

I made the calendar with no dates, so if you’re reading this in 2050, it still applies!

The Printables are an 18 page calendar and knitting pattern.

you can get the printables here:

you can get all of the yarn needed to make this project here:

100% Peruvian Highland Wool in 20 Rich colors!

People start their years at different times of the year, and that’s alright! if you want to start it on your birthday, or a recognize a different new years day as the beginning of your year, that’s awesome, honor that!

The Calendar does not have specific dates on them, it is a perpetual calendar, you could make one every year if you wanted to!

I of course would love to see your process, and your journey, so when you start this project, keep me in the loop by tagging me on social media!

@kit.valente also started a hashtag! #yarnfeelingsjournal