Tag Archives: Knitting

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Keeping Our Mojo while Pursuing Success

In a world were the pressure for perfection is ever present, the quest for success can overwhelm us, thus causing our creative mojo to get lost somewhere along the journey. This is often the case when we are creating to meet the demand of others, but it can also be the case when we are creating for ourselves. The scale we use to measure success, sadly, is seldom one we create ourselves, thereby placing us at the risk of becoming overwhelmed when our efforts fall short of an unrealistic norm.

As creators, or makers to use another term commonly used in social media, we rely on our creative mojo to keep our inspiration flowing and our ideas vibrant. Our ability to keep creating often relies heavily on our feelings of accomplishment, and therefore how we determine success is instrumental in our ability to create.

In my video today, I ponder the notion of success and the question of whether my latest project is a success. I determine success is achieved when three criteria are met – functionality, structural-soundness, and joy. We are makers not machines. Variables in our creative efforts are part of what makes our product unique and desirable. When we hold onto this knowledge, we can better keep hold of our mojo even as we pursue success.

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This week I have three English Paper Piecing blocks to share.
22-grandmas-broochDownload
23-grandmas-spring-broochDownload
24-flower-basketDownload

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A Good Day to Remember…

Holidays, especially national days of remembrance, are days often flooded with memories; some memories more poignant than others, some tinged with sorrow rather than joy. We can feel even a bit conflicted as we navigate these holidays, questioning our activity choices or fighting feelings of inadequacy. Too often we may find ourselves questioning whether our own service is enough when others gave so much more.

Service to others – a family, a community, a nation – is not measured by volume. It is measured by impact, if it is even something that can be measured at all. Measuring the impact our service has upon a recipient isn’t something easily done, thereby requiring a huge amount of faith upon our part. The ripple affect of even the smallest act may simply be too imperceptible, or too immeasurable, and so, we may never fully understand the impact of our service. Therefore, we must exercise faith, and live in hope.

We can teach ourselves to serve with a hope that our service makes a difference. We can teach ourselves to seek out a need, rather than to serve from our own convivence. We can teach ourselves to put aside our own good intentions, so we can more clearly see the individuals who require our efforts. We can teach ourselves to look for opportunities and individuals, rather than waiting for others to ask for our help.

Holidays make good days to remember the person we want to be, even as they remind us to celebrate our efforts in becoming that person. Sometimes the opportunity to serve really is simply staring back at us in a mirror.

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In my latest vlog, I talk about service as a way to bust through our stashes – whether they are fabric, yarn, or any other crafting stash. Finding ways to share directly with others our precious stash can bring added joy into our lives.

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Embrace the Mistakes: Oops Yarn

We’ve all heard the saying “when life’s hands you lemons…” In the world of making yarn, the result of this can-do attitude often results in unique creations. In the case of this particular yarn, a bobbin of “oops” was combined with some left-over “forgot what it was” which produced a “crazily energetic yarn”. Not to be discouraged, I then added some “I think I know what it is” into the mix. The resulting yarn is unique, but it is also quite functional.

Oops Yarn is also a reminder to embrace the mistakes in life’s journey. If we need a good cry, then we should cry. If we need a good laugh, then we should laugh. The thing we shouldn’t do is throw out the mistake or pretend it didn’t happen. Life is full of mistakes, but like the Oops Yarn, there is value to be had if we embrace them rather than toss them away.

In my latest vlog, you can hear all about my Oops Yarn as well as some projects that went as planned.

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Chilly Breeze Capelette

After three months of spinning and knitting, I not only have a finished shawl, but I also have a pattern. I love how this worked out and I will be making another just as soon as I spin up another fleece.

Check out my latest video where I show-n-tell this capelette and share some of my unwinding with fiber and fabric.

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❗Free Pattern❗

chilly-breeze-capeletteDownload

💜For Ravelry Users💜

If you you are on Ravelry, consider sharing photos of your finished capelette in your projects and link to the pattern. I would love to see this knit up with all the individual flair others can bring to it.
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/chilly-breeze-capelette

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Saith Me: Permission to Laugh

Regardless of whatever caused the need to heal, learning that it is okay to laugh even as the healing continues is an important lesson. Laughing can be a way to cope and a way to reconnect with joy. As long as there is empathy, and there is no malice, laughter can be just the medicine our bodies and minds need.

In a world where we are becoming more conscientious of how our actions affect those around us, we need to pause and consider how laughter can be a harm rather than a help. Empathy helps us recognize that even with the absence of malice, laughter can hurt rather than heal.

Empathy is vital for healing laughter even when the only one in the room is ourselves.

I spend a good deal of time laughing through my struggles, especially in my little videos/vlogs. I have had time to face and process my body’s rebellion over the last few decades. I have cried my tears, gnashed my teeth, and shouted my anger. I allow myself to acknowledge frustration rather than bottle it up like I did for so long. My family can attest to the fact that I suffer in relative silence when I am in physical pain, but I am a mess when I have a head cold – a completely sad mess. I can laugh at how ridiculous I behave when the sniffles prove to be from a virus rather than seasonal allergies. I can laugh at myself, and I can even encourage my family to chuckle with me because I have learned that I don’t always need to be strong, resilient, or stoic in the face of illness or infirmity.

Empathy is the ability to share the feelings of another.

Life is teaching me that in order to have empathy for others, we must have empathy for ourselves. We cannot have empathy for another if we do not allow ourselves to feel empathetic to our own struggles, pains, and frustrations. If we are always trying to feel perfect, look perfect, or be perfect, we will struggle to have empathy. Our laughter, even when lacking malice will not heal, but will have real potential for harm.

Self- Empathy

When I record and publish a vlog, I challenge myself to focus more on self-empathy and focus less focus on the blunders. It is my hope that as I joyfully laugh though my struggles, others can learn to give themselves permission to laugh as well.

I laugh, and I struggle, and I laugh some more in my latest video.

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Saith Me… Getting the Mojo Back

Sometimes when the mojo seems lost, looking at the everyday items around us can often provide inspiration. In this case, the packaging that made a frozen desert appealing, inspired a wooly fiber project. Working through the project helped the mojo resurface.

The mojo wasn’t lost, it was just buried under world-weariness and needed a lift.

Gelato Inspired Fibers
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Be Kind to Yourself

As the big crafting season begins, I have been thinking about one of the most important lessons life and aging teaches. Be Kind to Yourself – it is such an important thing to do all year long, but as crafters, it is something we often neglect to do as we scramble to make just one more item before the holiday deadline.

In my latest video, I talk a bit about how bad I am with this lesson life keeps teaching me. After showing of few of my latest projects, I change gears (around the 20:57 mark). Even when I am trying to be kind to myself and not over-do it, the unexpected can happen and force me to slow down even more. Learning to find peace and joy when the brain and body war against each other is not always an easy lesson to learn. It is, however, a worthy lesson to learn.

I hope you enjoy my video – pieces or the whole – I have enjoyed sharing it.

The free pdf pattern for the placemat I share in the video is here for your enjoyment if you wish to download it.

court-house-steps-placematDownload
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Inspiration, Memories, Holiday Joy

Confessions of a Crafter

During the holiday season, my world seems to be inundated by inspiring social media posts and videos. So many wonderful new things to try, hidden among some crazy crafting fodder. I enjoy watching videos of projects coming to life, even ones that show crafts that I know I will never take on. Every so often though, I will decide to join the crazy train of a popular craft. Yet, I prefer when my new crafty undertakings are able to overlap with my current arsenal of creative techniques. Finding an overlap is not always easy. Clay work, for instance, is still rather a stand alone. Although, I have made my own polymer clay buttons, so there is some overlap with my sewing projects.

Good organization skills and proper storage techniques come in handy when there are multiple crafty people living under one roof. The joke about the entire house being called a craft room is not much of a joke when so many rooms hold craft supplies. With the constraints of limited space and a need to actually live in the house rather than just craft in the house, I am hesitant when I feel the urge to take on a new type of crafting endeavor. However in the days since I last contributed to this blog, I have finally succumbed to the ever popular world of blinging up a project with gems.

In the past, I have made embraced glass beads for my blinging needs. This was a frugal way to use materials I had on hand, as well as a permanent way to attach bling, but glass beads have their limits. Working with freestanding lace embroidery turned out to be one of the limits. I knew that hiding the attachment stitches on delicate lace ornaments would be difficult. So after many years of resisting the urge, I took the plunge and purchased a hot-fix gem tool and an assortment of gems. When the supplies arrived, down that rabbit hole I dove into a magical world of sparkling light. What was I thinking by resisting this craze for so long?

Fortunately over the years I have learned restraint. So I don’t think my home will be blinged up, nor will my husband worry that his clothing will start to twinkle in the sunlight, but the ornaments I make each year may very well sparkle when the lights of the Christmas tree are turned on.

Another Video

After taking a couple weeks to rest/play/craft, I sat down and tried something new – a vlog rather than an inspirational mini tutorial. It was not my intent to ramble along for such an amount of time, but I now understand why my favorite knitting vloggers vlog for nearly an hour each episode. It was quite to my surprise that I realized how very long I had been rambling about inspiration, projects completed, memories, and lessons learned. I do not know how many people will ever watch the video in its entirety, but at the end of the day I am so very pleased that this vlog has been created. It is a glimpse into my world, my head, my life, and it has brought me joy. I hope that it will bring others joy too.

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Saith Me… Master and Beginner

We live in a world were we no longer seem to celebrate the concept of mastering a craft or in celebrating the beginning of that journey.

There is nothing wrong with intermediate, but that is not a place where we get to sit while putting down the beginners or scoffing at the journey of further improvement.

I will likely never be a master, but I will never stop improving, nor will I ever forget the joy of beginning. The process of self-improvement, even when it is diminutive improvement, is where the joy truly begins. For in that small, simple advancement of the skill, we are rewakening the memories of our first glorious attempts at something that inspired us to try something new.

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Better Late than Never?

Creativity is a marvelous thing, but sometimes creativity can lead one to an avalanche of unfinished projects. The positive flow of energy that can come from beginning a new creative endeavor, may in-turn, devolve into a negative sea of stress. The question then gets asked, “Must I finish what I have started?”

In the world of fiber arts, there are many UFOs cluttering up closets and spare rooms. For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, UFO stands for Unfinished Fiber Object. After many months, even years of living in dusty corners, these UFOs may resemble those other objects bearing the moniker of UFO. For after awhile, Unfinished may very well be replaced by Unidentifiable, and may lead the project to be tossed through the air and into the rubbish bin – flying, you might say into the trash.

While I doggedly try to avoid ever throwing away a project, I readily admit that there are times when one simply must toss out a UFO. Certainly recycling is the best option in these cases, however it is not always feasible. What is feasible, and is a must, is not allowing negative thoughts to beat unceasingly down upon us. Recognizing that while “better late then never” is a catchy phrase, sometimes it is not anywhere near the truth. When our health is in question, it is best to let go of the thing that once gave us joy but now causes us distress.

I began dyeing over 10 pounds of fiber a few months ago, and began spinning it up shortly after. It gave me joy and I have now completed it, but in these last weeks, it has been a bit stressful. The time constraints rather than the project itself was making this project less joy-filled. There were many days when I had to have a serious chat with myself over whether I should halt the project and call it “good enough”. Fortunately, I did have just enough time allotted to stretch the project out and give myself some rejuvenation and healing time. This factor, in-the-end, was the key to success. Even still, I paid a physical price for my determination to finish.

Sometime our bodies and our minds just need a break. Sometimes they require more than rest, they require a bit of a fresh start. During these times, there is nothing wrong with dusty UFOs taking flight. Of course the relief of de-cluttering the closet will never equal the joy of completing a project, but sometimes the peace it can bring is a joy in itself.