This week’s scrap project. Using alpaca and merino in slightly different guages.
Being super reductive, I often think of my craft as a reminder, daily, momentarily, that all three of these things are true in this moment. I capable of doing good things. There is something kinda fun in my life. And my life has possibility and forward movement.
Read MoreCraft is a process that isn’t simply a straight line from materials to object, but rather it is an energetic feedback loop that cycles through the life-elevating process that is hand making. Making making us feel good, leading to more making that makes us feel good, regardless of whether in this moment that making is physical. Our craft practice acting as a virtuous cycle* - an ongoing process of engagement with the parts of me that feel most like me. Making begetting more making, leading to well-being begetting more well-being.
Read MoreWe have so many of these endings in life. The last few days of school holidays. The last few pages of a book we loved. The last weeks before a move in a house that has been a place of joy. The end of a relationship with someone we know we don’t want to be with but love .
Experiences where we are simultaneously grateful for what we have had and yet sad because of what we are about to lose. And finishing a big project is a loss. Yes there is beauty in the use but it is a different beauty on the other side of this point of discontinuous change.
We are no longer able to pick up the familiar comfort of the possibility available to us in the stitches. We can no longer sit in the grace of the space - and instead in time have to find other projects that may or may not fill us up in a similar way.
Read MoreI combined some beautiful colours and made a sludge. This is being ripped tomorrow. Ripping For Joy
So this week I made something that turned out to be (subjectively) pretty ugly. Obviously that wasn’t my intention. I was looking to create something gorgeous to honour my friend’s fresh baby human.
And yet, in spite of my intention, my years of practice, my knowledge of what works and what doesn’t, (subjectively) ugly was the outcome. The colours just didn’t work together.
Read MoreA beautiful brick-red Ilha sweater I am making for a friend as a thank you!
At this time of year we are often making plans. Plans for our lives, and plans for our making. It’s a time full of possibility, and for me is one of the funnest parts of our making practice.
Who doesn’t love wandering through our metaphorical and non-metaphorical shelves of ideas? Oh the sweaters we could knit. The jumpsuits and cushions and frocks we could make. Quilts. Blankets. Socks. Won’t it all be wonderful!
But while that possibility is exciting, I’ve found it can also be problematic for me if I spend too much time rolling around in it.
You see the problem with possibility is that it is infinite, it’s perfect and it doesn’t make us proud.
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