Category: Crafts

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Making time for making

Felicia’s latest post, Craft as “a little space to collect oneself”, on The Craft Sessions hit me today. I wrote a comment in response, but I realized as I posted it that it probably would have made for a better blog post than a comment.

In a nutshell, her post is about having lost a private, physical space to craft in and how it’s affected her. There are more interruptions to her craft time because she’s out in the open and available. And sometimes she feels guilty about taking craft breaks since everyone can see her taking a break. She’s basically lost all craft time because she lost the privacy.

One of my current WIPs - Granite and Clouds Wrap - with my cute incense holder >^_^<
One of my current WIPs – Granite and Clouds Wrap – with my cute incense holder >^_^<

My circumstances are a bit different than Felicia’s. While I’ve never had a private space for crafting, I do have private time. It’s me that’s holding myself back from taking time out to craft, not someone else. This is what resonated with me from Felicia’s post:

“I may be voicing a universal longing for enough space to breathe and put things in perspective…… More and more we’re challenged and unsettled by it in part because I think we’re more and more addicted to our busyness. ”

— Pico Iyer – Dumbo Feather Issue 46

And Felicia’s feelings of guilt for not filling her time with busy things…

“But thinking about it I’m not even sure the judgement I’m trying to avoid is external. I have the feeling some of it, might be coming from me. My feelings around what I should be doing.”

— Felicia from The Craft Sessions

I have been struggling with this lately. I don’t have a full time job anymore, which clears up so much space. I had hoped to make room for crafting and design as a freelance career, but it seems that I have filled every nook and cranny with my old job (web design), just on a freelance basis. I think I’ve done this because I swear that everyone around me thinks I’m sitting at home just drinking a cup of tea. (They really don’t. If anything, they imagine me doing magic with two wands as I knit up a project, since most people I know don’t know how to knit and think they never could.)

Shawl

The process of crafting from scratch is slow. Web design is much faster, so I think I’ve filled my time with it as a way to show those around me that I’m being productive. I’ve been saying “Yes” to so many things I don’t even really want to do! I’ve been valuing my worth by how many ‘things’ I’ve accomplished.

As Paco said, I seem to be addicted to how busy I am. Ticking off small, quick items on my to-do list. Forgetting about the bigger goals, like becoming a knitwear designer. (Well, not forgetting… More like anguishing about it while I do other things that aren’t moving me toward my goal.)

I feel like I have to earn my time to craft.

It’s good to consider how well we’re treating ourselves. We’re not robots. To me, life isn’t about how hard we work, it’s about family, friends, compassion, growing, enjoyment…

Knitting needles and crochet hooks in a holder made by Carly
All my knitting needles and crochet hooks, waiting for me in the holder Carly made

How do you give yourself permission to do what you really want to do, even when it doesn’t pay? Even when you already have enough money?

Emma Mitchell touched on this during her interview on A Playful Day. She quit a well-paying, high-power job to craft because it felt better. It’s a great interview, give it a listen!

I’m going to get a little Buddhist here, but I think it has to do with remembering that our human lives are precious. Yes, we need money for food and shelter, but if you’ve got that covered, it may help to remember that you’re lucky to be here, alive, as a human.

In Buddhist views, you could have been born a cat, doomed to nap all day! No thumbs to knit with!

Black kitten
Yes, like Binx here.

The fact that you’re able to craft should be celebrated! Take the time for yourself to do what makes you feel alive. Everyone and everything else can wait 5 minutes. (Or 30!)

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Learn, make, repeat… What making means to me

I’m a long-time listener of the A Playful Day podcast. This year, Kate rebranded her podcast and is hoping to create a community that supports makers.

The first episode of this season came with a creative challenge:

What does making mean to YOU? 

Making means a lot of things to me, so I may elaborate with future posts. But for now…

There is making with my hands…

Handspun yarn
Spindle-spun yarn from sheep fleece

And making in a less physical manner (digital design, music, writing, photography).

Succulent flowers
Succulent flowers by the pond I made with a little help from my friends… ♬

I might make something designed by someone else…

Knitting a hat
Lovely Westminster Hat pattern with Blue Sky Alpaca yarn

Or design something myself. (Or try.)

Knitted Cloud
First of a couple of failed attempts at designing a mug cozy

I may make something practical, to be worn or used…

Completed Kelso sweater
I made a flipping SHIRT! With sticks and string!

Or maybe I’ll just make something for the sake of looking pretty.

TARDIS sunset painting
Gotta love those wine & paint nights where you just go off on your own wibbly-wobbly-whim.

There’s also something about doing things the slow way that is extremely satisfying to me. Like the time I collected acorns and simmered them for a day, then roasted them for an hour.

acorns
They were alright…

Or picking and shelling pigeon peas for days…

pigeon peas
Pretty pigeon peas!

It seems that people don’t know much about how things are made anymore. Because we don’t need to make from scratch, a lot of us don’t.

Knitting seems like voodoo to some that watch me. Planting a garden and keeping it alive (not even thriving) seems like a major feat (when in reality, I probably visit my garden every other week sometimes and it seems to do quite fine without me). Seeing my friends turn flat fabric into a garment blows my mind. When I realized that I could create yarn with my own two hands from fleece, I was amazed. There is always something to learn and most crafts, even if they seem impossible, are within reach with a bit (or a lot) of practice.

Yes, making is a slow process but it is so satisfying to make something from scratch — mindfully — yourself. To know every step from raw material to end product has made me appreciate the conveniences available to me. Most of all, it teaches me patience.

—

Read about The Maker’s Challenge

Listen to A Playful Day: Season 1, Episode 1

Inspiring #themakersyear photos on Instagram

Some of my favorite blog posts answering what making means:

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O-Wool Organic Yarns: Eco-Friendly and Humane

Beekers watching after the O-Wool

As an animal lover and earth enthusiast, I try to be conscious of what I’m buying, where I’m buying it from, and what implications that purchase has on our environment. Until recently, I had not given much thought to where my yarn was coming from, aside from when I purchased local yarn while traveling.

With a new knit design in mind, I went on a search for a line of yarns that is environmentally-friendly, animal-friendly, has a good set of colors and could be cost-effective for colorwork.

And I found O-Wool.

O-Wool is run by Jocelyn J. Tunney, who seems to work hard to source humane, organic wool, cotton and alpaca. (And if you’re wondering how wool might not be humane, Google the term ‘museled’. The sheep that provide wool to O-Wool are not museled.)

She also tries to keep things as local to her as possible: the wool is dyed, spun, and skeined locally to her in Philadelphia.

I ordered shade cards for the Classic Worsted and the O-Wash Sport.

O-Wool's O-Wash Sport
Cats love O-Wool!

I’ve never ordered a shade card before, but it’s a great way to compare colors in a line of yarn and I didn’t even have to leave the house!

O-Wool’s “O-Wash” is machine washable, using an organic compound that stops the wool from felting.

O-Wash uses a GOTS certified organic compound to create machine-washability. The compound holds the fibers still during washing so the scales cannot interlock and felt. Conventional “superwash” processes burn the scales off the fiber with an acid bath, or coat the fiber in a resin, or both. O-Wash both has its scales and uses a certified organic compound!

From the O-Wool FAQ

O-Wash Sport has some very vivid colors and a nice sheen. At the time of this post, one skein is $15.99/336 yards. A little pricy for colorwork, since I wouldn’t need the whole skein, but a good price for what you’re getting.

They also have a fingering weight O-Wash that comes in mini-skeins! Those are $5.99/100 yards, perfect if you need a bunch of colors but not much yardage.

O-Wash Sport
O-Wool’s O-Wash Sport yarn

And the Classic Worsted yarn has beautiful, muted colorways. It’s also reasonably priced if you’re going to need a few colors for a project at $7.35/99 yards.

O-Wool Classic Worsted
Beekers couldn’t help himself and needed to lay next to the O-Wool Classic Worsted.

I’m not sure which I’ll use for the design I’m coming up with, but I’m definitely leaning towards the O-Wash fingering so that I can take advantage of the mini-skeins.

Have you used O-Wool yarn before? Can I see your projects??

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Inspiration from Tattoos

Mandy's tattoo

I got my first tattoo last year, but I have been obsessed with them since I was a teenager. I’m currently working on designing a Doctor Who themed sleeve (a tattoo that covers my arm)… I don’t know if you knew I was such a big Whovian.

I thought tattoos would be a good source of inspiration for knitting because tattoos can be so artistic and they’re worn on the skin! You can do a lot more with color and lines using a tattoo needle than you can with knitting needles, but with a little imagination these tattoos can be the start of a great new knitting project! Click through to the board to read some of my ideas for translating these tattoos into great knitting projects.

Follow Mandy’s board Inspiration – Tattoos on Pinterest.

And if you’re interested in tattoos for their own sake (not just as inspiration for your next knitting project), check out my Tattoos Pinterest board with over 300 pins.

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Knit Inspiration from Tea Cups

Primary colored knitting swatch

Because I need a bit of inspiration now and again and I know many of you that follow me (knitters, crocheters, designers, and general makers) also like a bit of inspiration, I thought I’d start to post regularly about what’s inspiring me at the moment.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen the start of a new swatch for a new design I’m conjuring up (above).

This design was inspired by a cup that my friend Carly painted at one of those paint-your-own-pottery.

Carly Williams Tea Cup
Carly’s Anthro-Inspired Teacup

She was inspired by this Anthropologie teacup:

Anthropologie Tea Cup
Such a cute teacup!

 

For some reason, the design of the teacup stuck in my head and last week I started charting out what I remembered it to look like in my head. After finding a picture of the teacup, I realized what I remembered was nothing like the teacup except for the primary colors.

It got me wondering what other teacup designs might make for cute colorwork patterns… and I put together this Pinterest board! I hope you find something that inspires your next project!

Follow Mandy’s board Inspiration – Teacup Patterns / Design on Pinterest.

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2015 Year-in-Review

If I had to sum up 2015 for me with one word, it would be freedom.

I made a lot of goals for 2015 at the beginning of the year. I wanted to:

  1. travel as much as possible
  2. illustrate a children’s book
  3. read more
  4. write songs
  5. do yoga every day
  6. have better posture
  7. successfully grow some mushrooms
  8. become a knitwear designer

I did three of those things. Almost did most of them.

My intentions for 2015 year were vague: be more compassionate and bring happiness into the world.

I’m pretty sure I was successful in doing those things.

Having quit my full-time job in December 2014, I had a lot of free time last year and I spent a lot of time reflecting on my goals and intentions. Definitely a ‘first-world-problem’, but quitting my job was also the shedding of an identity. I could no longer introduce myself as, “Mandy, a web designer.” I was free from a job title but this left me feeling that I needed to define myself.

IMG_4502
How do I want to feel? (These came from reading The Desire Map)

I have no clue how many self-help books I read last year trying to find my new purpose but my favorites were:

  • The Renaissance Soul (basically how to split up your time between multiple hobbies/callings so you don’t have to drop everything to work towards one goal)
  • The Desire Map (figure out how you want to feel rather than what you want to do)
  • The Crossroads of Should and Must (for makers/creatives, how to stop following what you think you should do and do what calls you)

My walls are covered in goals and intentions to remind me of what I’m hoping to move towards. My time was so open and free, I wanted to make sure it counted and that I didn’t forget what I really wanted to accomplish and feel.

Travel

My main goal for the year was to travel and travel we did! We fell in love with Oregon and are making plans to move there in the next few years. We worked on a farm in West Virginia, visited my mom in Pittsburgh and took a road trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway. Right before John started school, we took a trip to Colorado to visit my sister and headed to Alaska from there. Here’s a smattering of photos from our trips last year but if you want to see and read more about them, head over to our blog, Off to Earth.

I thought working on the farm would dissuade me and my husband from this crazy dream I developed a couple of years ago to start my own alpaca farm. I thought it would be way too hard and I would be over it in a day or two. And it was really hard but I loved it. I wanted to stay forever, waking up with the sun, working in the fields and with the animals until I was so hungry I couldn’t stand it, eating lunch and working again until I was so tired I could fall asleep in my dinner.

I tried here and there to illustrate the children’s book John had written, but again, never got anywhere substantial. I don’t know why my heart isn’t in it.

I took an online course to learn how to write a song, but never got anywhere.

I read about 15 more books last year than I had in the previous year. Goal met!

I did yoga a lot, but definitely not every day. Sometimes not even weekly. I’m still working on it. This goal goes hand-in-hand with better posture.

The mushrooms are going to have to be a 2016 goal. We’ve got the log plugged with shiitakes, ready to go!

Become a Knitwear Designer

The last goal somehow managed to happen. I struggled with it all year, not sure where to start, not sure how to come up with ideas and then actually knit them. Winging it when it came to knitting just wasn’t happening in my brain.

Then I saw a call for submissions for a collection that Kate from A Playful Day was curating for Knit Now magazine. At first I thought there was no way I could ever get into a magazine — I hadn’t even written one pattern yet! And I’d probably have to knit faster than I am able to meet a deadline. But then I learned that a submission is only a sketch, a swatch, and some written ideas. I could do that. And there’s no way they’d pick me anyway, right?

I submitted an idea. And I was actually commissioned!

I knit my sample like a mad man and shipped it off to the UK. It should be published in April, but must be kept a secret until then! It’s a small step, but one that really helped to boost my confidence.

Compassion

In between traveling, I started volunteering on a weekly basis at the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey and volunteering irregularly at other places when the opportunity arose. It’s been a great way to meet like-minded people and generate compassion.

I also decided to stop eating meat unless I knew it was humanely raised or wild-caught. I started paying more for eggs from pasture-raised chickens instead of saving a few bucks on eggs from chickens kept in tiny cages. The switch to eating meat (usually fish) only once per week or less was not difficult, though I thought it would be.

What’s in store for 2016

My main goal for this year is to work on designing knitting patterns. I created a map for the first 6 months of 2016 and would like to create and self-publish 6 knitting patterns.

In the gaps, I’ll still be teaching at Valencia, doing a bit of freelance web design (still my most lucrative source of income), volunteering, and coming up with a plan for moving to Oregon, including purchasing land for a farm.

As far as intentions: compassion, compassion, compassion. More meditation, more yoga, more gardening, more reading, always creating.

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lalylala’s Whimsical Winter Amigurumi Pattern Set

Lalylala 4 Seasons Winter Amigurumi

When I saw this set of 4 Seasons Winter amigurumi patterns on Ravelry, I squeed with joy! lalylala designs very whimsical, unique amigurumi patterns that I adore and these are no exception. My favorite amigurumi of the set is Heinz the stag, but the pine cone and snowman are equally adorable.

As lalylala states in the description, these three winter-inspired toys would make delightful Christmas ornaments! I know there are many (many many many) haters out there who think those of us who start celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving should be locked in a closet. I am one of those people that has been listening to Christmas music for the past few weeks and I think spending the holiday weekend crocheting up some of these little guys as ornaments would be the perfect after-Thanksgiving dinner treat. (Less calories, too!)

Something that draws my eye to these amigurumis beyond their cute little faces is the shine on cotton yarn. They are crocheted with Catania from Schachenmayr. I’ve never used this yarn but I’m definitely tempted to add it to my ridiculous stash now.

Check out lalylala’s blog for more patterns, whimsical illustrations, and other inspirations!

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Slow Fashion

I’m a bit late in the game to start talking about slow fashion, but Karen Templar has been inspiring me with everything that she’s been posting this month.

Slow Fashion is a movement towards knowing where your clothes come from, how they are made, mending them when they rip or get old, and only having what you need. And maybe a little bit (or a lot) about actually loving everything in your wardrobe. <3

This video showing a glimpse into the life of workers who turn discarded Western clothing back into thread/yarn caught my attention. While I do love that a group of people figured out how to recycle these clothes, the amount of waste is astounding.

If that video disturbed you in one way or another, maybe a little slow fashion is in your future. Zady has some ideas for reducing your clothing consumption to get you started:

The next time you’re about to buy something, ask yourself this: Where will this piece of clothing go after I no longer want it? At first, it may seem strange to think about the end point of your relationship with an item before you’ve even committed to buying it. But we have discovered that asking this simple question has totally changed the way we shop. Why? Because it turns out that what you can do with a piece of clothing when you no longer want it is a very good measure of whether it’s worth buying in the first place. – From Good Ridding

I am a definitely a serial donator and I’d love to say it’s solely because I am giving items consciously, hoping others will benefit from them. But if I’m honest with myself, I buy too many things and get bored with them just as quickly. And could I be bothered to fix a button? …Probably not.

My mouth also drops down to the floor when I see shoes that cost more than $60, or a shirt, pants, dress… whatever. But seriously, if an article of clothing is made well and with love, it probably didn’t cost only $60 for someone to make a living. The materials should come from somewhere that is conscious about their effect on the environment and they should pay their workers fair wages — and the same should go all the way up the chain to the final thread.

If you pay more for your clothes, you’ll think a lot harder about what you’re bringing home and how it fits into your wardrobe.

Researchers have found that the insula—the part of the brain that registers pain—plays a role in purchase decisions. Our brain weighs the pleasure of acquiring against the pain of paying. As clothing prices decline, that pain does too, making shopping easy entertainment, disconnecting it from our actual clothing needs.  – From The Case for Expensive Clothes

For Slow Fashion October (and beyond), I pledge to be more conscious of what I bring into my home and mend the clothes that need mending. I hope you’ll join me and all of the others taking part in Slow Fashion October.

Oh yeah, and even if you have an aversion to mending your clothes like I do, look how cute mended clothes can be!