The Case For Pushing Through.

So I’m away on holiday for three months. Well it’s not really a holiday – it’s traveling which is not really the same thing. A holiday to me implies sitting in the one lovely spot having a bit of a relax. This isn’t that. This is living on the road, which has periods of relaxing but also bit periods of inconvenience that you wouldn’t experience if you were at home. It’s rained the last three days running and we and our caravan are damp. Really damp. Sleeping in the damp, drying yourself with a wet towel, clothing your children in damp outfits…. And trying to work out what to do with kids in the rain. Anything but relaxing, and really time consuming. Anyway I digress.

The point of this post is to tell you about a little aha moment I had while sitting in the damp caravan over the last three days.

So when I was packing to leave Melbourne a month or so ago, I was throwing together a bunch of wool and half finished projects into my Wool Box. Trying to grab the right amount to last me three months, while also trying to do a shifty number on myself with a couple of WIPs that had stalled. Bringing them along to force me to finish them.

Wool Box Inventory looked as follows.

• A tiny baby Granny’s Favourite that I needed as a sample for the Workshop release that was nearly finished.
• A sweaters worth of wool for my boy child’s birthday present - he has since said he doesn't need it until Christmas when we are heading back to the UK.
• A sweaters worth of wool for a hoodie for my smallest which she has been begging for.
• A half done pair of socks for the boy child's birthday.
• A half done Shore Cardigan for my lovely SIL.
• A done-except-for-the-sleeves sweater from last year’s top down Fringe Association KAL
• A yoke-done-but-long-way-from-being-finished Piece of Silver KAL
   

When I gaze into this box I feel a mix of slight trauma and happiness. The slight trauma is intentional.

When I get stuck on a WIP – like I have with the last two projects on the list – I have a suite of tools for helping myself shift through and get it done. Now generally before I employ any of those tools I engage in an extended period of procrastination/self-recrimination where the WIP in question stares at me with reproach from it’s scrunched up ball in the cupboard. Loathed and avoided in equal measure.

My favourite-but-traumatic trick for dealing with a-grade stalling is to wait until I am going on holiday. I then pack the project in question along very little else. That way there is no way but through the procrastination to the finish line. Unless I decide not to knit at all…. which as you all know would be pretty extreme. Most knitting, even knitting I’m really not enjoying, is better than no knitting at all, isn’t it?

Anyway, so back to the damp, condensation filled caravan. I had a night the other night when I had completed the socks, the baby sweater, the cardigan for my SIL plus an opportunistic pair of fingerless mitts for the boy child. Therefore as far as WIP go I really only had the last two.

Too much fabric???

Neither of them were easy but I decided I should finish the one that was closest to finished. My Fringe Association KAL from last September - a top-down sweater in a beautiful camel-y yellow.

Two sleeves were all that was left; only a few nights work. And yet the sweater stalled last November and hasn’t been touched since. How come? Well if I really  put time into thinking about why, a question I was also avoiding, then the why is very clear.

It stalled because I’m not sure I’m going to like the result. I'm uncertain and afraid that all my work is in vain.

Aha. Such a tiny thing, but such a useful reminder that this is one of the things in a project that I get stuck on.

There is often a point in projects where I am unsure about whether I am going to like the outcome. It might be that I have stared at it too often, or worked on it too much, or are trying something out, and when I hit this point I put it down and walk away muttering under my breath.

My uncertainty causes me to discard the project (or at the very least shove it in a cupboard) because I don’t like sitting with uncertainty. I like answers. I like clarity. I am a solver, a fixer. And if I can’t sort it out or understand it then I am likely to walk away.

The thing is that in the back of my head I know the project is there, lurking in the background of my study, taunting me with it’s unfinished-ness and my inability to get it done. Sometimes I leave them long enough I almost forget about them, which is of course a valid choice as I wrote about here years ago when I talked about getting stuck in the middle.

My little aha was simply this. Putting it in a cupboard is simply me trying to look for a get-out for a problem that doesn't have a get-out!

The cupboard doesn't help. There isn't a decision to be made and I can’t think, or wait, my way out of the uncertainty. The finished product might be genius or it might suck. The only way I will ever know is if I knit it and see. No way around but through.

If I want the sweater finished I have to sit in the uncertainty of not knowing, and power through regardless!

The other night as I pulled out the sweater and worked on the sleeves - the sleeves I was worried I wouldn’t like - I pushed through the uncertainty. I knit, and it actually wasn’t that bad. I felt a little uncomfortable and annoyed that I had to do it but in many ways I really quite enjoyed it.

Over the next two nights I knitted a whole sleeve, and did a tubular bindoff (which I’d also put on hold) for the front and the back. I was a champion. Momentum had pushed me forward. Once I finally started, I kept on going.

I'd love to tell you that this was the end of procrastination. The part where I got to wrap the blog post up with a Hoorah! and show you the finished sweater looking beautiful/hideous. Sadly it was not the case. Hitting a part I was unsure about I stalled again. The very next night when it came to me picking up the stitches for the other sleeve I piked. I started thinking "well that looks a little bit tricky", and "I can’t exactly remember what I did for the other arm", and "what if I don’t really like it?" And so I cast on for something more entertaining and sparkly. Rid-ick-u-lus but true.

I'm on a mission now though - by writing this post I've outed myself as a champion procrastinator and avoider of tricky things. I've done a number on myself though and upped the stakes by setting myself up. I’ve also not put the offending sweater away. I’ve left it on the couch of the tiny damp caravan knowing that it will reproach me much more loudly if it is in view.

Pushing through is the only way - and tomorrow is another day.... I will get it done!

Do you have this issue with uncertainty? And what do you do to push on through?

Felicia x

Action v's Fear

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how our thoughts are not the truth. One of the lovely women in the comments, Lizzie, told a story about her sister's fear of sewing. Her sister, Stephanie then popped in with her own comments about her fear. I've thought about them both for a few weeks now*, wondering how they went with their fear-tackling plan. They were going to face it as a team and act.

See you either sit in your fear, avoiding it, not looking at it, OR you ACT!

The sister that was scared of sewing, Stephanie, was so scared that she didn't even want to read my post. From the sound of it she has been sitting in her fear for some years.

Action is the only way to make the fear shift. You won't wake up one morning unafraid and ready. That just doesn't happen.

We all have fear. Fear is part of life and especially part of doing something new. That doesn't change. Sitting and waiting for the fear to pass is the problem. The fear won't just go away by itself.

Fear is a crafty little bugger too. It disguises itself as all sorts of crazy things. Fear as avoidance. Fear as disinterest. Fear as a lack of time. Fear lies to you and gives you excuse after excuse as to why you shouldn't/don't need to do the thing you are afraid of.

My fear often pops up at the start of the kind of craft project that involves a new skill. I don't start the project. And then I don't start it again. And then I don't start it some more. I use - seemingly valid - excuses, like that I don't have time to understand the new process. Or I don't have all the information and don't have the time to sit with the instructions. Or that there is another project that is much more appealing that needs to be done right now.

There is this ace quote by Derek Sivers who says “If [more] information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

We don't need more information. We need to deal with our fear and get started. Not by making the fear go away - it won't -  but instead by figuring out how to move through it. By figuring out how to choose courage and act.

Because the only way to learn the thing we want to learn, is to do it.

You can't learn to drive by sitting at home on the couch being fearful. The only way to learn to drive is to drive. You can't learn to sew a top by watching a youtube. The only way to learn to sew a top is to sew a top. You can't learn to do a welted pocket without trying to do a welted pocket.

Sitting in our fear is not the answer. Neither is using the excuse that you don't know enough to start. We can't out-information the fear. It will still tell us that we don't know enough.

The fear isn't going anywhere. And the only way through is to choose to act. In order to act we need to flex our courage muscle - which like any other muscle gets stronger with the exercise. The more times we choose little acts of courage, the more we practice courage, the easier it gets to choose courage the next time. You know where your courage lives and you know how to make that muscle fire.

And then moving through our fear gets easier and easier.

After years of working with my fear I know that my avoidance stage is part of the process. Eventually I figure out a way of forcing myself into starting the thing I'm afraid of. I ask a friend to sit with me or I take a workshop or I make up an imaginary deadline. I force myself into action. And through the action I often I find that the thing I was afraid of really wasn't that scary. It is often really very simple.

The only way we get to do the things we want to do in our lives, is to get conscious and aware of what we are avoiding doing, AND then act.

Flex your courage muscle and start before you are ready. Because you can never be ready by sitting in your fear.

I'd love to hear your stories about getting though your fear and avoidance.

Felicia x

*If you two lovely ladies are reading then please let me know how you went :)?

Simply thoughts, not truth.

Many moons ago I did a meditation course. I think it was 12 weeks and I got a surprising amount out of it. Surprising because I thought that meditation wasn't for people like me. It was for those other people. The ones who are able to sit still and stop thinking. Not the mile a minute people. Turns out - as we have all heard before :) - I was so very wrong. I use what I learnt in that course all the time.

The most important thing I learnt was something that had never occurred to me before. The teacher made this simple, and yet so helpful, distinction.

“You are not your thoughts.”

— Meditation teacher back in 2008?

This was a little bit revolutionary for me at the time. And she combined it with....

“Just because you have thought it doesn’t mean that is what you think. Nor does it make it true. ”

— Same teacher, same night.

I think about this all the time. I mean "I think and therefore I am"? Surely that means that as I was the one doing the thinking then those thoughts represented the true me?

That night she showed me that the thoughts were just flitting over the surface. My thoughts are just that - thoughts. They change and shift from moment to moment, depending on the information I have available, how I feel, how tired I am, whether I am sick, who I have around me, for a million different reasons. I can consciously shut them down if they aren't serving me. I can examine them to determine their validity. They are not "me". They are fleeting, and most importantly they are not necessarily true. Even if sometimes they present themselves as truth.

I am not my thoughts.

I am something deeper, something cleaner, something dirtier, something more.

I was reminded of this simple "truth" again this week when yet another person mentioned on instagram that they would love to be able to make XYZ but they weren't as XYZ as me. Most times I hear a comment like that it devastates me, because I truly don't believe it to be truth.

Of course you can make what I make. I will agree that the person in question may not have had as much practice as me. But as most of the craft I do is not "advanced" then most of it could be done with a little determination, some practice, and most importantly the recognition that the thoughts we have about ourselves "I'm rubbish at sewing", "I don't have the skills", "I don't have the patience", "I'm not that talented" are simply thoughts. And often total bullshit. Thoughts are not truth.

So, to those lovelies of you that want to sew - you can do it! Try my Simple Sewing 101 blog posts for some inspiration and do a little practice. Put aside the fact that your teacher in Year 8 said that your sewing was rubbish. What kind of an terrible teacher would ever say that to a student anyway. Put aside the fact that the last time you tried to sew something you cut a hole in it, made a mistake, or threw it in the bin because it looked terrible.

And before you go, please know that I have them too. The same self-defeating crazy thoughts, especially when I am wandering around in the "wanting to make something but not really sure I can do it" part of making. I often feel incapable, especially when doing something for the first time.

My head stuff comes up as readily as yours, especially when I haven't done something before and it's fiddly. It goes something like this..... "oooh that looks hard. you don't know how to do that. how are you going to learn that. you are too impatient. you will make a total schmozzle of it. it is going to look crap and you are going to be sad you have wasted your time. you will have wasted the materials too. you know you aren't good at the detail. or colour. you really aren't good at colour. and you will probably have to read instructions. and you hate reading instructions. because you are too impatient. and you....... blah blah blah blah".

I won't subject you to any more. I will tell you what I do with it.

As soon as I realise what I am doing - procrastinating because of some ridiculous head chaos - I recognise the thoughts or feelings for what they are - just thoughts, not fact. I then consciously and simply make a choice to start anyway. Sometimes it takes me a while to move through it but I do so consciously.

Sometimes it helps to actually visualise picking the buggers up, and moving them to one side, or shoving them in a drawer. Sometimes it helps to say them out-loud to a good friend (or a friendly blog). So if you are up for it - leave a comment with some of your internal head chaos. It might help.

Dealing with this stuff takes practice. The more you consciously recognise it for what it is, and choose not to buy into it, the easier it gets. You still have to do it, as you still have the thoughts, but you will be able to put them aside more easily.

Good luck and I'd love to hear your chaos in the safe space below, and also love to hear how you deal with it in your own life.

Fel x

Craft As Solace

So early last week I wrote an email about the tickets going on sale but before I was ready to send it the American election happened. And I pondered it, as I think all of us did. What it meant for our community and the earth and the future. And what it said about our society. All that pondering lead to me prefacing the email with the following words. After sending the email I got a some in return from lovely women around the world who reached out to let me know that it resonated with them. And so I thought I would what I wrote here. I hope it resonates with you too xx.

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I was lying in bed this morning, staring out the window when I realised that I needed to talk about the week that was. It was big week. One full of unexpected outcomes, uncertainty and fear. Many of us this week have experienced dark moments - and felt the weight of knowing that the global society that we want to be a part of, one filled with generosity, open hearts, connection, community and truth, looks like it may have gone a little off track. I have read many posts on the interweb and instagram this week where people have spoken of their heartbreak, their disappointment and their concern.

And so lying in bed this morning, I was thinking about the deep need we have to find solace, to find ways to replenish our spirits, and ultimately find our sense of hope and courage.

When world events occur it may feel like a strange time to be talking about craft. Craft is trivial isn't it? And beauty too? .... in the face of such obstacles.

Lucky for you and I, we know this is total rubbish, right? But as the week has been so big in so many ways, today I wanted to remind you of the place craft can have in filling our cup and reminding us of our connectedness.

Craft provides us with a place to sit with our feelings and find solace. The act of working with our hands slows us down and allows us to find rhythm and flow. It centres us, and grounds us in who we are, and what we care about.

Craft gives us a place to connect, with ourselves, with the earth, and with our community, both local and global. Creating objects with our hands speaks of our shared value system, one whereby the small things, the unseen things where intention is the key, are important.

Craft enables us to create beauty that nurtures our spirits. We get to make stuff, and fill our homes and our hearts with intentional objects of utility and beauty.

Beauty is not trivial. Connection is not trivial. It inspires us and lights us up. And when we are alive we can't help but find hope.

I just listened to a Rebecca Solnit interview on the podcast On Being where she talked about how in times of crisis sometimes a community can fall apart - but also how big events in life cause us to be present in a way that can cause us to fall together, as humans with a shared experience, and really connect. And how there is courage to be found in that connection.

I truly believe that with courage, and a lot of work, we can create the world we want to be part of.

So I wish you peace this week and a quiet 30 minutes to make and connect.

Felicia x

A tale of one day workshops.

One day workshops weren’t my plan. When I began this whole venture way back in 2013 I really wanted the togetherness of a multi-day retreat. I wanted to make sure that people had the time to get to know one another and really form friendships – and my theory was, that that happens over breakfast. Which it does! The friendships that have formed over the years are a big part of the magic of the retreat. Community has been created.

I think I thought that it wasn’t possible to create community in a single day but as is often the case I was wrong about a couple of things.

Firstly, I think what this series of one-day workshops I just ran with Anna Maltz taught me, was that I was selling one-day workshops short. We decided to run them because I was bringing Anna out from the UK, and I didn’t want to “waste” her by not sharing her knitting skills and styling more widely than at the retreat. And so we tried to make the one day-ers a little bit like the retreat. We started early, and we finished late, and we ate together, and there was space for chat.

But they were totally wonderful! Each one of them in a different space with different women. But women, who were of course, the same types of women. They were women who really care about making. And what I saw was, not that we were creating community in a day, BUT that we already were a community who kindof knew one another, maybe though passing one another on Instagram or Ravelry. These one day workshops meant that we got to connect in person. I got to meet people I only “knew” from online and I got to catch up with people I knew in person, for the first time in ages. This is totally obvious now I've seen it, but it was a subtle new joy that permeated all of these days for me as we travelled.

Chat was a big part of the day, and the interesting thing that I heard time and again was that you didn’t necessarily have the making community you would like, in your everday life. Either you didn’t know other knitters, or if you did they were a little old school, and were the kind of knitter who believed that there was a correct way to do things AND that it was OK to tell you that you were doing it all wrong. Which of course we all know is totally unacceptable crazy person behaviour. I don’t know why I was so surprised, but I was. Not about the crazy person behaviour but rather that so very many of you make in isolation.

So tell me about it. Do you know others in who knit/sew/quilt/dye? Do you know others who make in real life? Or are your making mates mainly online???

Felicia x

PS. If you have nothing to do this Saturday Oct 15th, I'm teaching full day of Hand Quilting in the same Barn these beautiful photos were taken and we are almost sold out! Food is supplied by the lovely Tash who restored this beautiful barn and much of it comes from their property. Last time we got to eat their pig! Can't get more local than that. You can find all details and the last ticket or two on Tash's website A Plot In Common.

PPS. All of these photos are from the first workshop we ran simply because they are all I have edited at this time AND I killed my camera as I often do when I am on the road. It is now in the shop.

PPPS. Two of The Craft Sessions At Home winners are yet to contact me with their addresses. So if you left a comment then go check out whether you were picked.