Diversity, Representation and Inclusion At Soul Craft

Dear Crafters,

This week has seen some incredibly important conversations within our making community about race, diversity, inclusion and representation. Like many of you, I’ve been reading and listening, and learning, and thinking all week.

For me though, this is not my introduction to these ideas. Just over six months ago, I was grateful to receive an email where I was called in about the lack of diversity and representation at Soul Craft, the festival I ran in June of 2018 in Melbourne.

I want to apologise to anyone who was impacted by the programming of the festival. To anyone who felt that they wouldn’t be welcome, or who felt unseen, unheard and unrepresented I’m very sorry. I got it very wrong.

I want to add that I’m also sorry to anyone who came to Soul Craft and who felt othered or unwelcome in the space I created.

Right before the festival, a woman emailed me to tell me that while she loved my writing, my ideas ,and my attempts to connect community, that she had decided that she couldn’t attend the festival. She said that when she looked through speakers, demonstrators and teachers, that she was really disappointed to discover that the program line up was almost all white women. As I read the email I fell into a shame hole because I knew she was right. This generous woman went on to say that as a leader, as an event creator, and as thoughtful as she believed me to be, that she knew I could do better in the future.

I emailed her back to thank her, and started reading that day, and have been listening, and reading, and examining my privilege, views and values since then. What I’ve learned has changed me forever, and while I have a lot more to learn, I’ve realized this week that although I took on what she said and what I’ve learned, I didn’t say it out loud, and I haven’t apologized publicly.

Receiving the email was a reckoning. I knew I needed to understand what I’d done better. I started following and reading intersectional writers and black feminists like @rachel.cargle, @catricemjackson and @laylasayad. And I’ve been reading books and blogs and feminist websites and opinion pieces in newspapers. Importantly, I also downloaded Layla’s Me and White Supremacy handbook when it was released, and have been working through it. There is something about doing rather than just reading that has been incredibly instructive.

I’ve found our attitudes, thought patterns, and blind spots are most visible in the comments on the Instagram posts of the women I’ve been following. Reading other people’s comments has helped me understand my own thoughts, biases and privilege better. As I’ve been reading I’ve been sitting in the discomfort of being wrong, realizing that I’m ignorant and finding myself lacking. The more I read the more I realise how much more work there is to do, how much more there is to unpack.

I’ve been away the last week and so while I’ve been trying to keep up with the discussion, and keep listening, I missed parts of it. But I’ve seen there are a couple of prevalent ideas that keep coming up that I want to attempt to address.

Intention doesn’t matter, impact does. Action is needed, not intention.

Over the last week there have been a lot of comments about intention, and it has become clear to me that we don’t seem to deeply understand that our intention doesn’t matter.

I am going to use myself, and my failure to act, as an example. I feel this is important as I’m worried that people reading this, will defend my intentions.

My intentions don’t matter because they don’t change the impact to the people who were hurt.

I was trying to create something truly special with Soul Craft – an event that was about making and ideas, and well-being, and community, and mental health. I was trying to be a good person, doing good things, putting good stuff into the world.

I had discussions early on with numerous people about diversity. I had intentions. BUT!! during the planning, through one small decision at a time, these intentions were deprioritised.

The result was a space that was not inclusive to all of our community. The result was a lineup that was not diverse. The impact was that people didn’t feel included or seen or represented as there was no visible representation of diversity. The impact was hurtful.

And so why would I believe that my intentions matter. They don’t. The hurt matters.

Action is different to intention. You see, when I started Soul Craft I created policy to make sure that we prioritised and focused on key areas that I believed were important. Creating these policies was an action, not an intention. Soul Craft had a Connection Policy, a Low Waste Policy and a Giving Back policy. * Getting consciously active about these areas meant that we achieved our aims as they were stated. I did not have a anti-racism policy about diversity and inclusion and representation. And so my intentions melted away without me actually doing anything concrete.

We must act rather than intend.

I have a responsibility to address the privilege I am a recipient of.

This week has shone a light on people like me, people with platforms, and how we use them. Without centering ourselves, we need to amplify the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander** and BIPOC who are doing the work.

I have sat on this post as I didn’t want to be reactive. I needed to sit with it as I wasn’t sure if telling you this story was centering, or inserting myself into the narrative, or if it would be helpful. But after sitting with it and learning from the voices in the discussion this week, I believe it’s really important for me to clearly state how I have been complicit in the lack of diversity represented within our community.

I still don’t know if I’ve got it right but I know that trying is right. I do know that apologizing is right. But I also know that it is a privilege to choose whether or not to try to get it right. I know that waiting is the definition of white privilege. That I can wait to talk about it till I’m ready, till I believe I can do it better, because I am privileged. Because I can choose to engage, or not engage, around race because I am white.

If I am truly going to engage with the process of doing things better, I need to act, and this email is part of me trying to do better.

I will work hard to do better with Soul Craft, and to use the privilege I have to be active. As such, I will be having many conversations about diversity, representation, inclusion and anti-racism over the next year as I begin to plan the next event.

The biggest thing that came out of the conversation last week for me is how entrenched and pervasive and subtle and overt our racism is. And how much we need to begin this conversation as a community. This work can’t be done quickly – it takes sitting and listening and time and thought to unpack our internalized racism - it will be ongoing work and an ongoing conversation.

Thank you to all those who have done the incredibly thoughtful tricky work to pull us up and keep us accountable over the last week. Thank you especially to @thecolormustard, @su.krita, @astitchtowear and @ocean_bythesea and many others for spending so much of your time, thought and emotional energy calling us to account.

I also want to thank the kind woman who so generously emailed me to clearly spell out what I had done, while giving me the push to do better by telling me that she knew I could. I am grateful for the grace, generosity and kindness you showed me, in spite of my ignorance. Thanks for being willing to keep talking to me and for holding me accountable.

I encourage you to check out this post by teacher Rachel Cargle who lists a wonderful set of resources for you. Please also read through her saved stories as there is so much important stuff there.

I also encourage you not to ask questions, but instead sit and read and think about what makes you uncomfortable. I suspect you will find, as I have, that your questions have all been answered without you having to ask. Get to understand incredibly important ideas like tone policing, white washing, white fragility, performative allyship and spiritual bypassing. And please pay the teachers you find for their work. Buy their books, donate to their work and well being.

I’m turning off the comments on this post as the teachers that I’ve been reading have stated that my role is simply to amplify the conversation, not to personally have it, as it is not my lived experience nor my place.

If you want to email me about anything I’ve written then please feel free to email me directly at hello@soulcraftfestival.com. I would also welcome any and all comments and suggestions about Soul Craft. Please know that it’s school holiday time in Australia at the moment so I have limited computer time, but I will get back to you as quickly as I can.

I want to leave you with a quote that I read a few months ago that really affected me.

“The fight is to be self-critical, be reflective, actively work on our empathy and knowledge , and for the love of the fucking universe – listen to those who get hurt while we benefit. Then do something about it. I believe this fight to be a moral imperative.”

— Bisha K. Ali, in an interview in The Guilty Feminist book by Deborah Frances-White.

I will keep reading and listening and learning. I will act. And I will do better.

Most importantly, I am sorry.

Felicia x

*The link is to show you the thought that went into them because they were prioritised.

**I’ve edited the post to specifically acknowledge our Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Go Slow And Hard?

For the last few years, as I’ve got deeper and deeper into my thought hole about what sustainable making looks like for me, I’ve been wondering a lot about how to keep making, while acknowledging the fact that I have enough. Enough clothes, enough options for nearly all situations. So how do I make, for my well-being and my heart in a meaningful way, while knowing that making too much is just excess?

In one way I’m lucky in that I have three growing kids all of whom wear their clothes till they are actually rags. They love what I make them, and they wear them really hard, and I repair and repair until it is actually pointless to keep repairing as the fabric is so thin. Or they lose brand new knitted hoodies on public transport, and then beg for a replacement.…..so there is that.

And then I give myself some leeway to make things for replacement and a little for the sheer joy of it. A few things a year, and replacing things that have worn out, means that some of my making feels necessary and good.  

Then there is the making I do for others – presents, gifts, and community projects.

All of which mean that I can make regularly.

But I’ve been wondering what else I can do. How else can I change my making to ensure it is in line with my thinking and my values?

Since October, I’ve made constantly. We have some other life stuff going on that means I haven’t been posting my makes as regularly so I haven’t shared the half of it - so here is a list so you can see just how manic it’s been.

-       For the kids I’ve made six pairs of shorts, a birthday jumpsuit for a kid, two kid tops for Xmas, a kid tee shirt, a birthday dress for another kid.

-       For me I’ve made a Maya, a Hinterland dress and a pair of modified Emerson pants.

-       Plus I’ve fixed nine pairs of leggings, at least four shirts and three pairs of shorts, and a sleeping bag. And a bunch of other stuff – like a bag for our camping cutlery - that I can’t even remember.

-       Plus knitting – a sweater for my SIL, one for my niece, socks for a friend, ….

-       And….a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember.

Much of this making has been to a deadline and has involved late nights and giving up some sleep. And it’s not quite over. I still have three pairs of shorts to make for the biggest kid as he has just outgrown everything. And the mending is something that is constant in our house as my family are get down in the dirt lovers.

Their xmas tops with some of their new summer shorts.

But in the background of all the manic making I’ve been making my kid her quilt which has given me pause. It’s been a different kind of making to the rest. It’s been slow and it’s been hard. But it’s also been ongoing and meaningful and uplifting…. and took a looong time.  

Which got me thinking. Now that the Xmas/Birthday rush is over and the mending is done and the quilt is gifted, maybe now is the time to go hard and go slow. Maybe having an ongoing project that is hard and slow is part of the answer to less? Part of the answer to making while having enough?

Most of the things I’ve made over the last few months have just been a matter of following a set of instructions or a known process that doesn’t feel like much of a stretch. But her quilt? Her quilt was a physical and emotional stretch. It involved blisters and an ongoingness that held within it a different kind of reward.

Long, slow, hard projects have their own set of skills, qualities and feelings that are unlike most craft I do. At their most basic, they take time, but they also take me out of my comfort zone by their level of difficulty. They are challenging, either in terms of the technical skills I’ll need to use, or the mental skills I’ll need to engage with in order to get it done. These types of projects require me to sit with the discomfort of boredom, to engage with persistence, to not allow my head to get to focused on the outcome, and instead to intentionally find joy in the process.

This kind of project supports me in my everyday because it reminds me of all the things I’m capable of when I try. It deeply connects me to my values as it is such a conscious choice to re-engage with the project again and again – and often I do so only because of my values. In the quilts case it was because I valued my relationship with my kid and I knew what it meant to her. But every time my hands reached for the project I was also reminded of my consciousness, my willingness to act, my capacity to do hard things.

Slow hard making is a way of practicing the skills and qualities I want to use in my wider life.

In my wider life I’m human. I often try and fail to do the right thing. Sometimes I make decisions not based on my values, but simply because I’m tired, or the kids are fighting. Engaging with a slow project actively reminds me of who I am, and what I am capable of when I try by allowing me to practice micro-skills of courage and persistence.

A photo of her quilt.

When I heard the poet David Whyte speak recently he said we are practicing in this moment who we will be in the next. He asked us to think about who we are practicing to be.

Our craft – but particularly our hard slow craft -  gives us the opportunity to practice with a low risk and high reward. Projects that are hard and slow allow us to get better in our real lives at sitting with boredom and uncertainty. By sitting with uncertainty in our craft, our bodies learn and practice the feeling, and so when when it arises in real life, our heads and our hearts recognise it for what it is; a feeling that tells us something important but will pass.

And this is only what I’m aware of as I’m sure that some of the lessons we learn are things that are not even visible to us.

Living with the objects created - the artifacts - of using this part of my making practice makes me feel strong and capable, persistent and thoughtful. They remind me always that I have agency in my life to create change, even if that change is on the micro-level of me.

This practice – the practice of hard slow projects - is a gift to me from me. And I believe it is something I want to engage with more. To choose more projects that meet this criteria, to push myself a bit harder to sit with the lessons to be learn in hard and slow. To continue to do my day to day making, for myself, my kids and others, but in the background to have a main project, my main squeeze if you will, that is a bit of a stretch.

For some of you this won’t be a part of our craft practice that you will want to engage with regularly or even at all. Your craft might be more comfort focused – in that craft is where you go to seek comfort and solace in your everyday. And the idea of doing something hard and slow and process driven won’t sit well with you and where you are in your lives at this moment. Obviously this is totally valid. But one of the beautiful things about making is that the option is there when you need it or desire it.

Slow craft for me is some of the most meaningful of my making. It is the part of my craft that I engage with to remind me of who I am, and who I’m practicing to be. And it’s a part of my craft that I want to explore more.

This blog post came about because I’m thinking about what my next slow project is…. The Twigs anyone? Do you engage with hard and slow projects… and what do you get out of it?

Felicia x

PS. I’m on holiday with the family this week but can’t wait to read about your slow projects early next week.

Craft Is Not Trivial

Today I’ve heard two comments that have lit a raging fire in my belly. A fire that has inspired a blog post I’ve been meaning to write for an eon. A fire for all of us who have ever had the craft that we do diminished, either in person or online. And this my friends, is probably all of us, because one of the narratives that is strong and persistent within our culture is that craft is trivial.

Just this morning my darling son walked into my study to find me on my computer with knitting in my hands. I had just read a comment on the interweb that stated that discussions about craft were privileged, and essentially indulgent, in a world where so many people were struggling to survive, people who didn’t have the choice, time or money to make. I was mulling over the comment – when my darling son said “look at you sitting there knitting like some old granny”. Two flaming arrows in five minutes. Talk about light me up. 

To my son I said – “My love, how many grannies do you actually know who knit?”
Him: “Well there’s grandma.”
Me: “Yes, but nearly every woman you know knits, and none of them are grandmas, so why are you perpetuating a stereotype that is not true in your world. For that matter, where did you even get that stereotype from? You are surrounded by people who knit who are in their 30s and 40s. And for that matter, why would knitting like a grandma be a bad thing, you crazy kid? Why are you dissing the grandmas?”
Him (with a smile as big as his head): “Well, your hair is grey”.
Me: “Off you go, you ridiculous wind-up merchant”.

My first question is – how strong does a stereotype need to be that a child in my home – the home of a woman who crafts all the time and is surrounded by a vibrant craft community - that my child, is pedaling this narrative? A narrative that suggests craft is ridiculous, and trivial, as it is only done by old ladies, who obviously have no value to us as a society due to their age, and therefore their chosen activity should be a thing of scorn and derision due to it’s worthlessness.

My second question is - how is it that when we talk about our craft practice – around how to make with more thought and intention - that we are reduced to a bunch of people who aren’t acknowledging their privilege? That we become people who don’t care about the real issues in the world as we are obviously thinking too much about this trivial hobby. This thinking is prevalent more widely too, in discussions about slow fashion, and food choices, and environmental stewardship. If we care about any of those things we are simply not acknowledging our privilege. I don’t think this is true.

We can acknowledge our privilege, work towards change, and also spend time talking about, and doing, a thing that brings us pleasure and joy and purpose and meaning. And well-being.

Thinking about craft, how we can use it to make our lives better, is important because craft can change our lives for the better, and it can change the lives of people who aren’t in positions of privilege, especially if we are thoughtful about it and conscious. It can change things because we are all connected.

You see, I am trying to change my corner of the world through my craft. I am trying to name our shared experience so that we can share it with others who might benefit from it. And I’m trying to see if we can figure out how to think about making things in a way that sustains us more beautifully.

We can improve the experience of our lives by changing the quality of our thoughts and minds. I’m trying to promote the idea that making is an innate part of our humanness, and engaging with making elevates our lives.

Craft is not trivial.

Culturally we seem to have a special distain reserved for craft that it seems is not given to other activities. People who make art aren’t trivialized in the same way as crafters. They are celebrated for trying to change culture. People who spend to much time thinking about sport aren’t chastised or trivialized for it. Instead sport is celebrated for it’s health benefits. Or take people who are obsessed with their dogs. Well, they are looking after their well-being through the connection that comes from pet ownership.

There are a few shitty narratives about craft that get a run over and over again in the mainstream media. The two main ones that bug me are “it’s not your grandma’s knitting” and the second one that I hate equally is “stitch and bitch”. The “bitch” part because that is how petty and awful women really are while they sit around and do their trivial stitching.  Superficial, frivolous and mean.

There is this notion that to spend time on craft – especially now that it is not a necessity but a privilege undertaken by women with time and/or money on their hands – that to do so is indulgent. The value of what we do when we engage in craft has diminished even further now that it is optional. Obviously this thinking has history; a throwback to time when the men were seen to do the important work of hunting, gathering and fighting the wars, while the women just piddled around knitting socks. Maybe the trivialisation of craft is part of the lack of acknowledgement of the place the domestic plays in all of our lives.

I know in my own life that my partner could not have had the career he had, and had children we had, had it not been for the work I did to care for those aforementioned children. And yet his career is what is celebrated by others, whereas my contribution to his success is unseen and unacknowledged largely because it was in the realm of the domestic*. A woman I once met at a round table discussion stated that she couldn’t do what I had done (be the full time carer for three kids under 5), and that the reason she had gone back to work was so that her daughter didn’t think that she was lazy. That she wanted her daughter to see her as hardworking and productive and doing something meaningful in the world. I understand that this wasn’t a personal attack – that it was just the lens she saw the world through – and yet I think it speaks to the idea that to engage with anything domestic is to be choosing something that is less than. And craft is still often seen to be of the domestic sphere.

We need to change the cultural narratives we have around craft.  I often hear people saying statements like "Oh, so, I know it sounds trivial but I've found real meaning and satisfaction in sewing". The narrative is so strong that even we makers, even those of us that make and understand what it does for us, feel the need to preface our statements about it with an apology, an acknowledgement that to speak of craft in a meaningful way sounds trivial. Even though we know it isn’t.

Craft is not trivial. It isn’t what we see in the mainstream media. It isn’t playing around with needles and yarn and little bags of thread. It isn’t ugly useless objects that clutter up houses. It isn’t time wasting, it doesn’t need to cost a lot of money, and it isn’t something that just privileged women do that have too much time on their hands.  

So what is it?

Practically speaking, craft is engaging with the practice and process of making a thing with our hands. Emotionally speaking, taking time to craft is us being goddamn kick-arse grown-ups who know that in order to be the best we can be, we need to prioritise our well-being.  

It is our responsibility as adult humans to chase down our well-being with all we have, because how we show up in the world matters. It matters to those that we share our lives with. It matters in our workplaces – workplaces where, I might add, many of us are solely focused on the well-being of others. It matters to those people we interact with for a second at the supermarket, to the person we sit next to on a train, or to the person we are responsible for serving at the school canteen.

It matters because as part of a community, we have a responsibility not just for our own well-being, but for the well-being of the people we interact with, live with and love. We are in this together.

Little things matter – small interactions with others, eye contact, smiles, our tone of voice. All of these things, my ability to be present, and centered, and loving, and responsive to other people, are made infinitely better through me taking the time to make things with my hands.

To butcher and paraphrase an idea from the beautiful poet David Whyte – we must drink from a deep well, the deepest well we can possibly dig for ourselves, if we are to live our best lives.

Yes, the commenter I mentioned at the start of this post, was right. We are privileged because we aren’t talking about the base level of survival – water, shelter, food – but we are talking about things that affect our next level up. We are talking about our ability to connect with others. We humans are social animals who need connection, but it’s impossible for us to connect, to support, to love and to give if we have nothing left inside. We can’t give when we have nothing to give. We need to go to the well.

Our privilege – and most people who read this blog are immensely privileged as they have the head space to read my wordy posts x  – allows us to think about, and talk about, how to better our wellbeing. Making choices about how to think about and navigate our craft are part of that, because the more nurturing our craft practice, the better our well-being.

We need new language, better language, and a new narrative about what craft gives us; how it supports us, connects us and changes us.

This thinking about craft, talking about craft, and the act of making itself, is not trivial. It is life sustaining for so many of us. And by life sustaining, I’m not just talking about the big stuff. Yes – craft has sustained me and supported me through grief and shock and babies and cold, still, lonely winters. And so many of you lovely people have shared stories with me over the years, of craft sustaining you through cancer and divorce and loss of children and elderly parents and mental health stuff. But craft’s main purpose in my life, and I suspect in yours, is much more mundane and much more beautiful.

My craft is part of my domestic life, my everyday. It is something I look forward to even if it is something I get to spend two minutes on, or no minutes on. It is what I do in the gaps instead of scrolling through my phone, cleaning out my cupboards, or watching TV. Craft is a big part of what allows me to live my domestic life with grace, because it allows me to retain 3% of me no matter what is going on; the 3% that has it’s own dreams and ideas and desires. Craft is there when I want it, when I need it, when I desire it. It provides connection and ritual and beauty to my family life, to my children and to my partner. It allows me, without much money at all, to show them in an ongoing way, my love for them.

For us – those of us that come to this place seeking to think more deeply about how craft impacts us -  craft is sustenance for our thinking minds and our beating hearts.

It is what allows us to show up in the world in the best way we can on any given day. It allows us to see ourselves more fully – to see who we are and what matters to us – by reminding us, through the objects we have made, of our capacity, our values, our priorities and our joy. I know that when I look around at the things I have made I am grateful. Grateful that I have made the time and spent the energy (even on days when I don’t have it) making a thing, because the act of making is what gives my life beauty and connection. And because we need beauty and connection in our everyday to be buoyant. For how can we continue to show up for those who need us, if not for moments of beauty and connection?

Craft is not trivial – it is life giving. For us, but also for all those we serve.

Felicia x

*Not by my fella btw. He is very loving and aware.

Josephine of the Very Snuggly Quilts program with the quilts made at Soul Craft.

Stash Less = Less Decisions = More Joy

Stash Less is a ongoing series about working towards a more conscious stash.

Over the last few years I've given up choosing wine at dinner. I rock up to restaurant and almost before I have taken off my coat, I am asking for a glass of something delicious. The wait staff inevitably ask what kinds of wine do I like… and my answer is always “Anything you like. Something you love.”

Sometimes I don't even specify red or white. Sometimes the waiter is flummoxed but often they like it. They smile, walk off and return with something delightful.

The joy this non-decision has brought me is immense… in a wholehearted vague simple intangible life pleasure kind of way. I'm drinking delicious wine with the freedom that comes from passing responsibility to someone else.

There are only two ways it can go, and both of them are good.

If they have chosen the wine, and it is a nice place, then it will probably be delicious. They know more about wine than I do anyway. What do I know? I look up and down the menu choosing something random on the basis of ..... well that is just the point, on the basis of nothing….. with the idea that choosing is part of what makes having the expereince of wine good. What I’ve learned is that it’s not. My pleasure is actually increased by forgoing the choosing. No tooing. No frooing. There is no buyers regret and I get deliciousness without deliberation.

When it is not delicious I simply drink it, feeling grateful that I have wine, and that I didn't have to make a decision. And because it wasn't my decision I don't have to feel bad about it sucking. I simply think - oh well, that person isn't good at choosing wine. And often neither am I. But when I choose a bad wine I feel bad about it.

If they have chosen then I don't have any second-guessing about the choice I made, or regret that I made a bad decision. “This wine isn't the best” is the end of the thought.... now back to the conversation with the person I love sitting in front of me.

Decision making theory is widely established. Obama for example wore the same suit every day or the same tie. Whatever. The point was that freedom is a construct and although we love it and value it, it isn’t necessarily what we need for satisfaction or joy in our lives. *

OK. So Stash Less.

Years of practicing Stashing Less have meant that my behaviour has shifted, and not just around craft. Stash Less has resulted in me abdicating a lot of choice. This removal of choice isn’t quite the same as not choosing wine and giving that choice to the wait staff. Instead I guess a better analogy would be that I’ve narrowed the menu. Whereas once I had an endless menu where I was often overordering, or frozen with choice, now I have two things on offer.

1. A cupboard with limited, but beautiful resources. And a pile of scraps.

2. A ongoing, regularly updated making list that is based on need and the concepts I have written about in the post Enough Is As Good As A Feast. Making mainly on need and sometimes for joy.

By removing my choices, by consciously and intentionally giving up my endless options and infinite possibility, I no longer suffer from overwhelm or paralysis when it comes to my making. I have purpose. I have headspace. And I have intentionally limited choice.

I’ve taken more of a systems approach to support the changes I want to make. The biggest change to the system I’ve made is that I no longer shop as a pasttime. I don’t browse. I don’t wander in. I go to a shop with purpose and a list. I have removed myself from mailing lists so as to avoid the temptations that come with sales and new releases and special deals. I have stopped shopping.

And this has trickled out into the rest of my life. When I am at our big shopping centre buying undies for the kids, I no longer pop into my favourite shops for a “look”. A look that would nearly always result in a purchase. Instead I simply walk on by because I know I have enough. What freedom!!

To go into the store starts a conversation in my head that I don't need to waste my life on. Walking into the store opens up possibility, choice and decision making, that mean that I have to wrestle with my values, based on the fact that I have triggered my triggers - fomo, wanting to own the pretty, time poverty, and perfectionism. My stashing triggers are my shopping triggers. They are my emotional weak spots - thought patterns that do not serve me.

By not walking into the store - online or inperson - then I don’t get into some version of "oooohhh, that is so pretty. And cool. Wouldn't that go great with my XYZ. And it would totally update my wardrobe. And I would feel smashing. But really I already have enough. And I don't need it. But I want it and why shouldn't I have somethings that I want. I haven't bought anything in ages. I'm not excessive. My wardrobe isn't big compared to other peoples. You totally deserve it. What are you talking about….what does that even mean you crazy woman. But it’s so pretty......" Blah blah bloody blah.

This process can easily take an hour, plus endless hours over the next week or two as it pops in and out of my head…. and then there is the moment three months from now when I feel uncertainty about the choice I should have made. What a waste of time about something I didn’t want and didn’t need. If I don't enter the store, don't give myself the choice, I don't have the conversation or the choice-regret-hangover. Life is simpler. More clear. More clean and more joyful as a result.

Sarah Wilson in her book First, We Make The Beast Beautiful talks about how choice creates anxiety. And how by having boundaries or rules we can decrease the amount of angst we create in our own lives. Because we are creating it. We have a choice about how much choice we allow ourselves to engage with. To have a better life, we can consciously choose to engage with less choice and gain our freedom.

I wrote back in 2017 about what Stash Less looks like for me in the longer term and it is still true today, except that the Stash I work from is even smaller. It still has beauty in it, enabling me to be inspired and to make when the idea strikes. But my rules about purchasing for Stash Less, and my Making List mean that I get to turn off the part of my brain that is rolling around in the possibility of infinite making. I can simply make the thing I have in front of me, OR I can make something from my list. To make that thing from the list I get to chose something from the cupboard. If I decide to make something and I don’t have the materials I need to make it, I get conscious and shop for just the right materials. But this kind of shopping isn’t the angsty kind. It is purposeful and normally over very quickly because it’s very clear. Again more joy in clarity.

Stash Less has saved me from so much wasted time and angst. There is no decision to be made, and nothing to think about except what is right in front of me. Less dreaming, more making. Less choice, more freedom. Less wanting, less comparison, less choice, more satisfaction. Less as more.

Stash Less has become more than an effort to have a conscious stash. Instead it’s become about something much bigger. About how I want to spend my time and my thought. And that is where the beauty of this practice lies. I've seen my freedom clearly with my fabric purchasing, my yarn choices …..and in my wine choosing. Next year Stash Less may mean that I even move on to abdicating my meal choice?

I’d love to hear how the ideas of a conscious stash have changed your habits or behaviours over time?

Felicia x

* That link is to the last post I did about Stash Less and the Paradox of Freedom. 

Lessons From Crossfit About Learning Craft.

So a few years back I had four pregnancies in a five year time period, and gave birth to three babies. Given that I have a thing called hypermobility (which I didn’t know at the time) this was not the best prescription for a healthy back and pelvis. Instead it was a recipe for a woman who couldn’t walk very well….and lived with fear and ongoing pain. Combine that with the physicality of having 3 under 4.5 - carrying two at once, forcing them into car seats, carrying them for hours while they slept and we saw sights, dragging them out of someone's house when they really wanted to stay and play - and I was physically a bit snookered.

Most days it was just low level, low grade pain in my sacroilliac joint otherwise known as your SIJ or the back bit of your pelvis. On bad days it would mean I couldn't walk. I lived in fear of triggering it by putting a kid in their car seat, or even simply changing direction while I was walking from one part of the kitchen to the other.

I saw physio's of various descriptions who suggested pilates, strapped my pelvis together or talked pelvic floor exercises, none of which helped. There were years of chaos and issues. And then, I happened upon a physio who gave me the actual answer.

She said that the only reason I was still walking was because of the physicality of parenting - because I hadn’t stopped doing things. That that was the only reason my body hadn't seized up with fear and pain. Her answer - strength building exercise that was non repetitive (so no swimming or running) but that involved the whole body doing natural body movements. Functional movement, making sure that I had my core held on the whole time. She said to fix the pelvis we needed to strengthen the muscles of my core and achieve bodily balance but not by working them one at the time (so no pilates). Which is how I ended up at Crossfit.

To tell you the truth I was plenty scared - Crossfit looks plenty scary from the outside - but I was also sick to death of my issue. And sick to death of the fear and the pain.

I'm going to skip to the end for a minute which is to tell you that after three years of going to Crossfit consistently three times a week I have a different body. I still get really low level pain sometimes BUT I rarely flare my back, have a strong body that can carry both my 12yo and my 11yo at the same time without fear. Where I was once flaring it once a month, it is now about once a year.

As well as the physical changes though I've been incredibly impressed by what I have learnt about myself, my stories and what it takes to learn something new. And that's where the parallels to craft come into it.

You see, due to the retreats (and life!) I am able to watch a lot of people learn how to do something new, engage in a skill, learn a technique. I hear their stories, their fears, their worries, their joy - and I love it. I love hearing about their stuff. But I often don't feel what they feel about the learning process as I started learning how to make things when I was tiny. I believe I can make. Many of them don't have this belief when they start, at least not initially.

But getting fit? Well in getting fit I was a total beginner and I came at it with a head full of stories. Most of which came from a childhood where I was the kid that was always picked last….

I’ll give you just a couple. I didn't believe that I was sporty. Or athletic. I did believe that I was physically substandard somehow. That true fitness wasn't accessible to me - this is total bullshit by the way.

Crossfit has reminded me of watching many others learn to make - and I've taken what I seen from watching them, and tried to apply it to me and my new learning experience.

My most important takeaways from the three years.

You simply have to show up.

This is the single most important part of learning anything. You have to show up. Many people use their stories and their fears and their insecurities stop them from showing up. And without showing up there is no way you can move through this part of the learning.

For Crossfit, I took some advice from Tim Ferris and set the smallest possible goal, A goal whose arse I could kick. All I had to do was drive to Crossfit three times a week and walk in the door. When I was there I didn't need to do anything other than do what they said. I didn't have to do extra. I didn't have to try. I didn't have to become the greatest crossfitter that ever lived within a month. I simply had to show up three times a week.

And I have. Week after week. I know I need to go - to feel good and not have a shitty back - and I make it happen. And as a result of showing up I am now fit. Easily the fittest I’ve been in my life.

Just this week I was teaching some 6/7/8yo how to sew and one of them said "I'm not good at stitching. Why are you so good at stitching Felicia". To which I did a bit more digging. "How much stitching have you done?" "About 10 minutes with my mum". "OK then. That would be why. I have done probably about 10,000minutes".

Who knows if the 10,000 is actually true but the point is that I would be a lousy Crossfitter if I had only done 10 minutes. Instead I have done 300 hours over the last two years which is 18,000 minutes. C'mooon!

Our stories are often bullshit

Often as I'm rambling on to Jenn about something or another she will stop me, look at me with those beautiful but penetrating eyes and say "Felicia that is just a story!"

Years ago when Jenn first said it to me I didn't actually know what she was going on about. I kept thinking that my thoughts were true - and while we now all know what rubbish that is, right? - at the time I didn't. It's taken time and practice for me to get better at trying to look at whether what I am thinking is remotely related to the truth.

In this case - my story that I wasn't athletic had to do with an unathletic childhood where I wasn't that great at group sports and nor was I encouraged to be. My throwing was rubbish and my running was described as a uncoordinated chicken. A physio has now pointed out to me that the running is directly related to the hypermobility. Limbs all over the place with nothing holding it all together.

People tell themselves they aren't creative or talented - neither of which is a prerequisite to making - and all I can say is that how do you know unless you have done a shit tonne of hours. And why do you think you need talent or creativity to make something you love? What are you basing the story on?

Leave your ego at the door

Learning is humbling for all of us. To learn, all of us must allow ourselves to be open, and open means vulnerable.

Walking into the Crossfit gym for the first month was an exercise in bravery. All I could think about was "oh my god, everyone is going to be judging me and thinking I am really unfit and who do I think i am being here, i can't even do a squat, and i shake all the time. I don't deserve to grace these halls" or some such nonsense.

I have seen this at The Craft Sessions. I have heard of people not coming to The Craft Sessions because they think they aren't crafty enough? And I’ve heard of people not coming to The Craft Sessions because they believe that the standard people will be making at will be too high!

How do you get fit without engaging in fitness activities? How do you learn to craft without crafting?

And the other thing I’ve found is that the people at Crossfit have been nothing but supportive to anyone who walks through the door and tries. This applies to craft too. And life.

Small wins are important- suspend your self-judgement

I wrote a blog post way back at the start of this blog where I talked about the idea that good technique is overrated and initially we should try for some small wins. And I still believe it. We need to feel encouraged which means we need to suspend our judgement over whether we have done it as well as we would like, and instead celebrate what we have achieved. We made a thing!!

This works slightly differently in Crossfit in that you have to have great technique in order not to get injured BUT initially when I went - for the first year or so really - I didn’t lift any weights so my technique was less of an issue. My body was in such a state that simply getting through a class was a miracle. And so I concentrated on the fact that I had showed up and done the workout. No matter how poorly or how slowly, I showed up and exercised. I was no longer sitting on the couch. I had showed up!

If we wait until we have perfect technique then we often aren’t doing enough practice to get better at what we want to learn and so we can’t improve our technique….and we become frustrated. There is balance to be found here. Good enough technique that we like the result, while not trying for perfect as that can get us stuck.

Skills build with Time and practice

Three years into my Crossfitting I’m still seeing improvements. Improvements that at the start weren’t even apparent to me that they were a thing I’d want to get better at. Often you don’t know what you don’t know.

For example at the start I couldn’t even really get a single glute to tighten. There was no activation and really I didn’t think I had glutes. Other people had them whereas I just had a bottom. It could jiggle but it couldn’t tighten. Six months in I could see I had them and they could do something. Not much but I could get them to twitch.

The next year I had to learn that I had obliques and only now I’m learning that I have lats. The hypermobility means that I take a long time to figure out how to access each bit of my body and without learning one of these steps I couldn’t even begin to imagine the next. Each new step or skill I’ve needed to learn has revealed itself over time.

This is true to this day of my craft. I make a new thing and there is possibility and learning in nearly every project. Sometimes that is simply that my fingers are a bit more agile in turning a hem or that I understand something about my knitting I didn’t previously. Our craft reveals itself to us over time.

Change is incremental…. so document your progress.

I think one of the most important things that comes from our making is that we are constantly learning and growing. Much of this change, this growth is incremental so I believe that it is really worthwhile documenting where we began and what we have achieved. Being able to see our growth, and our change is so important.

To tell you the truth when I started Crossfit I was in such a tricky headspace about my body and it’s capacity - I believed it was broken - that I didn’t take any photos. This makes me sad now as I can’t actaully see how far I’ve come. I can feel it but I can’t see it - that said I know the change is big! I know my posture has changed, my pain has changed and my muscle composition has changed.

The upside is that walking around in this strong body is celebration enough. I am reminded at many moments of many days of how far I’ve come. I celebrate every time I conciously feel a bit of low level pain as it reminds me just how bad it once was. Sounds counter intuituve but it’s true. But I do wish I had some photos.

I think this is important for our craft too. Taking the odd photo or keeping our beautiful wonky first attempts can be so encouraging. I adore looking back at Ravelry at some of my very first attempts at knitting and seeing just how far I’ve come. It reminds me of what I am capable of.

Understanding our own capacity - capacity to do, but also capacity to grow and change - is such an important part of flourishing as it helps us see our own agency in our lives. Visible capacity gives us hope. The beauty inherent in understanding our capacity is a life of richness and possibility.

My craft reminds me of my capacity always. Every time I see something I’ve made I can see my potential and my promise. Craft as an elevated life.

What lessons have you learned through your craft, your sport, your art, your music? I’d love to hear if any of these resonated and what you’d add to my list.

Felicia x