The Ongoing-ness Of Stash Less

Stash Less is a series where we talk about having a thoughtful stash. You can find all the past posts in this series here. Enjoy!

It’s the third birthday of Stash Less – not the official date of the first post, as that was sometime in October when I returned from our first big overseas adventure as a family - but the date from when I really started thinking about my purchasing, stashing, and hoarding habit. That first post came about six months after I started thinking about what I needed and what I had.

See on that trip we travelled super light – we had a 4wd Toyota Prado which was a big car but not huge, and we had three kids who we wanted to split up in terms of their seating, so one was in the back. This meant that our boot space was only a half the width of the car. I’m hoping this makes sense. We also had two top boxes on the roof but that car with a small boot and two top boxes was the sum total for five of us for five months.

Our worldly goods for 5 months consisted of....

·      5 x small bags of clothes

·      5 x sleeping bags

·      5 x sleeping mats

·      1 x tent

·      5 x camp stools

·      1 x camp table

·      1 x camp stove

·      1 x box of kitchen utensils

·      1 x box of food

·      1 x box of books/pencils for the kids

·      1 x box of wool

That was all we could fit in the car, and all we had. Not much and nothing fancy but enough.

That said the box of wool was important. It was small (the fella would say it was ridiculously large compared to what else we had with us but he is a fool, bless him) but it was enough. It contained within it both possibility, and restriction – the ingredients for creativity without brain freeze.

But the important thing was what it taught me – and that was, that I had enough. I was creatively satisfied and whole. I didn’t feel deprived and I didn’t feel loss. You see the thing about being away for six months with no space is that you cannot shop.

The story of what happened when I got home is here – in the original Stash Less post because it really did change me.

Over the next two years I went through a process of understanding myself and my behaviour around craft, materials, desire, and creative thrill. You can find that journey by clicking on the Stash Less tag and following it back through the wormhole.

Playing around with ideas for my Piece of Silver KAL from Laine Magazine.

Where I'm at with Stash Less?

I haven’t written about Stash Less in a while, not because I don’t have more to say. I do. But because I wanted to see what it was like to live with it over time. What has changed in my behaviour? What has stayed the same? What are my triggers like these days? How do I buy, why do I buy and how does it make me feel? What does my stash look like? And how does it feel to live in a new way.

1. I can tell you the following – I am changed and I believe that that change is permanent.

My relationship to materials is different as is my shopping habits. That said, many of my triggers remain the same, but their pull has been muffled by awareness, intention and practice of a new way of shopping.

2. I can also tell you that doing this in the long term is HARD.

Not hard in a physical sense but hard in an ongoing-vigilance type way. I have to watch myself and make sure I'm on the straight and narrow. My head is very tricksy, and very capable of lying to me in order to make the shiny thing I'm about to purchase look oh-so-very ethical.

I'm OK with the hard though. I expected it. The same brain shenanigans happen whenever my higher-self tries to assert it's authority, and ethics, over my lizard brain, who is a big fan of having everything it wants in the here and now.

So I thought I would share a bit more about what changes I have seen and maintained.

My stash has shrunk.

It is about 1/3 of the size it was all those years ago.

Before I left home in April, I took a few photos of my stash so you could see what it looks like these days but I can't find the photo tonight. Onwards and upwards.

What I have:
There is still plenty of material to make girls frocks and shorts and shirts. I still have enough to make tops and frocks for me (often but not always).

What I don't have:
I no longer have materials for making bigger things like the Sydney coat I made for The Craft Sessions workshop prep I did this year. I also don’t have fabric for things like boys’ shorts or a Genoa Tote.

The fundamental difference is that when I want to make a something bigger I do need to purchase materials. This is wonderful. This is the outcome I was looking for out of Stash Less, because it gives me that ability to choose exactly what I want to make something with rather than rummaging around in my stash to find something that is about 85% right.

I am truly thrilled about the level the stash is at.

Sometimes I have to purchase for a new big project.

Sometimes my line gets a little blurry due to what I do - ie. run retreats. Sometimes what I need for the retreat - like a sample of the Sydney Jacket also means a wardrobe addition for me.... A wobbly line at best.

I have to improvise

I often no longer have what I need but if I can find a way to make do then I make do.

For the Genoa Tote I improvised and used a stretchy jacket fabric for mine - so still thick but with stretch - which is fine in theory but a little crappy in use as it hasn't got shape like many other's I've seen. That said it is a functional bag so it's all good.

I’ve also had an idea for how I could make thicker fabric for a Genoa Tote that was more functional by using wadding scraps to make a quilted fabric that I use instead of the canvas type fabric it calls for. I will give this a go when I get time later this year.

I still buy special but I also use special.

This has been a massive change since I began the project. You can see the breakthrough moment in this post but since then I have got better and better at it. The nature of my relationship with my materials has altered. I am not holding on to the precious. Instead I am using it to make way for the new.

I still allow myself to purchase the odd piece of Nani Iro or Liberty or special Handyed yarn about once or twice a year. As I mentioned earlier I now purchase these in quantities that are useful for a big project, but I also make a real effort to use them rather than hoard them.

So I'm using them regularly and I'm using them for projects that I would have once got a little jumpy about - impractical projects like this dress I made for the middle kid's birthday. She really wanted floor length and she really wanted Liberty. This has already been torn a couple of times but she adores it.

Beautiful Nani Iro Linen.

I'm using scraps aplenty.

There is plenty of scraps in my stash these days - which I have been actively trying to use through creatively coming up with ideas to use them in a meaningful way. I'm still making many a stash cardy for the girls, and have been trying to make a Piece of Silver from Laine Magazine with my scraps.

I've also been a bit freer with my good scraps, allowing my girl babies to make random patchwork things that will probably never be finished. Once upon a time I would have been saving these for something special. Crazy but true.

When I purchase, I purchase with intent (mostly).

I still don't shop - as in I don't shop as a pasttime. I don't windowshop and I don't wander.

Except that I have some rules around being away from home. Occasionally when I'm on holiday pop in to see something I don't get to see when I'm home - like I recently did with Skein Sisters in Sydney - but I actively try to go with a purpose.

In the case of my recent trip to Skein Sisters I knew that they would probably have things I hadn't seen before and so I decided if I found something I really loved then I was allowed to purchase. I decided this a day before I went and I had such fun with the purchase. I am strict though. I couldn't buy to fill the "wanting all the pretty" or to fulfill the human desire for the new and shiny. But I could purchase if I found something I loved. Which I did. I purchased four skeins of the Nunnabar handdyed White Gum Wool in 8ply in the Nougat colourway and it is truly divine. FOUR!! because of the Stash Less outcome that I now purchase in quantities big enough to be truly useful rather than my old behaviour of just buying a little so as to make the purchasing more palatable to me in the face of a bulging stash. This is very exciting to me.

My other purchase since leaving Melbourne was in Cooma - I purchased two skeins of beautiful handspun at a local cooperative. This however wasn't premeditated and probably fell into the not-good-decision-making category as it was purchased for the "wanting all the pretty" reason rather than it being something I will use easily and with intent. Ba Bawm. Lizard brain was the winner on this occasioin.

I purchase things on a project specific basis.

Much of my purchasing these days is for things that are project specific. I purchase with intent, when I need them, and I use them quickly. I don't purchase and put in the cupboard. I leave the materials out until I can get to them or I just start. They don't head into stash.

Examples of this would include a sweaters worth of yarn for my SILs Shore cardy (which is now complete a mere few months after I received it), plus another sweaters worth of silver yarn that has since gone to a friend, and also the fabric I purchased - the absolutely stunning watercolour linen bundle from Purl Soho - for my middle kid's quilt.

Her quilt is an interesting one, that I will talk about in another pos,t but suffice to say it is something that I could have easily made out of scraps. However I decided that, for this special project, I was going to stick with her vision of it and purchase. I am so glad I did. It is looking spectacular. I can't wait to show you.

I'm using my Making List

I'm still using a making list - mine is an ongoing list that I update regularly. This helps to keep me on the straight and narrow as it helps me to see with real clarity that I have all that I need for what I want/need to make.

"I have all that I need" has been a point of discussion over caravan dinners in the last few weeks as we have been chatting to the kids about gratitude. For me, my making list helps me to sit in a place of gratitude, as it shows me that even if I am compromising here and there with materials that aren't quite right for the project I have in mind, I really have all that I need.

Unintentional Super Side Effects

Another outcome from Stash Less is that I don't shop - as a pastime - for clothes either anymore. As in, I don't sashay into my favourite stores to see if they might have something I might like, when I'm feeling a little bored or flat. I go when, and if, I need to buy something. This has been a massive game changer for me. I did what I suggested in the Stop Shopping post and have disengaged from mailing lists for nearly every brand, shop and designer, which means I don't have temptation rolling into my inbox of a morning. I still manage to keep up with what is happening through instagram and a few beloved blogs but I am incredibly pleased with this outcome.
 

How is your #stash_less going. I know many of you have joined in to some degree and have set your own personal challenges. I'd love to hear how you got on, and whether any of your changes are permanent, even if they are just mental.

Felicia x

Experimentation and the Fringe and Friends 2016 KAL

So I finished my sweater* as you can see by exhibit A above. And I really like it. It isn't exactly what I was aiming for but I like the fit, the shape and the idea behind it. And it feels particularly satisfying to finish something that technically was a little bit tricky and creatively a little bit odd. Because that is where the joy of an experimental project lies.

I originally came up with the idea for this sweater as part of the Fringe And Friends 2016 KAL which starts in September (I think). Karen was doing her magic and trying to encourage one and all, to step out of their comfort zone and try improvising a top-down sweater. Which is a super way to start your improv journey.

For me though, as I've made many a basic improv sweater over the years, I decided to join in spirit of what Karen was suggesting, by trying something challenging. So I upped the ante and decided to try an experimental sweater that couldn't be mapped out as simply as a standard top-down sweater.

So your normal improv process is pretty simple and goes something like this….

1. knit a swatch

2. record your gauge

3. know your desired measurements

4. multiply your measurements by your gauge and start knitting.

Yay.

That wasn’t going to work for this sweater. I wanted to make a sweater with lots of negative ease (meaning it looked stretched) across the shoulders. The rest of the sweater would have positive ease (meaning the fabric would sit flat but loose).

Originally the aim was to create a sweater with a kind of funnel-ish boat neck that sat wide on the shoulders. The shoulder shaping was designed to be stretched when worn to show off the shaping itself. As you can see by the photo at the top of the post, this lead to quite a weird non-standard sweater shape when finished, and I knew that the standard calculations I normally use wouldn't really work.

The weird shaping meant that there was no way of simply multiplying measurements. And I was a bit in the dark as to what combination of rib and stocking stitch I would use - as I hadn't decided on where each part should start and stop. I also wanted to add in a few short rows to raise the back of the neck a little but not too much.

Pretty much the only way I was going to find out if my idea worked was to knit the thing.

In other words I had no clear idea of what I wanted. It was more of a vibe than an idea. Freestyle knitting at it's best.

I started it on time and then hooned through a few iterations of the shaping and the shoulders. I ripped for joy, and started again quite a few times. And then I got a bit demoralised, put it down for a month or two and ignored it while grinding my teeth a little.

I picked it up post-wedding (hence the pretty nails) and then tried again. This time I got a little further. I knitted the body (which I liked) and came up with a way to resolve the shoulders under the arms with a panel of rib. How much rib did I need though? And should I make the yoke depth smaller than normal to increase the stretch around the shoulders? I did some more ripping after a particularly tight armhole and then I got a bit demoralised, put it down for a month or two and ignored it while grinding my teeth a little.

And then I brought it on this holiday.

This week I finally got to it after doing all the procrasti-knitting I could find and pushed through the uncertainty.

And after a few simple days of knitting I got it done!!

Which reminded me of an important life lesson.

When I think experimental sweater I think "gee that seems like fun". Experimentation will be all about the freedom and the joy. Because experimentation can be seen as play, right?  Which it is in many ways.

What I’d forgotten, is to experiment means sitting in uncertainty because the nature of experimentation is uncertain. Experimentation – especially when you are going after a specific result – is rarely without its painful parts. It's impossible to do without the possibility of failure, otherwise you wouldn't be experimenting, you would be following a plan you know works.

Uncertainty is fear and we are evolutionarily** programmed to avoid fear.

I love experimentation – the fun bit – but seem to conveniently overlook the fear part until I’m in it, and about to throw the whole thing in the bin during my various points of uncertainty. I avoid my uncertainty rather than just accepting that I am always going to hit it when I’m experimenting. Forgetting this lesson over and over again is a little dumb, but seems to be one that as a classic eternal optomist I am fated to re-learn over and over again. I continue to get frustrated with myself for my ongoing avoidance of experimental projects that I'm really excited about, but find it hard to stick with. Maybe this whole cycle is simply my process for this type of project. :)

Elizabeth Gilbert states in Big Magic that acknowledging the fear and becoming friends with it, but never letting it drive the car or even be in the front seat, is the way to make peace with this part of the creative process. And I believe her to be right in my experience!

And the resulting sweater?

In spite of my doubts, that I had until I tried it on at the very end, I'm really very very happy with it. I can point out all the things I would change if I was to go back. But for the moment I'm going to wear it and see how I like it.

I’ll grab a few photos of it on a body as soon as I manage to find a caravan park with light in the bathroom. What's that I hear you say? You could just ask a member of your family to take a few photos for you, couldn't you? Ahhhh, my sweet innocent blog readers, that has really never ever worked out in practice in my home, hence the proliferation of one-arm selfies in my instagram feed.

Who takes your photos? I genuinely want to know. Do you use a timer, a kid, a partner, a tripod?? How do you lot do it??

Felicia x

*I've not blocked it yet but hopefully in the next day or so!

**I don't think this is a real word but it's the best I could think of late last night. :)

The True Magic of Making.

This time of year – around registration for our annual retreat time – is always a little intense. Workshops being finalised, scholarships sorted, registration smooth as we can make it, makes for busy times. So each year, before things really ramp up, I check in with myself and get a little conscious just to make sure I’m on track. I think about why I do it, and should I do it, and what am I doing it for. And it always comes back to this.

I believe in the life-giving magic of making!

Making with our hands enables us to live an elevated life, where our values are deeply embedded within our everyday, infusing our lives with richness and meaning.

I believe that making things with our hands – which includes crafting – isn’t yet widely acknowledged in the same vein as meditation or even art. And yet, making with our hands has the same power to support us, to connect us, and to change how we see ourselves, our community and our world.

I believe that making should be given kudos as a spiritual practice, not in a religious sense, but because it connects us to our own spirits, to how we are feeling in that moment, allowing us to hear our own heads in all their crazy glory, and to connect with what makes our hearts sing. It allows us to practice skills we need in our everyday, like mindfulness, and courage, and letting go, and sitting with uncertainty, all the while giving us a the gifts of flow, of agency and sometimes of accomplishment.

I believe that we need to share what we know - about how craft impacts our well-being - with our wider community. Part of that means we need to be consciously creating the very community we seek - a making community that fulfills our deepest human need, the need to feel connected, and heard, and truly seen.

We need to be generous with our time and our knowledge, whenever and wherever we can, to enable others to get started or to get unstuck. The knowledge we share needs to be broader than simple how-to skills. Sharing our knowledge means speaking of making as a practice, and dispelling myths around talent and creativity wherever we find them. Making where we are all simply practicing in the gap, where we get better with experience, practice and a little help from our friends. Sharing with others that the richness and joy of the making process comes from the making process itself.

I believe passionately in all these things and so much more about the thing that we do, and the community we are part of.

So, as well as putting on a retreat this year, I am spending this year (and I spent part of last year) writing a book! A book about how the process of making supports us in our everyday, connects us to ourselves and our communities, and ultimately how it changes us over time, often in subtle ways we aren't even aware of. A book that celebrates the process of making and all it gives us.

I would love to hear thoughts - about the idea of a book, about your beliefs about your craft, and well, really anything you want to tell me about your making process.

Felicia x

PS. I’m very proud to say that I have a piece in the latest copy of Making Magazine called “Craft As An Elevated Life”. To all of you who already subscribe then I hope you enjoy it. To the rest of you – get your skates on and grab a copy. This baby sells out!

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

Slow Stitching in the Barn

Slow Stiching In The Barn, a special event that we held at the end of March, was an amazingly beautiful weekend! Just as we had hoped it was a weekend full of amazing food, in a stunning location with so much sharing of knowledge, and generosity of spirit. And so much beautiful stitching.

The amount of stitching done by many meant that, for some of us, the weekend was anything but slow :). Luckily the environment was such that it meant that the weekend felt like a step away from the normal busy, with time to connect with those around us about our shared love of making with our hands.

The pictures will show you what it was much better than my words can, so without further ado, I present to you a few of the beautiful photos from our retreat Slow Stitching in the Barn.

Felicia xx

Friday Welcome Dinner and Drinks

I'm about to give the weekend welcome! (and the lovely Shannon having a chuckle x)

The weekend was full of ridiculously good food as prepared by our caterer, the lovely Julie Monk.

A Weekend of Workshops and Good conversation

Melissa Wastney hard at work getting us ready on the Saturday morning.