Hello, hello lovely crafters! Happy 2022. I’m so excited to be back in this space.

So I don’t do resolutions - but I do do tweaks. I look at where I’m at in the new year and make small changes if needed. And this year I have been thinking about #10minofmaking, and what I have learned so far from engaging with this idea!

#10minofmaking is an intention I set to include making in my everyday, even if it is only for 10 minutes. It is my way of thinking about littering making through a life. To honour myself and my desires for one moment each day.

This isn’t a limit - so it isn’t that I’m only doing 10 minutes a day, as I regularly do more than that, but it is saying that 10 minutes is worthwhile. Even 2 minutes is good. It’s an intention to claim a moment in my day to make a stitch of some kind.

It’s a shift in belief that has shifted my making practice.

Which is wonderful but as it’s the new year, I’ve been digging into my practice, to see if I need to make any tweaks or changes. Which has lead me to think about belief.

Our beliefs about how the world works act essentially as a set of expectations. And our expectations matter. They matter because expectations change our outcomes. It can sound trite but there is so much evidence behind this principle. Our beliefs shape our experience of the world.

So periodically looking at what I’ve got going on in my head and how those thoughts are impacting my life is a useful exercise. What are my expectations? And how are they impacting my outcomes?

And this year I discovered something a little confronting and annoying.

Here’s what’s tricky. Much of my “community” around craft these days is online - and most of it is on Instagram. I know that Instagram doesn’t always feel great to me so over the holidays I wanted to take a little break to see if I could figure out how to engage with a little more lightness and joy. And the break showed me some interesting things.

I’ve spoken before about how Instagram is impacting our making practice (by holding us in possibility and having us constantly exposed to shopping) but recently, by stepping away and doing some pondering, I noticed another little wrinkle Instagram is causing me.

You see I was feeling a little flat about it all - a little messy and overwhelmed and not particularly excited about my making - when I suddenly realised that I was expecting my making to look (and feel) like an Instagram feed. Pretty, curated, calm. Cause that’s what making is, right?

But this is not what my everyday making looks like. My making looks like this…..

It’s mainly jammed into the gaps in less that ideal circumstances.

But my expectation of Instagram-pretty-making makes sense because our brains love an image - especially a pretty one. Our brains are biased to believing that what they see with their eyes is what is true. So all of the pretty, curated and calm makes and making-spaces on instagram can easily lead us to start feeling like that is what a making practice is.

We are drawn to the beauty of it and yet, of course, an Instagram feed isn’t reality. Which I know you know as well as I know it. We all know it. And yet we have to consciously reset over and over again. Because we are biological creatures with eyes who think they know what they are seeing.

I realised that my problem didn’t lie in my making or what it looked like but rather that Instagram feeds have become something that I am unconsciously measuring my making practice against, as that is the only making I’m seeing these days.

If I go into my making expecting it will look like a gorgeous Instagram reel, with soft lighting and good music and clean house and seemingly endless amounts of time, then of course I will come out feeling shit. Because my making rarely feels like that.

If I expect Instagram-reel-feeling-making and the outcome is my reality of making in mess then I am bound for => disappointment.

So as I was thinking about all of this, about how reality rarely looks like Instagram, and how expecting reality to look (and feel) that way has the potential to ruin a beautiful experience rather than enhance it, I decided to do a reality check. So this last month I’ve been taking notice of what my making practice actually looks like in reality. I’m taking a photo or sometimes a little video and posting it to the interweb simply as a form of accountability.

And what I’ve realised is that if I do a little work to change my expectations - and instead expect the mess-of-life-making-with-moments-of-joy - then maybe I could achieve => increased joy, possibly some more contentment, or at very least not disappointment.

Now some of those images I’ve been taking are still pretty “Instagram images” and some of them aren’t. This is currently something I am still figuring out (see below) but there are also images of planes and surgeries and the mess of life.

And here’s what I’ve learned so far.

1. I make more slowly than I think I do.

Instagram (this isn’t a beatup I promise - just an observation as I love so many aspects of it) can lead me to get caught up in the pace of everyone’s making. I end up feeling like a little kid trying to keep up with their mates even though I’m not sure I wanna go where they are going.

This month I made 3 things
- a top for my kid - about 1.5hours
- a Mandy Boat Tee for me - about 1.5hours
- a Cris Woods Envelope Dress - about 1.5hours

And then I worked on two long term projects
- the wedding quilt
- a pair of socks

In between I did a little mending, and a little swatching here and there, but there really doesn’t need to be a lot of making to keep me happy. I was happy with my progress - if I wasn’t comparing it to others. Yep.

2. I make less than I think I do - but it feels like more!

Which leads me to this point. When I make in alignment with my values, when I consciously #ditchfastmaking and make things that I really care about, like the quilt OR that I plan with care or like the envelope dress, then the amount of making I do is enough because it’s fulfilling.

I’ve used this analogy before but it’s the difference between making that is like a good meal versus making that is popcorn. They both taste delicious but one fills you up and makes you stronger, whereas the other doesn’t.

This took me years to understand. To plan. To check in with my values. To think about how certain types of making make me feel. To make in accordance with who I am and who I want to be.

The wedding quilt has been keeping me company.

3. I rarely get big expanses of time to make

The big expanses were all within two days as we were packing to leave on holiday. I made when I was supposed to be doing something else. Cleaning out the fridge. Washing the floors. Instead I disappeared and made two things and it was glorious!

But also important to note that I don’t get that much of it. And that is OK in this moment.

4. While I hate knitting socks - I love having socks to knit

A big part of why I make is for emotional regulation when things are stressful or boring. Socks are portable and I am grateful to them. In spite of the fact that I’m not a fan of 4ply, or skinny needles, and that I’m sometimes vaguely cross as I’m making them, they are sustaining.

5. I need so few materials.

I don’t have time to make the things I want to make. And if I do my list - as I do periodically of all the things I need to make over the coming months, and then add in one or two things I want to make, then it is super simple to see that I don’t need any more materials.

Stash Less is an ongoing practice for me that makes me feel gratitude and joy. True freedom comes from restriction. There is peace and alignment on the other side of this practice.

6. taking pretty photos iS FINDING beauty in the mess?

OK so it sounds like I’m coming full circle and contradicting myself on the way round but this is important I think. I spent some time thinking about whether or not taking pretty photos (and then posting them) was contributing to the problem? And of course it is. Of course!!! I’m snookering myself by making my own making practice look more like an Instagram reel than it does. But. But.

But, the flip side of it is that taking a pretty photo is a way of noticing the beauty where it is and also sometimes increasing the beauty of the moment. And beauty is sustaining. So… I don’t know. I need to ponder this some more to see if there are tweaks I can make to how I capture my ten minutes that are more uplifting for me but also more real? Chime in if you have thoughts about the catch-22-ness…

Anyway some new year thoughts and I’m so happy to be back in this space. Please join the newsletter if you want to hear when a new post has popped up.

Love to hear your thoughts on #10minofmaking and as always big love to you all.

Felicia x

- One thing that works for me is to use the spot calendar that Elise of enJOY it and Get To Work provides through her mailing list as a free download. Having a visual for how I am doing is a total joy.

- And I’m loving making and listening to the Huberman Lab podcast. Even though I’m studying psychology, this podcast blows me away each week as it is looking at the role that our neurobiology plays in how we feel and think and behave. I’ve just changed my whole writing setup so it now looks like this because of last weeks gem of an episode. If you want to feel more alert then this is for you!