No Knitting Mojo?

It’s Friday. And as with every Friday, it’s time to talk about how important it is to make time to make things. I started the Taking Back Friday series a couple of years ago to talk about this very topic, and I spend a lot of time talking about yarn, knitting, weaving, spinning, and all of the fibre arts throughout this vlog series.

But if you’ve been watching these videos for awhile, you’ll know that it’s really not about making things for the sake of making things. It’s always been about the process and the journey. The journey that can restore us, or calm or soothe us. But what happens it it doesn’t. What happens if we don’t feel like making anything at all.

This is something that came up over the holidays in our community forums over at the School of SweetGeorgia, and I’ve been thinking about it over the past many weeks. We as knitters and makers, we often talk about the meditative and restorative qualities of knitting or spinning, or working with our hands. It can be so relaxing and can help you cope with stress. But in this intense time of challenges over the past year, maybe you don’t feel like picking up your needles at all.

I don’t think it’s a surprise that we often tie our value and our self-worth to the physical manifestation of our yarn work – our finished objects. And so when there are no finished objects to show, we might feel this sense of failure. And that feeling of being less productive, having less output to show, we can become disconnected from our craft, and possibly even the community. And we may lose interest in doing it altogether.

Watch today’s Taking Back Friday as I talk about these situations of losing your motivation, and I share a few things that have helped me – a few things to suggest or recommend, to see if they might help you in your own possible situation.

I’d love to hear if you have any suggestions for this. Suggestions on what you found helped you get out of a similar challenging spot, or what recommendations you may have to help ease your way back into the rhythm of making. As well, if you are interested in the fibre arts, I welcome you to subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified of all of our tutorials and videos we share about the fibre arts.

*Note: Don’t miss our giveaway shared in last week’s vlog: a chance to win a PDF copy of all four patterns in our Spring Vol. 6 collection! Find the giveaway at the blog post here.

IN THIS EPISODE

• what I’m wearing: In today’s video I’m wearing the Shady Island Shawl, designed by me for my Dyeing to Spin & Knit book. It’s knit using CashLuxe Spark in Bewitched and Raspberry (now discontinued colourways).
• what I’m talking about in today’s video: In today’s vlog video, I talk about losing the motivation for making things. During the course of the video, there are two knitting projects and patterns I mention: Find Your Fade, designed by Andrea Mowry and the Wild Autumn Cardigan, designed by Abbye Dahl. We have yarn sets available for knitting this cardigan if you’re interested in working with the same colourways in my project. I also share a pair of socks that I am knitting using our Alpenglow Double Sock Yarn Blank.
• want to learn more about knitting or the fibre arts? We have many online videos to help with creating new inspiration for making. From knitting, weaving, spinning and much more, join us at the School of SweetGeorgia to explore the colourful world of fibre arts. There you will also find the Plan Your Make Nine course which was mentioned in today’s vlog.