A partial solution. This is made of scraps, except… I’ll explain more about this one in a minute. So I wrote last week a post asking “Is my making fast fashion?”. And then I did a video on Instagram discussing similar topics in a slightly different way. And as always, you lovely humans have helped me clarify some of my thinking with your thoughtful, clever commentary. And while I think there is so much more to discuss, here are four key possibly-more-meta ideas that have come up for me out of those conversations. 1. Sitting In The Grey Is An Act Of Trying! In using the quote last week that su ..read more

We all have the capacity - and often the desire - to deny truths that show us engaged in things we know aren’t ideal. To minimise, avoid, distract and rationalise our way to feeling OK with our choices and our behaviour. And it makes sense. It’s human to avoid the hard stuff, especially when that hard stuff involves us changing behaviours we enjoy. I do it. Regularly. And I’ve been doing it regularly in my making, for many years, in many ways. “Our romantic lives are fated to be sad and incomplete, because we are creatures drive by two essential desires which point powerfully in entirely oppo ..read more

So over the last few weeks I’ve made these two tiny baby sweaters for some gorgeous humans.. Some people I adore will be welcoming small people in the next little while, and so I wanted to make a small stash of sweaters. I figured that any sweater that didn’t have a recipient could be sold off for charity in one of my Tiny Fundraiser Tuesday posts. Now what’s a little odd is that I made them with new yarn. This is not a common process for me as over the last few years I have been steadily working through my scraps, and scrap baby sweaters have become the norm. But I’m starting to run low in d ..read more

This week’s scrap project. Using alpaca and merino in slightly different guages. This last week we have had COVID - all five of us. We were lucky and for most of us on most days it has been mild. But it was a long week. Firstly because of the sickness and confinement, because also because over this last week I’ve also had an essay due for university. Who doesn’t love trying to explain decades of research on complex systematic discipline-wide issue in 1500 words. :) :( And so I’ve knitted in circles. The photo above is this week’s scrap project. Not a teeny baby sweater for once but rather may ..read more

* I came across the idea of a virtuous circle/cycle a few years ago and I adored how it gave language to the experience I had in my crafting practice. For those of you who haven’t come heard it before, a virtuous cycle is defined as “a chain of events in which one desirable occurrence leads to another which further promotes the first occurrence and so on resulting in a continuous process of improvement” from Merriam Webster I wrote this pre-pandemic and just found it in my drafts. x This morning I’m up early. We have family staying, and the kids are all still sleeping as we kept them up late ..read more

Over the years I’ve learnt the kind of making that really fills me up; that sustains me and makes the mundane of the everyday richer, lusher, more alive. And so lush-thoughtful-timeintensive-making is something I try to have going on in some form as part of my daily making practice. These projects are often slow. Case in point is the wedding quilt shown in the photo above. It’s known as the wedding quilt because it uses scraps from the clothes we wore to our wedding - and other outfits that have been part of our life over the last twenty years. I started it over three years ago. Three years ..read more

I combined some beautiful colours and made a sludge. This is being ripped tomorrow. Ripping For Joy So this week I made something that turned out to be (subjectively) pretty ugly. Obviously that wasn’t my intention. I was looking to create something gorgeous to honour my friend’s fresh baby human. And yet, in spite of my intention, my years of practice, my knowledge of what works and what doesn’t, (subjectively) ugly was the outcome. The colours just didn’t work together. I was trying to make it with scraps due to my ongoing efforts to use less materials ie Stash Less. The problem is that aft ..read more

A beautiful brick-red Ilha sweater I am making for a friend as a thank you! At this time of year we are often making plans. Plans for our lives, and plans for our making. It’s a time full of possibility, and for me is one of the funnest parts of our making practice. Who doesn’t love wandering through our metaphorical and non-metaphorical shelves of ideas? Oh the sweaters we could knit. The jumpsuits and cushions and frocks we could make. Quilts. Blankets. Socks. Won’t it all be wonderful! But while that possibility is exciting, I’ve found it can also be problematic for me if I spend too much ..read more

Where I am now - still developing my skills, especially the design skills. I learnt to sew when I was 4 or 5 with my mum. The first thing I remember making was a tiny green and white bikini for my doll. Mum allowed me to draw what I wanted to make and then helped me figure out how to do it. Learning like this was a privilege. I didn’t know to be scared or worried that I couldn’t do something - because she always told me that we could work it out. The confidence I had was a direct result of her teaching and is one of the key skills I believe we lack as a society when it comes to thinking about ..read more

Some of my new stacks of scraps. Endless fun is available by just arranging them, and then rearranging them. At this moment, in this time of uncertainty, so many of us are feeling big feelings. And our emotional state, our general overwhelm is seeping into our making with lots of people messaging me to let me know that they are having trouble either choosing a project or making at all. A space where nothing feels that exciting and that their making has ground to a halt. In overwhelm we are unable to think coherently, strategically, and this can lead to a kind of listlessness or ambivalence wh ..read more