Setting Goals

The combination of an energising family holiday and the annual 'back to school' enthusiasm for new routines and new habits has lead me to thinking and planning for the next few months.

I have always tended to focus on a monthly planning system - my Bullet Journal but invariably some tasks take longer than a month to achieve, or (all too often) they fail to progress at all leading to a vague sense of dissatisfaction.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about developing habits over 100 days rather than the more conventional 21 or 28 days and much has been written about why cognitively, this may prove to be more effective than traditional monthly goal setting Read here and here if you are interested more in this - it makes for fascinating reading.

Also, as I increasingly work with commissions and other folk within the fibre industry I am coming to realise that my work and knitting time needs to be planned much more in advance in order to avoid the dreaded deadline overwhelm.

With this in mind a bunch of my Ravelry group members have come together to form a chat thread over on my board. Some are using the 100 day approach and some are using monthly goals but all are offering friendly support and (gentle) accountability. There are no firm objectives and no pressure to achieve anything, it is just a helpful way for us all to stay on track and get some FOs off those needles over the coming months.

I get the feeling that I'm going to need an incentive to keep working on this:

Cosy Stripe blanket in Stylecraft Acrylic

 

Why not pop over and join us. We may even inspire you to set a few goals of your own - some of the group members have some great ideas. Likewise, if you have any tips or tricks for goal setting do please let me know. I'm always keen to hear what works for other people.

Love your blog: Week 4 - Gratitude

Unlike last weeks prompt for the #loveyourblog challenge, this weeks prompt of Gratitude left me with so many ideas that I didn't know where to start.

Not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for my knitting, my craft and my community.

Amongst other things, I am grateful:

• That I have my health and my eyesight.
• That I have the ability to 'make stuff' out of thin air with just yarn and needles.
• That I can share this with other people who 'get it'.
• That these people form a wonderful vibrant community, of which I am part and my tiny portion of it on my Ravelry group is simply wonderful.
• That we can all support and learn from each other.
• That Ravelry exists.
• That my family have a never ending need for socks.
• That I have time and energy to do what makes me happy, every single day.
• That yarn squishes down really small for the purposes of stash concealment. 

My family being grateful for our fabulous local market..and  oysters

A new challenge: Me Made May

I have really enjoyed and been inspired by the #loveyourblog series running this month. Kate (of A Playful Day fame) has done a wonderful job of bringing together quite a diverse community of crafters and for me, it has brought back a love of blog reading and of blog writing that I thought I had lost.

It turns out that it wasn't lost at all, it was just having a little sleep and needed a kick of inspirational caffeine to get it moving again.

With that in mind, it was very timely for me to happen across the 'Me Made May' challenge. See - the inspirational snippets that pop into your life when you read other blogs!

Hosted by the very talented Zoe over at the So, Zo What do you Know blog this challenge has been running for several years now is both a personal and a community based one. The premise is simple - to celebrate the handmade and to both show and share our love for our craft.

The decision of how much and when to participate is a personal one. Some opt for the challenge of a daily 'me made' outfit - complete with photographs whilst others go for a more pared down approach. I can't help thinking that for us knitters, the daily outfit might be a bit of a challenge. As much as I love my Icon dress in Purl Alpaca yarn I'm not sure I want to wear it too much as the weather warms up here in the UK.

 

Getting into the swing of things this week though I have been enjoying my very seasonally coloured Knit Night shawl, in club yarn from Ginger twist Studios - in the Muddy Daffodils colourway.

Knit Night by Louise Zass-Bangham

But, the whole point of the challenge is that anything handmade counts and it doesn't have to be everyday. It is a celebration of the handmade and a culture that values the time, effort and skill of making wearable items.

There is a Flickr group, for sharing all those lovely photos and the hashtag #mmmay15 for following along on the various social media channels.

Even if you're not planning to take part there is bound to be lots of inspirational eye candy, so why not take a look?

Are you planning to take part? If so, be sure to let me know so I can check out your progress and we can cheer each other on.

Love your Blog Week 3: Social media - the good, the bad and the ugly

In the creative industry as in all walks of life, there is a tendency to focus overwhelmingly on the positive and to ignore or minimise the negative, the less-than-perfect or the ugly.

In general this is usually the best policy - as my mother used to say "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all". However this can lead to what is known in the scientific community as publication bias. Results of pharmaceutical clinical trials which show a positive outcome are far more likely to be published than those which don't.

In the same way, we are all far more likely to document our successful projects on Ravelry and show them on Instagram, than we are to show photos of that sweater with the wonky sleeve that was relegated to the back of the cupboard.

In general, we are far more likely to show only the good, the beautiful and the perfect. Recently a well known Instagrammer made this point and published a series of photos showing her 'everyday' after someone made the comment that she had a 'beautiful life' Her thoughtful response was that, of her normal day the part she shared via social media comprised  approximately 2% - and that was on a good day.

Whilst entirely understandable, this type of self-censorship has the potential to cause anxiety or negative thinking amongst users of social media. Any feelings of self-doubt or tendency to over-critical thinking can be made worse by an endless parade of 'lovely' photographs. As a new parent I remember distinctly feeling overwhelmed by seeing a good friend post pictures she took of baking cookies with her toddler - all happy smiles and clean faces. When I tried the same it ended in tears, tantrums and flour-covered cat.

Now, I'm not for one minute suggesting that we all start to broadcast our 'Ugly' but when using social media it is well worth bearing in mind that you are seeing carefully editing highlights of someones life, or work or craft. And, as beautiful and inspirational as it is, it is part of a bigger, messier, imperfect whole.

And for the record, and in the spirit of scientific interest - this is the product of a week's worth of data gathered on my 'normal' day.

 

 For lots more thoughts on Ugly and it's meaning in our creative context, please see the fabulous A Playful Day, whose brainchild this 'Love Your Blog' series is. Her post on this weeks theme is fabulous and well worth a read.