Season 2 Launches
Pick The Perfect Project In 7 Days!
Encourage Better Podcast launches into Season 2 with the first episode for 2021. This episode shares some suggestions to help you move past inspiration overload and suffocating second guessing that so many creative people struggle with as they look to start their new knitting projects.
As we chat together, I have a few steps that have helped me over the many cast-ons I have done, as well as been a source of direction when I share these tips with friends. Your ideas are valuable too! Share your insight in the comment section here below the episode transcript!
And to ensure you are kept in loop for all things creative be sure to take a moment and get on the email list!
Audio Podcast Transcript:
Welcome to a new season with Encourage Better. This season, I've got some wonderful plans I'm excited to implement to serve you best, which I'll share about later. Right now dear knitter, creative soul, amazing human. I'm happy to welcome you to season two, Episode One, pick the perfect knitting project in seven days knitting or crochet, or really any creative exercise that you are partial to. But for me, it is definitely knitting.
Knitting is a constant, I spend a lot of time actively knitting. That is to say, using the needles and yarn to produce something, I think for me is also thinking about what to make, how to make it, what to use, examining what I'm using, looking over old creations, and investigating new possibilities. And I stopped over a weekend and thought, what is it that draws us back time and time again, back to our needles back to our yarn back to this process. The more I personalized this question, the more the pages of my journal began to fill with thoughts and ideas.
I wrote about visiting Forever Yarn in Doylestown, Pennsylvania with my dear friend, Barb, and the joy of choosing projects together there. It was such a wonderful time. I also wrote about opening an email from Quince & Co., and the design team saying that they loved my idea and wanted to let me know they looked forward to working with me. It was a wonderful thing to read.
Other moments captured reflected times that I was sitting outside on a beach somewhere, and how I really noticed what was on my needles. And where I was, as the soothing clicks matched the soothing waves. they too were special moments when I looked back.
I would venture to say for you and I dear knitter, it's not just one project we hope to knit that draws us back draws me back you back. I mean, projects really are interchangeable. And well, let me share an example. I was chatting via WhatsApp, anybody else out there love WhatsApp. I use it all the time. I was chatting via WhatsApp with a longtime friend and a fellow knitter who has been massive amount of singles. These symbols were created from a fleece from a sweet pet sheep that has since passed away. So this fleece is really special. It's actually irreplaceable. And my friend, who I've got to give credit to, is an incredibly gifted spinner whose talent gives me an enjoyable pause. This friend is setting out to knit a special cardigan, from this handspun. She's got to find the perfect pattern. And then her plan is find the pattern, see what the yarn requirement is and then spin the singles that she has into that weight of yarn in order to have the proper yarn for the perfect sweater.
I don't know about you, but that type of reverse engineering to me is just brilliant. And mind blowing. Any spinners listening that spin in this way? I would love to have you email me or comment on the podcast blog post and just share your insight because the mechanics of deconstructing the the need for the yarn in this manner has just it's so interesting to me, my curious nature just loves this.
Okay, now, back to the story! This spinning journey that she's on, brought up a conversation point that I feel really worth mentioning. And I want to unpack it and dig into it a bit here. So I've made some notes.
My friend shared: “I am so overwhelmed by the number of cardigan patterns, and the choices that are out there. I could spend hours, probably weeks looking at the variety of cardigan choices, it really is overwhelming. I don't want to make the wrong choice.”
Well, that got me thinking. Knitting is our passion, right? A very rich, rewarding part of our lives. And it's that part of our lives that we want to, to cherish, to honor. We don't want to pick out the wrong thing, only to knit and find that we've wasted our time on the wrong thing. Right? Do you ever feel that?
So here's what I shared with my friend in two points. Okay, very Cliff note abridged version. Number one, it is super overwhelming. And number two, but you probably can't go wrong.
Now, the actual advice that I mentioned, messaged her about I'm going to share with you right now. I recorded an audio message with my thoughts on the go. Literally. I was driving while sending her a voice memo. And I really shared my heart with her her struggle. Before I play that for you here, let me clarify a couple of things that you will hear within that message.
First, it's real life. I am driving in my car, and you'll hear the blinker on. Plus at the end of very funny conundrum, I won't spoil it, but let's just stay at the end of this little voice insert… I bet you too have had this same experience you're going to hear.
Now second, I mentioned in this message, something that she knows about, and I'm privy to, but this thing that I'm talking about, you're not gonna understand or know. And when I allude to it, I don't want you to be wondering what it is. So I mentioned that I'm sharing this same mindset application that I am giving her in my membership group. And you may be thinking, Wait, a membership group? What a membership group? Did I miss something? Yes and no. So to be really quick, just to give the message that I'm going to play for you context, but not to share a ton of details. I do have a membership launching. And it is for knitters who are desirous to find mindfulness in their creative life, to recapture joy, as well as learn skills and practice all of these wonderful things within a community with meaningful interaction with me, in ways like this voice message to my friend to help her problem solve. It is a membership, I'd love to invite you to properly. And this brief overview and explanation for the sake of setting up the message that I'm getting ready to insert here is not that proper invitation. So you can find out more by being on my email list. Or you can click the link in the show notes that says membership. It's just information.
Okay. So here is my little pep talk. very real, very honest, very raw. And it answers the overwhelm issue. And the wrong choice fear that my friend was having.
“I am very excited about your sweater goal for this year. I think that's going to be a lot of fun. And I agree, I think that there are so many sweater patterns out there. That two things one is super overwhelming. And two, you probably won't be able to go wrong. Just find one that appeals to you right away. That like really when you look at it, you're like, Oh, this is beautiful. And I want this and then go with that and stop. Because that is something I get emails about. People are just like, especially in my Instagram direct messages, people are always complaining about being overwhelmed on Instagram, and being overwhelmed by choices. And I think the solution to that is recognizing that there are so many choices, I mean, just so many choices. And then also recognizing that you could spend forever looking at things, right, you could spend forever trying to decide what you want to do. And that this is actually I'm preaching right now, because part of my membership, thing that I'm doing is just like this is, you know, making a decision. And moving on that decision. So that way, when you kind of have an idea, and you're excited about it. And you know, it's been thought through, there comes a time where you can stop thinking about it, and take action, so that way you don't overthink it and drain everything out of it. And I feel like that about the patterns, I feel like you have an idea of what you want, you go out and you look a bit, do a little bit of research, maybe even if you want give yourself a timeline and say, You know what, I'm going to spend 10-15 minutes a day, this next week looking at patterns, or maybe just three days this week, looking at patterns, and then making a little folder of the ones I like. And then I'm gonna have my decision made by Friday, so that way I could start the next step in this adventure. Because after a while, seriously, don't you agree that we spend time spinning our wheels and daydreaming? And at first, it's really fulfilling to daydream and get excited. But then it actually becomes this thorn, where it you've been looking and looking, and it's like frustrating and exhausting, and blah, blah, blah. Well, I think you know what you want to do. And you can do it. I think that you are such a clever person, there's not going to be any wrong decision. But I wholeheartedly agree with you on the fact that there's just so many options out there so many choices, that it comes to the point you just, you just kind of say, “Alright, I'm doing this one!” and that’s that. Ummm…Where's my postcard? You mean to tell me, I got all the way here... I was mailing you a postcard Barb... And I'm mailing it to you today from my heart, not from the actual post office, because... Girl! I left the postcard, obviously on my writing desk, and I'm not gonna be able to mail it from my writing desk.”
So that was definitely in the raw, but you can see friend, you aren't alone, the struggles that you may have with overwhelm, whether in pattern choices, or even works in progress building up all around you. You are unique. But your problems. Those guys are universal. And what's wonderful news is the problems— to solve these universal things— are available.
So, for instance, you have a burning desire to knit the perfect sweater, right? So, for example, this is where we're going. Number one, think about what you want, what you want. For instance, is it a particular style, such as a pullover, or maybe it's a cardigan? Is this sweater to be a learning project. So perhaps color work, or maybe a new technique. Maybe you just want a blue worsted weight sweater in your closet, whatever it is decide what you want from this knitting project. then number two, look for the elephant.Great news here. Elephants are really easy to spot when you are looking for them. I mean, they aren't tiny. So what's your elephant for my friend? The overwhelm was the elephant. Once we saw that the elephant was a big gray overwhelmed issue. Rather than some lurking Wraith being creepy in the corner, we could take care of the elephant kindly and correctly care for the elephant.
So if you're feeling overwhelmed because of choices, we're taking my friend Barb's issue here. So first step, make a plan. You are a knitter for goodness sake, you can make anything and a plan. Making a plan is no exception. Alright, endless scrolling without an objective will frustrate the heebie jeebies out of you. So be mindful of what you said you wanted, which is what we identified in step one, right.
So be mindful of what you said you wanted. And next, give yourself an action plan frame. For Barb, I suggested 10 to 15 minutes of intentional looking into places for inspiration. For those of you who are already enrolled in the Knitters Project Bag Collective Membership Group, you'll discover my practices on intentionality a bit more in depth from us here. Fornow, let's just move on for the sake of time and say, take that 10 to 15 minutes and in the way that you think is intentional… be intentional. So give yourself 10 to 15 minutes, perhaps over the course of three or four days, I highly encourage you to break it up. When we say we're going to spend an hour looking over things... I have a free hour here. And oh, another free hour here! And another free hour here. That's three hours of just scrolling through and looking at inspiration, which looking for inspiration, after a while is no longer inspiring. It is draining it is sucking away your creative time. And it's sucking the creative life out of you. So give yourself 10 to 15 minutes, three or four days max, and then compile your sweater contenders.
Now on day five, because that's been your three or four days. Now you're on day five. Just look over those choices. Again, just look. Give yourself a time limit. Again. 10 minutes, no more. giving yourself a time limit keeps focus and intentionality, top of mind. So you look for 10 minutes and you move some choices up to the top that really just excite you. And the others you rearrange lower on the list. Now for day six, ignore your choices. Don't look at all for goodness sakes— Stay off of Pinterest, stay off of Instagram. Instead, focus on my favorite person. Focus on you. So much of social media is designed to show you what you need. But my friend, you already know what you need. Girl, you decided that in step one. So let's believe in yourself. Let's spend some time thinking about you. And you know what you want, what you like, what your next project should do for you. And my friend, you know this better than anyone else in your scroll. So let's value ourself, shall we? Let's do that.
So day six, we are simply going back to step one, remembering an objective of goal, a desire that we had, and let's get excited. Let's get excited about what we want. Hear that? Get excited! Start daydreaming about the project. See yourself in a new sweater. I'm imagining Barb wearing a natural color card again. I've got my eyes closed and I'm seeing that handspun that she's been creating... its from the softest--- just a soft sheepy white, white cream, white cream colored police. I see her with big, big wooden buttons down the front, long thick sleeves with thick cuffs that are turned over at our wrists. And that part of the sweater is going to match a thickly ribbed collar and cables. Cables and cables and cables. Oh, my. And pockets. Pockets is pockets packages. And she's got her hands deep in these pockets. Right? My friend. If I can get this invested in daydreaming occurred again, I'm not making for my own self, imagine what you can do, what you can daydream about for your own project. Lock in that Daydream. Take notes if you can.
All right. Here we are a day seven. I bet you've guessed it, on day seven, you go back to your patterns. And now your objective is right. Here we go. You're going to reconcile your Daydream from yesterday, with the collection in front of you today. But what if there's not a perfect match? All right, you may be thinking that you may be asking that. So let's problem solve. Let's go back Close your eyes. Think about your Daydream. What did you love best? Was it the length? Was it the pocket? Was it that Aran weight haft choose the element, that single element that just stands out to you and just get your needles itching? Find something in the patterns that you've whittled down that mirrors that element. But now No, but though, I have so many more questions, and my friend, I hear you. And I have two answers. Number one, and this is the big problem solving solution. Number one is trust yourself. Whatever your questions are, trust yourself, look at something, get excited and choose. Don't overthink it. There is always more yarn. I know we think that there's a yarn shortage coming, there's not there is always more yarn. There is always more knitting to do.
Just start this project and learn, grow, discover and then repeat. Because what's awesome is once you get some momentum, and you get a little idea, and you get some inspiration, and you really think through and you make a decision, you're making something happen. you're investing in you, you're investing in your creativity, but when we are just looking at others to inspire us, and we're not being held accountable by producing our own dream— that not only kills momentum, it really adds to discouragement! We start seeing other people having sweater sliding off their needles, where if we just invest a little bit at a time, whether it's a sweater, a sock, a hat, a washcloth, a doily, whatever it is, pick your project. Find what it is that satisfies your creative idea and, and desire. Cast it on, learn, grow, discover, rinse, repeat. Learn grow discover, rinse, repeat.
Now if you really are feeling like you love these steps, and this is answer number two, you just want more insight and collaboration. Well my friend get on my email list! Get on it now by clicking the link in the show notes. And I'll let you know how you can plug into mindfully making each project a wondrously perfect, and a beautiful adventure.
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