Everyday Jaunts

A post about adventures - small ones.

I've been reading this fabulous book - Born to be Mild by @robtemple1001 documenting his recovery from a period of ill health (both physical and mental). It's both funny and bittersweet and brutally honest about his attempts to broaden his horizons by embarking on a series of mini adventures. Some go well, others not so well.

It made me realise quite how small my life has become recently. Granted we are in Covid times so not a lot is possible, but even with those limitations I feel as though I desperately need a bit of variety in my life right now.

So I have decided I need a program of little things I can do - we are talking tiny here - in my regular day.

I'm calling them #EverydayJaunts and I’m sharing them with this hashtag on Instagram - either on my grid or in my stories - and saving the latter to the highlights tab on my bio as a kind of record of activities. You are most welcome to join in and share your own jaunts too - if you need a little motivation or you'd like to share your ideas with others.

It could be as simple as taking your morning cup of coffee outside and listening to the birds, or stopping off, on a morning errand earlier to look at a church that I’ve driven past for years but never actually looked at, properly.

Small things, but hopefully ones that will rewire my brain a little and start to see the wonder and the variety in the everyday stuff.

Focusing on what’s different, rather than what is remaining the same.

Weekends don't count

Much of this year seems to have disappeared into a haze of anxiety and stress, but something about the change in seasons and the change in routine, as kids head back to school has kick started my long-dormant creativity and got me thinking positive thoughts again.

I’m fully aware that this might be a temporary reprieve in the whole Covid situation and that things may well get worse before they get better, but at the minute I am carrying on as best I can fully masked up, limiting social interaction and trying to keep a ‘this too shall pass’ mindset first and foremost.

Spending a lot less time on social media has helped enormously, as has cutting the ties with Facebook for personal use and the toxic soup that is Facebook groups. Spending an intentional half an hour on the Mighty Networks group leaves me feeling recharged and energised and has proved to be the perfect way to both start and end my working day.

Another thing that has helped is getting back into writing again - always something that I love but that I seem to be only able to commit to patchily. I have dabbled with writing Morning Pages before - a three page ‘free writing’ session but have always struggled to stick to it, especially at weekends where my routine is wildly different to my working week and loss of momentum always seems to completely derail my fledgling habit.

This time though I was reminded of something that Sara Tasker taught when I did her 15 minute magic programme a while ago - basically that ‘Weekends Don’t Count’. Weekends are for many things but they are a chance to do things differently from the rest of the week. A chance to rest, regroup and allow your mind to mull over the challenges and happenings of the week. In short, they are a break to allow your creative, subconscious mind a bit of free rein.

So, with that in mind I went through and marked off all the weekend days on my 30 day habit tracker in advance. And oh, my goodness. The difference it made this weekend was incredible. Normally I would approach a weekend with a vague ‘oh, I must do my morning pages’ thought. I would prevaricate and procrastinate, feeling guilt that I hadn’t done it. Then by the time Monday morning rolled around I would have talked myself out of doing it altogether and chalked it up to just another example of how I can’t commit to anything.

This time though? Totally different mindset. Giving myself permission to take the weekend off - albeit from this small and totally self-imposed challenge was incredibly freeing.

And now I can’t wait to see what other areas of my business and creative life I can apply this to.

My Morning Pages habit tracker

Knitting as therapy

Do you feel as though sometimes your brain is completely full? Like a cup of coffee filled to the absolute brim and the slightest movement or the tiniest sliver of additional information will cause it to spill over? I am prone to over thinking at the best of times but recently I have been feeling this more and more.

I am a huge fan of Writing Things Down and my belief in the power of a good long list is unshakeable, but recently I stopped journalling. Everything seemed to overwhelming and and certainly during March and April all the days seemed the same - writing about them seemed rather pointless and if I’m honest, pretty depressing. Journalling seemed to encourage me to dwell on the negatives and I felt rather like a hamster on a wheel.

Recently though I’ve discovered two things - the fabulous team at the Positive Planner who have produced a bullet journal in addition to their daily gratitude journal, and also Ruth Poundwhite’s Journalling for Business course. Both have which have inspired me to get my pen back out and write things down again.

Sitting, knitting something simple (in this case a garter stitch washcloth) and writing down ideas and thoughts as they come to me, with no pressure and no feeling that I’m doing things wrong. It’s been remarkably therapeutic and I really can’t recommend it highly enough. Even if you never look at the pages again after you’ve written them - the thoughts are out of your head - and that’s the main thing. The impact on my mental health has been really striking in recent weeks - although I’m sure that’s also partly due to spending less time on social media (Facebook in particular).

In case you need a simple pattern for a washcloth to try this for yourself I have jotted mine down here. Please feel free to bookmark it for future reference if you too, have a ‘Brain Too Full’ moment.

“WASHCLOTH PATTERN: CO 2 sts,
K1, kfb, k to end. Repeat this row until you have 50sts.
k1, ssk, k to end. repeat this row until you have 2 sts.
Cast off.”

— Louise Tilbrook Designs

Hot weather knitting

You know it is officially Too Hot to Knit, when you see me knitting with cotton yarn. Ordinarily I steer well clear of cotton. I find it hard, inflexible and top of the list for hand pain when I knit with it.

But the last few days with temperatures above 30c in the South East of England (and in the 20s at night) have meant that just looking at wool brings me out in a sweat. So cool cotton is the order of the day.

I was given one of those fancy facial cleansers that you need to take off with hot water and a cloth, ages ago and I haven’t used it because of lack of said cloth. Of course I could have bought a cloth (or cut up an old sheet or something) but like any self-respecting knitter my inner voice piped up to say ‘you could knit that’.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who, when faced with buying something that is either needed or wanted puts it off with a thought to make it yourself. Of course the reality is that other things compete for your knitting attention and the needed thing never gets made.

And in my case, the lovely gifted thing also doesn’t get used but just sits on my bathroom shelf looking fancy.

So, it may be ‘cracking the flag’s’ outside as my Grandma used to say, but come this evening I might be hot, but at least I’ll have clean pores.

Do you have any go-to patterns or yarns for hot weather knitting? I’d ordinarily go for socks but even they feel ‘too woolly’ for me right now.

An update on pattern sales

I've always been a proud supporter of Ravelry. I've exclusively sold my patterns there ever since day one. I've been proud to call Ravelry and the community there my knitting home.

But the recent site changed has caused problems for a significant number of people. Visual disturbances, migraines and reports of seizures.

All very worrying.

But much more worrying has been the complete lack of meaningful response from the team. People have been left unable to run their businesses effectively and without a social support structure they have grown to rely on.

We are now a week into the change and all we have is a weak opt-out back to the classic version (hidden behind several screens of triggering imagery)

I'm aghast at lack of response, the gaslighting and the dismissal of very serious concerns. I've been watching with increasing incredulity as the days tick past, with no action. I keep hoping that there will be something put in place to fix this. A solution, a timescale, a plan - heck - even an acknowledgement at this point would help

All I can do is to add my voice to those calling for action and look to my own business and my own website. I can’t possibly go back through years of blog posts and remove Ravelry links but I will not be adding new ones here until a solution is found.

In addition I have cancelled my monthly donation to the site (I don't pay for advertising there) and as of today I will have another, alternative platform for pattern sales, for those who aren’t able to access Ravelry.

I don’t know what the long term plan is - a lot depends on what happens with Ravelry over the next few weeks and months - and for that, the ball is firmly in their court. I truly hope there is a resolution that works for everyone. But in the interests of my business and my customers I have to come up with an alternative means of selling patterns.

You can find information on the alternative platform HERE

In love with shortie socks

I’ve no idea how I have managed to be over 10 years into my sock knitting career and never knit a pair of shortie socks before. I’ve seen the cute patterns over the years - notably the Rose City Rollers- that at one time everyone seemed to be knitting. I saw them, but somehow thought they weren’t for me.

This weekend though it dawned on me that I actually wear that style quite a lot in the summer. And as I hunted for a pair that hadn’t been claimed by my sock-magnet sons I realised that I could in fact knit myself some - revelation.

One of the beauties of these types of socks is that they use small amounts - just over half the amount of yarn needed for conventional socks. So I grabbed some suitable yarn from my stash (this is from Travelknitter - although I fear I have long since lost the ballband) - and cast on.

What can I say? Instant gratification is the order of the day. I cast on over my morning coffee and my mid afternoon I had a wearable first sock.

I don’t want to jinx things but it looks as though my sock mojo is back.