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

Ravelry and me

Wearing the PPS Shawl.

A lot has happened over the last few weeks. The sudden upgrade of Ravelry and the attendant concern and dismay over it’s continued inaccessibility to many have continued apace, and despite some blog posts and half-apologies from Jess and the team there has been very little meaningful progress.

Many people can no longer use the site and this is, put simply not acceptable.

I have talked about this a lot on Twitter and in other social media but I realised that I haven’t stated my position plainly here, in black and white, for posterity.

As things stand at the moment I cannot support Ravelry, nor the decisions taken by the management team. Repeated attempts to engage with them at all levels have failed and it is clear at this point that no amount of ‘people expressing disappointment’ will shake their firm conviction to proceed with their new look.

With this in mind the only option left to me is not to support them financially. I can’t afford to close my pro account - my pattern sales are still significant there and I am a business at the end of the day. As soon as there is a viable alternative I will move but for now I will continue to push sales on my Payhip platform as hard as I can and to continue to pay the (hopefully small) Ravelry sales invoice.

In addition I will not purchase any patterns from the site. If I find a pattern I like and the designer doesn’t appear to have an alternative platform available then I will ask them if they will sell it to me via Paypal.

I haven’t advertised on the site for several years now so this bit isn’t relevant to me but I notice that many designers have withheld their advertising budget - and also the coveted September slots which used to sell out in record time are still currently showing as half-filled. Advertising revenue accounts for 50% of Ravelry’s income so this is the most effective way of attracting their attention.

If you haven’t tried Payhip before, please don’t be put off. It’s a simple Paypal transaction just like you would do with Ravelry. The only difference is that the pattern PDF is emailed to you rather than going into your Ravelry library. But in any case, in order to be sure you can access your purchases it’s always good practice to keep a copy of your PDF - either paper or digitally - after all, if Ravelry were to be unavailable to you then you wouldn’t be able to access the patterns you have paid for. If having the pattern in your library is important to you however, please do let me know after your purchase and I’ll happily gift it to you.

In order to tempt you to try it out I am having a Payhip sale from now until the end of August. Please just use the code PAYHIP50 on any of my patterns for 50% off

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.

Exciting times ahead

I’m genuinely thrilled that so many people have enthusiastically embraced the Facebook-free experience of the new Everyday Knitter home and are happily finding their way around as we embark on a second week there.

It is different to Facebook - not least because your home feed is chronological (whoop!) and you get to customise what you see - but partly because we are so used to the Facebook way of doing things it naturally takes time to adjust.

As I’ve been spending a lot less time on Facebook recently I have started to notice how I automatically tense when I pop back in to check on things. I find being there incredibly stressful and I’m sure it must be the same for others, we just don’t notice it when we are immersed in it. I guess it’s a bit like the analogy about the frog in slowly heating water - you only notice how hot it was when you get out.

Anyway - mixed metaphors aside - it is with relief and a sense of mounting excitement as I approach the 7th August. This is the date that the Facebook group will be permanently archived and all Everyday Knitter activity will happen on the Mighty Networks platform.

We will be kicking off with a settling in KAL starting on Monday 10th August and hopefully that will give people a chance to participate and try out some of the group’s features for themselves - especially if they always felt a bit reluctant to post or get involved in the larger Facebook group.

If you haven’t joined yet, why not come over and take a look? I’d love to get the chance to show you around.

Moving home

It’s a big day today as I’m sharing the news that I am moving the Everyday Knitter community off Facebook and on to a new platform on the Mighty Networks website. 

I have been finding Facebook increasingly difficult to deal with, both personally and professionally and increasingly horrified at the level of simmering anger, inflammatory posts and general divisiveness there. The only thing keeping me on Facebook in all honesty was the Everyday Knitter group.

Finding the MightyNetwork platform has been a real joy and I’m really excited to move the group into our own dedicated space away from the noise and distractions of social media and create our own special community. It’s free from adverts and will be free for you to use.

The Facebook group will remain active for now - you can see my pinned post in there explaining it all in detail - and it will be permanently archived on 7th August.

The link to the new home for Everyday Knitter is below - if you’d like to pop over and check it out you would be more than welcome.

I’m really excited for this new phase of Everyday Knitter and I really hope you’ll join me.