A summer timewarp

Finally, we have some cooler weather here after 3 days of blisteringly hot (39/40C heat) and I can’t describe the joy I felt this morning at having a shower and standing in a cool breeze from the open window. Something definitely happens to my brain after 30C and I lose the ability to think rationally or to plan anything. My brain seems to go into hot weather survival mode and thinking about anything beyond immediate needs is just something I can’t do.

Sitting with a cup of coffee, an open laptop and coherent thought for the first time in weeks is a lovely experience but also slightly bewildering. We seem to have catapulted straight into summer holiday season with no warning and zero preparation. A combination of being a Covid house for 10 days followed by the UK’s 40C heatwave has totally thrown out all of my careful plans.

I feel as though I need to regroup, rethink and try to get some sort of a plan in place for the next 6 weeks and all the things that need to happen for the usual family summer stuff - including a much awaited (and repeatedly postponed) trip to Greece that I haven’t even thought about buying/packing for yet.

I was going to start my Summer of Books and Yarn on 22 July - when our schools break up here - but as the end of the week is approaching with terrifying speed I will be moving this back to start on Monday 25 July.

I need time to get my ducks in a row and at present they are drunk and at a party.

I also need to regroup on the knitting front too. During the hot weather I was working on a crochet granny square blanket which I’d like to get finished and then I can turn my thoughts to my next knitting design. I have a few in the pipeline but all seem to have stalled. Hopefully if the cooler weather continues I can drag these out and assess in the cold (cool) light of day.

For now, I think I’ll just sit and enjoy the cool breeze while I put my crochet blanket together.

If you’d like to join my #SummerOfBooksAndYarn there’s a link to sign up for the prompts below - and you’ll also get a discount code for 50% off any of my shawl or cowl patterns.

A June roundup

Find me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/LouiseTilbrookDesigns

Statistics and past experience show that monthly grid summaries like this always do particularly poorly on Instagram. Probably because they are too small for people to see the individual images and it doesn't stop the scrolling thumb in the way that a single image does.

But they give me great joy to create, and so I do them at the end of each month, a little review of my camera roll and what I have been up to and I really enjoy the process. 

It's easy to get swept up in the day to day, particularly right now when, let's face it, whatever country you are in, events seem like a bit of a bin fire.

So it makes for a nice, relaxing half an hour to sit down with my phone and a coffee and go through my selected highlights for the month.

I usually don't share them on Instagram because, as I said they don't tend to get much engagement. But if Instagram is teaching us anything right now it's that you should just post what the hell you want to. It's the online equivalent of dance like no one is watching - because they really aren't.

And so I'll be sharing it over on Instagram later, just because I want to. No other reason.

If you have a particularly beady eye you might spot a finished object nestling in among the images (bottom centre). My Paris is Always a Good Idea shawl turned out to be a particularly speedy knit. I'll do a blog post about it later, but at less than a week from cast on to cast off I rather surprised myself with how quickly this one flew off the needles.

If you are interested in knitting the 'Paris' shawl for my upcoming Summer of Books and Yarn do make sure to sign up to get an exclusive 50% discount off any of my shawl patterns.

Fancy joining me for a summer of books and yarn?

Do you long for the days when summer meant a nice, juicy reading challenge from your local library? When you got a sticker chart and a brilliant progress checker, as well as the perfect excuse to curl up in a corner and read to your hearts content?

Well, I can't quite promise the sticker chart (although I'm working on an online equivalent) but how about joining me for a #SummerOfBooksAndYarn?

Starting when schools break up* and running for the six weeks of the summer holidays I thought it would be fun to have a modest reading challenge.

• Six weeks

• Six books

• Six reading prompts (optional)

• A six-week long shawl KAL

Obviously I would love it if your chosen shawl pattern for the KAL was one of mine, but of course WIPs and other projects are very welcome too.

As a little incentive though I'm offering an exclusive 50% discount off any of my shawl or cowl patterns with a special code. To find out more sign up to my newsletter (or check your inbox if you are already a subscriber.

*I know that school holidays are different depending on where you are in the world but for practical reasons I'm going off the English school system where I am located.

On Instagram and borrowed audiences

It’s no secret that life on Instagram is pretty tough at the minute. Tried and tested posting strategies just aren’t working as they used to. And even when you do jump through all the hoops that Instagram seemingly requires of you - hello Reels - you still are left with engagement stats that make a ghost town looks positively vibrant.

There’s no doubt that Instagram is going through a midlife crisis and seems to have forgotten what it wants to be. In it’s quest to be like the other cool platforms it has ended up like someones Dad at a hipster party, slightly awkward and out of place. Desperate to be relevant in a room full of indifference.

Hopefully it will sort itself out soon and until then we just keep plodding on, trying to connect with our audience and to catch up with the people that we have come to enjoy hanging out with there.

I have seen a lot of weeping and wailing though from some quite big accounts. Obviously people’s businesses and incomes are taking a huge hit right now, especially those whose businesses centered largely around selling to their Instagram audience. And a lot of comments along the lines of ‘we’ve earned that audience’ or Instagram owes it to us to sort things out’.

And wow, that’s quite the statement to make. Yes, of course we have worked hard to acquire an audience on Instagram and we’ve certainly put the hours in to generate those likes and comments and sales. But, make no mistake, those people are still Instagram’s audience, not ours. At best we have borrowed them for a while.

It is very literally a case of building a platform on someone else’s land. Unless you have moved those people across onto your email list or other platform - that you own - then they aren’t your audience.

As attractive and photogenic as that Instagram basket is, it’s a good idea to move some of your eggs out of it. At least until Instagram gives it’s head a wobble and gets back in the game.

An email list is one way of doing that, another is through the use of Facebook Groups. Yes, I know it’s another Meta-platform and yes, I know that you still don’t own that either. But an active, engaged Facebook Group is still a really good way, right now to connect to your people. Whilst there is undoubtedly a demographic that prefers to be Facebook-free, over 70% of Facebook users say they visit the site at least once a day. An active Facebook Group with dynamic and new content is a great way to be visible and to show up on people’s social media, in a way that Instagram at the minute just can’t do.

I recently dusted off my 20k-strong Facebook Group - the Everyday Knitter group. I archived it in 2020 in a mid-pandemic state of overwhelm, back when everything just felt too much. But I missed it. I missed the daily connection with people, with friends. And I missed that feeling of belonging to a community. So I resurrected it and I’m thrilled with how it has just picked up where it left off. Sure, we lost a few members along the way and I had some dormant accounts to clear out, but of 20k members, 11.5k are classed as active in the group (according to Facebook’s metrics) and we have lots of chatty and engaged members in there on a daily basis.

Facebook Groups are something that I feel really passionate about, I really do think they can help small businesses connect to their customers in a meaningful way and that’s why I have written the Grow With Groups course.

If you have had ‘start a Facebook Group’ on your to-do list for ever, but have always been reluctant to give it a try, or you don’t know where to start then this is the course for you.

Why not take a look and see what you think? We start on Monday 4 July though, so don’t wait too long.

Grow With Groups - course on sale now

Well, this is all very exciting as I pop into your inbox to announce that my very first online course - Grow With Groups is now on sale.

Doors are only open for 5 days - the cart will close on 2 July 2022 - as this is a beta version of the course I am purposefully keeping this intake small and focussed so that each student can get the possible experience, and come away from the 4 weeks with their very own Facebook Group up and running.

We start the course on Monday 4 July and the course will be delivered in two components:

• Weekly course material along with homework/checklists to access as often as you want and at your own pace.

• A weekly live/recorded session in a dedicated FB group - just for this course where students will also have the opportunity to ask questions in order to achieve their specific aims and objectives.

As a beta member you will have access to the course for it's full lifetime, as I aim to run this several times per year. As well as being the first to know about future courses where I will delve into more advanced aspects of Facebook Groups including driving engagement, improving retention and monetisation.

I can't wait to get started talking about all things to do with Groups and I really hope you decided to join me. If you have any questions please just hit reply to this email and I'll be happy to help.

My best business tool

Photo credit: Dave Goudreau via Unsplash

I must have spent £100s, possibly even £1000s over the years on productivity and business apps and software. Show me a course on productivity or a snazzy new app that promises to revolutionise my working day or streamline my content creation and I’m all over it.

Nothing sparkles with more promise than the ultimate hardcopy business planner complete with freshly sharpened pencils and a vat of coffee in my favourite coffee shop.

But lately I’ve come to realise that my best business tool, by a country mile is my beaten up pair of trainers. 

Recently I was stuck on something. Nothing as complex as algebra or bringing about world peace but it was something I’d been mulling over for days and I felt as though I couldn’t move on with my other work until I’d solved it. All day I’d sat at my desk, as well as in the aforementioned coffee shop but the words just wouldn’t come.

The odd idea swam into my head and then floated off before I could even try to journal on it. Put simply, I was stuck and frustrated.

Back at home and with dinner in the oven I shoved on my trainers and went for a walk with my husband. Walking in companionable silence, each mulling over our day the idea suddenly came to me.

It was a perfect, brilliant light bulb moment and suddenly I knew exactly what I needed to do, as though someone had laid out a yellow brick road right in front of me. I didn’t even need to stop and make a note on my phone for fear I would forget it. The idea was so clear and perfectly formed it was as though it already existed.

Thinking back, this is definitely part of a pattern and there’s definitely something that works for me in the simple repetitive soothing motion of walking. Something that calms my frazzled brain and helps me to make sense of the world around me. It’s no coincidence that during the Covid lockdowns our daily walks were the one thing that kept me functioning.

I can’t meditate to save my life. Just the thought of sitting still and deep breathing makes me want to twitch but simple, slow, mindful walking works for me every time. And I’m not alone. I found this wonderful article recently which sums it up far more eloquently than I could. It seems there is some solid science to explain the link between a good long walk and creative ideas.

I’m not ready to ditch the laptop and the coffee shop just yet, but I might just shove my trainers in the boot of the car for a pre-work walk around the block first.