Supporting small businesses

Credit: @angela.chick.illustration

If you’ve been here for a while you’ll know that I am a passionate supporter of small independent businesses both in my blogging, my designing and in the Everyday Knitter Facebook Group.

This year with all the pressures that we are all facing it seems even more urgent to support and promote indie businesses as they face stiffer competition from the big box stores and customers, understandably are more concious of their spending.

This week I’ve been having great fun taking part in Indie Week event run by the amazing Just A Card team. It’s a week long celebration of a wonderfully diverse range of makers, artists and other small businesses and I’ve really valued being part of it.

You can find out more about the campaign at the links below as well as their Christmas Fair which offers an unparalleled opportunity to explore a great range of makers, artists and independent businesses - perfect in the run up to the festive season.

LINKS:

Check out Just A Card on Instagram or on their website: www.justacard.org

The joy of small things

Colour Block Mitts - pattern here

I’ve never really been about the grand gestures or the lofty ambitions but increasingly I am focusing on joys of small, simple everyday things. Life in lockdown certainly taught us to appreciate the simple things and I’ve found that I’ve carried that through into my everyday life now - more so than I ever did before.

I was reflecting the other day on how, as a parent so much emphasis is put on your child’s ‘firsts’ - first steps, first tooth, first bike ride. But we never really think about the ‘lasts’ - simply because you don’t know they are the last time you’ll ever have to retrieve their favourite bear before they’ll go to sleep or the last time they’ll need their laces tying.

And perhaps it’s a good job we don’t know that they are the ‘lasts’ at the time. On our recent holiday to the Lakes (thankfully on the last day as we were packing the car) it hit me that our next October break in that cottage will look very different with one son away at Uni - and honestly it hit me like a body blow - and one that I was absolutely unprepared for.

I’m glad I hadn’t thought of it earlier in the week otherwise it would have hung over my whole week with a series of ‘is this the last time …’ thoughts.

But it really did bring me up short and make me glad that I had taken a bit of time to stop and appreciate some of the small things that holiday - even if I was less than serene after the third game of Monopoly.

As part of my daily journaling I often add a short gratitude list - just tiny things during the day that I noticed or I particularly enjoyed. If I’m organised I might have snapped a photo or two as well and I love to scroll back through my camera roll and see the little things that captured my attention.

When our boys were little we used to joke that we had taught them to enjoy their pleasures small - a ‘beach holiday’ to them was spending time throwing stones into Wastwater. And I think there’s a lot to be said for that as adults as well.

Articles I enjoyed on this topic:

Find Gratitude In The Small Things (theodysseyonline.com)

4 Things Keeping a Gratitude Journal Taught Me - Life's AHmazing! (lifesahmazing.com)

Gratitude Journal: 66 Templates & Ideas for Daily Journaling (positivepsychology.com)

Creativity Matters

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have”

Maya Angelou

This is one of my favourite quotes on creativity - so much so that I have it written in the front of my journal where I see it every day.

Journaling is a big part of how I connect to my creative side - through words rather than images - which sounds a little strange at first. Often when we think of creativity and art we think in terms of painting, drawing and other visual representations - and with that can come a whole set of baggage (complete with wheels and a carry on bag) about stories we have told ourselves over the years.

That we ‘aren’t good at art’ or that we aren’t ‘the creative type’.

I’ve written about this before - You are creative, even when following a pattern - and it’s something I feel really strongly about. I believe that we all have the capacity to be creative, we just might not recognise it in ourselves.

If this sounds familiar to you, I thought I would put together a couple of the prompts that I use regularly in my journaling practice. I find that they help when I’m feeling a bit stuck or I feel that my brain needs a creative boost. I grab a notebook and pen (coffee helps) and let the words do the talking.

If you’d like to have a try at journaling for creativity, please just tap the link below.

Five fun facts about Herdies

Photo credit: chandler-media-xb_oRYa-TJ0-unsplash.jpg

Try saying that 3 times fast :)

Seriously though, Herdwick sheep are the most amazing of creatures and every time we visit the Lake District I’m always thrilled to see these little smiley faces peeping at me through the bracken. Or - more usually - standing stubbornly in the middle of a single-track road.

Over the years I have amassed a few interesting facts about these most handsome of sheep and I thought, in the spirit of Wovember I would share them with you here:

1. 95% of all commercially farmed Herdwick stock lives within 14 miles of Coniston and they have an unparalleled homing instinct which means they can be left to roam free on the fells with very little human intervention. It’s known as being ‘heafed’ or ‘hefted’ - the process by which they actually belong to and are part of the landscape itself. Each flock carries knowldge carried down through generations of mothers so that each sheep instinctinely knows how to not only survive, but thrive in what can be a harsh environment. They know where the best shelter is, the best grazing at a given time of year and they pass that knowledge on from mother to daughter.

2. They are born dark brown (usually with amusingly shaped white eye-goggles) and gradually get lighter over time. A year old Herdwick has a brown body with a light grey head, and over the course of their second year the wool on their bodies also lightens.

3. Herdwicks are smaller than most commercially farmed sheep and slower growing. They are a dual purpose breed - used for both meat and fleece. In the past their use for fleece fell out of favour but thanks to the efforts of conservationists and sheep enthusiasts the unique properties of Herdwick wool are now being appreciated again - in companies such as this one

4. Beatrix Potter was passionate about Herdwick sheep and campaigned strongly to ensure the breeds survival in the 1940s. She bequeathed 4,000 acres of land to the National Trust, with the proviso that it be used for Herdwick sheep farming.

5. They can survive the harshest of winters and there are many reports of them being dug out alive after days trapped in snowdrifts. There are even reports of sheep which have survived such conditions by eating their own fleece whilst waiting for rescue.

In short, they may look cute but they are seriously tough cookies. You never want to mess with a Herdie - and they always get right of way on single-track roads.

Addi Unicorn circular needles: A Review

Addi Unicorn circular needles

With the bright pink cable and the shiny, spiral grooved tips these new needles from Addi are hard to miss, so when they crossed my social media feed a few days ago I immediately wanted to snag a set for myself. (This is not a paid advert feature - I bought the needles myself and haven’t been asked to write this).

I was a little sceptical of the claim that the unique spiral tips help to massage the hands while knitting - but that aside I have to say that I really enjoyed using these needles and I’d definitely buy more.

The cable is super flexible with absolutely no memory so it’s great for magic loop projects - my favourite way to knit socks. There’s also no join at all between the cable and the tips, meaning that your stitches slide really easily from tip to cable and back again.

The 100cm cable is a bit long for me - in my enthusiasm to buy I didn’t realise other lengths were available. Next time I’d probably buy the 80cm as that’s my preferred length for magic loop knitting. But honestly, that’s the only thing I didn’t enjoy about knitting with these.

It’s hard to convey how super smooth I found knitting with them, but I filmed a short Reel of me using them which you can see over on my Instagram page.

Heaven knows, I have no shortage of knitting needles, but a sock knitter can always use a few more 2.5mm needles…right?

Just be kind...

Be kind - that’s the slogan. A handy little hashtag you can pop in your bio to show to the world that you too can #BeKind. Unfortunately if it was that easy we wouldn’t need the BeKind campaign and Social Media Kindness Day in the first place.

I first got the idea to write this post after reading a blog post by Thistleflat Crafts - Leaving those glitter trails of kindness - please go and read it immediately as she absolutely nails it. And her words really stuck with me.

She wrote about how kindness is often perceived to be weak or passive which in fact it is anything but. Far from being the easy option it is an active response. A deliberate choice, often made under difficult circumstances and it often requires a lot of effort or thought to ‘be kind’.

All too often on social media you see #BeKind on someone’s profile or bio and then scroll through their feed to find shining, glaring examples of them being less than kind to others. Retweeting hatred, mocking others, indulging in hurtful ‘celeb’ gossip - downright bullying sometimes, let’s face it.

Be kind is often used as a shorthand for ‘be kind to me while I continue to be unkind to others’

Anyone can put #BeKind in their bio. It takes a very different person to bring that behaviour through into their everyday life and their dealings with others. Particularly on social media, the kind response might actually be one you can’t see. It looks like walking away from an argument that someone is trying to pick with you or not joining in with the latest gossip/drama in your sphere.

Sometimes ‘BeKind’ is invisible. Unseen, unthanked and you can’t share a selfie of yourself doing it.