New skills

Trying something new is a great thing to get you out of a lull, regain your mojo and lose yourself in.  To pull you from your regular projects and gain some joy and momentum with your creativity.  I might have said this before but I love to learn something new.  It really does get the creative juices flowing.  It exercises the brain and it’s good for the soul.  Now in these times of lockdown it’s not so easy to go out for a class but it’s becoming easier to gain new skills with online classes and tutorials becoming available.

The project

I thought that as I’d made several cute crocheted animals it was time to strike out on a bigger project.  A jumper.  I had a Rowan book from years ago that I’d made the scarf from.  It had a jumper that I’d been eying up but had never had the nerve to try. Well, now is that time.  When the days are just beginning to draw out and it’s still too murky to want to spend all day in the garden, this is the perfect time to concentrate on something that can be done in front of the telly or with a podcast playing.  As much as I love to sew I don’t always want to be in front of a machine.

After much thought I decided to use a cotton/linen yarn.  I’m aiming for a spring/summer jumper.  I’m not quick with crochet and I thought it a bit ambitious to use a heavier weight when it’s unlikely to be finished before spring.  This is also worth considering with fabric for projects.  When are you actually going to finish or want to wear the finished article.  It’s not a bad idea to plan winter  or summer makes before the season starts.  Though I never feel like making something flimsy and light in February, by April I can imagine the warmer months ahead.

Ponderings

As I was undoing yet another row of my crochet, it reminded me that although there were many things I can do given fabric and sewing machine, I’m still a newbie when it comes to some other things.  Crochet, gardening, sewing, whatever we ‘re trying, if it’s a new skill, it’s going to take practice.  Not just a little patience and sticking power.  This will not be done in an afternoon or two.   Learning something new takes time, patience and practice to get it right.  It almost needs to become muscle memory.  I’m still working on a lot of that but think back to what you can now do automatically that a few years ago you had to really think about.

No new project is going to be perfect if you’ve not done anything like it before.  Give the perfection genie a day off and enjoy the process.  Yes, you’ll have to re-do some things to get them right.  Occasionally you need to look at something to see how much it really needs to change or if a regular person would actually notice.   Don’t sweat the small stuff.  Often they wouldn’t notice.

My crochet is growing slowly and I’m ok with that.  I’m determined to finish this to wear once I can get back to work.  On the note of muscle memory, I practice for while each evening but if I need to count, I make sure I do it early on.  Please tell me I’m not the only one who finds it difficult to count to 94 on one go.  It doesn’t help when someone whispers other numbers in your ear as your doing it either.  Eleventyseven is not helpful.

In the end

I guess what I’m saying in a VERY round about way is that we’re all learning.  No-one knows everything about everything and as long as we can remember that, we can support each other on that journey.  There will be many ways of doing the same thing and what works for one may not work for another but without trying we’ll never know.  Pick up that project and give it a go.  If you fancy a new project with video guides to help along the way, give my Bag of Positivity a go.  It’s a free course and may just boost your mojo.