Thursday, November 24, 2016

ebb & flow and creative mornings


Fall is by far my most creative season. Every year when September rolls around I'm riding high on the flow of inspiration and way too many creative ideas to put into action. This usually lasts all through October and into the beginning of November. 

And then. Mid- November hits and I start thinking about (and planning for) the holiday season. The trees are mostly bare and the daylight is rapidly decreasing. And (as can be witnessed by the number of blog posts I had for October compared to November) I inevitably start to run out of steam.

I used to get stressed out about this. I'd feel overwhelmed by all the half finished projects, started in early Fall that end up sitting in boxes and drawers, waiting to be pulled out at a later date. I'd feel discouraged by all the ideas I didn't have time for, the creative endeavors I'd hoped to get to that inevitably wind up forgotten as the year draws to a close. 

But creatively comes in ebbs and flows. Neither lasts forever. All we can really do is respect that flow when it's here and do what we can while it lasts. Knitting, just like any creative endeavor is a process. 


One thing that's been helping me this year to keep that creative spark is my weekly creative mornings. Once a week, Waldi takes Caleb for a few hours so I can get some good quality time to work on a few projects. Usually I set myself up at home, with coffee and candles but this month I also spent one morning in my favorite cafe, updating my design notebook and swatching with some lovely yarn. 

It's true that I still have way more ideas then I'll ever have time or motivation for, but instead of letting that overwhelm me, I'm trying to glean inspiration from it. There is so much to learn within this craft, so many possibilities of what we can make with just our hands and some sticks and string. It's actually a wonderful thought that there will always be something new to make.

And so, I'm just embracing November in all it's quiet gloomy-ness. I'm working on some Christmas gifts for friends & family and not worrying about how often I've got a new blog post up, or if it's been almost a week since my last Instagram post. 

After all, I'm doing all this because these creative pursuits give me life. I don't have time to waste worrying about when that creative flow will return. There's just too many other things I could be doing.

And I hope this post encourages you to embrace the ebb and flow of your own creativity, in whatever season you currently find yourself in.

related: I recently stumbled across this post from 2 1/2 (!) years ago. Time to take some of my own advice I suppose...

2 comments:

  1. That's good that you have time during the week to work on projects, I think we really need that peace and quiet to get our creativity flowing and get things done. While I was reading this I was agreeing with everything you said, once the fall comes I feel so inspired and then there is so much to do and once Christmas is closer I go into knitting gifts mode and other projects take a backseat. Hope you are enjoying knitting and finding time to create in this busy month of December.
    Lisa

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  2. Could you tell me about that notebook with the graph paper. I am looking for a new planing and creativity option. Thanks

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