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Makers who find healing

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Every day my son Maximus and I have a silent ritual.

We take our baby Liberty to bed, we put her sleep bag on, we sneak out of her room, count one, two, three and take a deep breath and run to our making stations.

Maximus calls himself a master builder. The lego movie came out in perfect timing for my three year old to begin an obsession with building. At three he can sit at a table for three solid hours or more and build. When Libby is around the lego becomes a weapon, when she is asleep the maker in him comes out to play.

I see the glint in his eye as the fire truck is built, the stories that he makes up with his police men and the baddies who get caught and dragged off to jail. His lego world is full of activity, life and freedom. As he makes these little worlds, he finds his true personality and confidence.

Just like my three year old I am obsessed with making.

When my babes are falling asleep, I start to creep slowly, then I end up running towards my latest project.

It doesn’t matter if it is my laptop and a new book is in the wings, or my basket of wool as I create presents for someone, or my colouring in book as I reflect on what is going on in my mind, or my herb garden, my vision board or even what is on the stove cooking for my family for dinner.

Every time I make something, every time I produce something, every time it brings healing.

It heals my inner critic.

It heals the voice that says I am tired.

It brings a smile to a heart that is weary.

It expresses something I have been trying to say for weeks.

It unlocks my frustration and anger.

It calms my impatient attitude.

There is something so precious about making.

If you are feeling isolated, lonely, misunderstood, heart broken, not enough…

Then

Make,

Maker,

Make.

You were created to.

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If you are looking for some homemade christmas ideas click here to check out my downloadable book with 30 maker ideas.

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Unravel and start again

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I spent the whole weekend, knitting myself blissfully a cardigan. I saw an Instagram feed, assured myself that homemade chunky knits were the new black. I stalked Pinterest for a pattern. I spent more money at spotlight than our budget really allows. 

I am normally a renegade pattern user. I start to get the gist and I go off on my own tangent. However this time round, I haven’t knitted for a while so I thought I would go pure pattern mojo. I read it to the letter, I stopped and undid rows that were a little wonky. I gave it my best.

Last night I tried on my pattern perfect cardigan and in my husbands words ‘You could fit two of yourself in that thing.’

It was a Pinterest fail to the extreme. It was so large that my family could have camped under it’s canopy.

This morning I chatted away with my husband and he said you just need to unravel it babe and start again.

Start again.

Gahhh.

How easy is it to put our failures aside and hope no one notices?

The back of the cupboard. The bottom shelf. Sometimes even the sulo bin out of frustration.

One of the greatest lessons as a creative is somedays our pursuits just don’t work and we need to unravel our work and start again.

From the beginning.

Sometimes we need to do that with our lives.

Sometimes we need to do this with relationships.

Sometimes we need to do this with our major work projects.

As painful as it is to unravel, delete, ask forgiveness, start again.

It can be the best thing for us.

We learn lessons.

We move on.

We are humbled.

We grow.

What project do you need to unravel and start again?

What creative pursuit have you let go of because you failed?

Go on unravel it and start again.

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Crochet bits and bobs for sale

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I have been asked to sell some of my crocheted bits and bobs on a great site, featuring my home made creations for the month of July.

You can buy my goods from The Local Creative prices from $12 to $75.

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One of my most popular creations the Shwrap is available to purchase from this site as well. It is made to order though, so you better get your orders in quick, or else the offer may close due to our pending arrival.

More excuse to get my hooks out again this afternoon.

Have a great day.

All my creative love

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Knitting all things together for good.

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I have been in a nesting haze lately and somedays I wish I had a studio to retreat to, somewhere I can leave my creative bits and bobs and a two year old won’t touch them.

Space is our arch nemesis.

Storage is our promised land.

Other days I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I have a little shack to call my own and I am able to stay home with my toddler with no stress about rushing back to full time work just so I can make our mortgage repayments.

On these days I thrive on thoughts about the simple life, making my own butter and taking another load down to our local op shop.

I declutter.

I breathe.

I am thankful.

We all have these contradictions in our world.

One day we feel supremely grateful, the next overwhelmed and frustrated.

We each have moments of bliss and then moments of stretch and tangle.

A little like crochet or knitting.

There are moments where we love the rhythm and the finished product and learning a new pattern. Then the day comes when we make mistakes, we drop stitches and create holes, we give up and throw the project in the back of the cupboard, vowing never to look at it again.

I love this thought.

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Whatever is happening in your world, I believe that God is interweaving it into a tapestry of beauty that brings glory to Him.

The good.

The bad.

The frustrating.

The overwhelming.

The annoying.

The brilliant.

The excellent.

Everything.

He uses it all.

So if you are frustrated and feel ashamed about this today, I promise it is being brought together for good.

One day, one moment and you will look back and gain perspective on this season of your life.

Someday.

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shwrap

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Lately I have been playing around with a pattern I made up for little miss v. The pattern below is very loose and can be converted into a shwrap from any rug pattern and any sleeve pattern. It is more about the measurements of the rug, than the individual stitches, if you have made quite a bit in crochet you should understand my musings.

It is a combo of a rug, a cardigan and a baby cocoon wrap. It is perfect for a new little baby in winter and is surprisingly simple.

It is basically any crochet rug pattern, with two slits left to insert sleeves up the top and then finished off as a rug.

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Finished size newborn;

(mint green) 90cm across and 60cm deep.

1) Basically I did a half double crochet (2 chain at the end and turn) the whole blanket for the newborn blanket, until the blanket was 45cm long.

2) At the row that marked 45 cm’s deep, I half double crocheted in 36cm, then I chained two and went back to the start, turning again doing 4 rows like this, until I had a slit big enough for the sleeve.

3) Then I went to the 45 cm mark and started a new row with two chains and made the back between the two sleeves 18cm long, then I chained two and went back to the slit that was now made at the 36cm mark, repeating 4 times to create a back piece in the middle.

4) Then I started at the 54cm start (36cm first slit, plus 18cm second slit) with two chains and repeated the row again, to the end of the blanket, turned two chains and went back to the 54cm split and repeated 4 times.

5) At this point, my blanket now had two slits to insert two sleeves. (depending on the finishing size of your sleeves, you may need to make these slits a little bigger.

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Sleeve;

ch 29 Foundation row: 1 hdc in 3rd ch from hook. 1 hdc in each ch across. Ch 2. Turn. ( I added in a ribbed row cuff here: which is fpdc, bpdc repeat around)

next 2 rows: 1 dc in each st to end of row. Ch 2. Turn.

next row: 2 dc in first st. 1 dc in each st to last st. 2 dc in last st. Ch 2. Turn. Keep even till sleeve measures 19 cm’s. On last two rows omit the 2 chain at the end of each row.

6) Stitch the sleeve together under the arm, to the forearm. So it looks like a little tube.

7) Line up with the slit on the blanket and stitch around the shoulder of the sleeve.

8) Finish off the rows for an extra 8cm to finish off. I did a couple of rows of Half double crochet, then I did two ribbing rows; fpdc, bpdc repeat around to make the ribbed cuff. (on the fawn wrap above I did 4 ribbing rows for detail)

9) Then I finished off the whole blanket with a row of half double crochet right around the edge to finish off.

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I hope you love it just as much as I do.

Feel free to share, use, do whatever.

Just make.

Love

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