Issue 15, looking back at 2023

building creative momentum

hey everybody,

We’re getting close to the end of the year, time to look back at the activities and events of 2023 with a little bit of perspective. It’s been an exciting year for me artistically, with three Big Things standing out in particular: setting up the habit of a daily fiber practice, doing The 100 Day Project, and attending the On Higher Ground creative fiber retreat in New Mexico.

a daily practice

Towards the end of 2022, I dedicated a little bit of space on my worktable to function as a desk. In that space I can knit and crochet, work on patterns and class outlines, and write this newsletter. As much as I like doing all of those things, sometimes it's hard to get them done when I wait to do them when the mood strikes. But, sitting down at my worktable each morning makes it easy to check emails, write a few sentences towards the next issue of this newsletter or a class or a pattern, and work on my freeform and design projects. For some reason it took me a while to figure out that some office space and a regular schedule would help me be more productive! Getting into this daily habit has been motivating and so enjoyable. Even when life gets a little crazy, I know that I’ll start each day checking in at my worktable, whether it’s for a few minutes or a few hours.

the 100 Day Project

In January or February, I found out about the 100 Day Project, 100 days of doing something creative that contributes to your craft and sharing it on social media. Hilary Hahn, a concert violinist, was doing 100 days of violin practice to get back into shape after an injury, and she was posting short videos of her actual practice time. Rather than follow her lead and do a violin 100 Day Project (my primary job is freelance violin and viola playing), I couldn’t resist doing a yarny project, and it took about 3 seconds to decide to add it to my daily practice. Wheeeeee!

Oh how I loved this. Starting with the goal of making one spiral each day to be used for some sort of freeform project to be determined later, I made fairly simple spirals for the first few weeks. But somewhere along the way I started experimenting to see what would happen if I tried to insert favorite techniques into the spirals; things took off from there, and the spirals became my primary creative focus. When the 100 Days were over, I had a wonderful collection of spiral swatches of all my favorite stitches and techniques. I’m constantly thinking of ways to use them for projects, inspiration, and teaching material. Experimenting with spirals for 100 Days was extremely interesting, stimulating, and rewarding, and I’m already starting to think about what my project will be for my 2024 100DP.

the fiber retreat

I’ve seen blog posts and photos of the On Higher Ground retreats over the years, and it has always looked like something I’d enjoy. Going to this year was a really special treat. In addition to hanging out with really cool fiber people, there were classes on art journaling, weaving (which ended up also including leather work), knitting, and crocheting, each with a freeform approach. Each subject had its own class session, but everyone (all students and all teachers) were there for all of the classes, so there was a lot of cross pollination of ideas and techniques. My head felt like an ocean teeming with different types of fish, so many ideas swimming together. I came away wanting to combine everything, as with the 100 spirals. I’ve been enjoying combining techniques in my work for a long time, but the retreat experience has made me feel more open to combining everything freely with everything else…..it’s just a big mosaic of fiber arts around here.

With these three Big Things, its been a very enjoyable year for fiber arts and creativity. What has come from all of this daily practice, experimentation, and inspiration so far? Looking through my Ravelry projects for the year, I find 7 wraps, 2 cuffs, 1 tote bag, 1 cowl, many dishcloths, many experiments and swatches, 100+ spirals, 2 small wall pieces, 1 hat, and one lone sock.

Of those finished projects, 8 were my own designs and 6 pieces were freeform. It’s amusing to note that only 2 of the projects were finished after the retreat. With all of those ideas swimming together in my head, finishing has been difficult! Starting, though, starting new projects has almost become a hobby in and of itself.

It feels like the benefits of this year’s creativity boost will just keep on coming. I’m looking forward to riding this wave of creative momentum and continuing to work more and more freely. What are you pleased about with your fiber art this year? Are you looking for any particular results for 2024?

still in progress

The Organic Wrap for a class I’m teaching next year is made a little differently from much of the freeform I make. My work has tended to be motif based, but this piece has just a few motifs here and there. It’s mostly made by crocheting directly into the fabric, an extension of the experiments in my 100 spirals.

This next piece is worked in a similar way. I’m enjoying this approach, though I’m finding it to be somewhat less portable as the piece gets bigger. Not having to do much seaming makes up for that, though.

a few more things you might like

Inventive crochet artist Tatsiana Kupryianchyk is running a Mystery Make-along this month with a collection of small projects designed to be completed in an evening, and it’s a steal at $5.

I just learned about the yarn mini minders from Lemonwood. Mine will ship soon…

Cheryl Reifsnyder, connoisseur of crochet stitch collections, recommended this book for textured crochet stitches in her freeform class at On Higher Ground. I tried a couple of them, and ended up ordering my own copy. Thanks, Cheryl!

That’s it for today, thanks for reading!

Lisa

PS: My freeform-ish guide, Freeform Favorite, is 25% off through the end of the year on Ravelry. It’s meant to be a project based introduction to freeform crochet. No code is needed, the price is already reduced to $7.50 to keep things simple.