Currently on my needles – March’ 26

I find that somehow social media makes it look like artisan endavours take 30 seconds to finish. When in reality its often hundreds of hours invested from the idea to the finished project. Don't misunderstand me I have no qualms about being a slow artisan or that many of my creative endeavours take months for completion. I really enjoy the process. The journey and discovery from idea to completion is just a satisfying as the finished product (If I like the end result anyway). Lately I felt a bit pressured by social media to actually produce a "reasonable" amount of finished goods. As I said one many occasions, I am a slow mo and I am fine with t. I usually work on several different creative projects - several different mediums at one time- which slows me down even more. Add to that my perfectionist streak, which makes me undo huge amounts of work, when I do something wrong or feel it's not good enough.So for a minute I thought, maybe I should just do one craft or work on just one thing. But quickly dismissed that idea. I am not in production and frankly if I don't pursue excellence in what I do, I won't enjoy the end product anyway.Most of my creative endeavours are often connected to learning skills or exploring an idea/inspiration. And as I said I really adore the journey. It's a form of adventure, a way of exploring and researching- my two favourite things to do- mediums and skills. A way to pursue excellence in a skill or with a medium. I find it brings me calmness and these creative endeavours make me in fact a more inspired photographer and generally a more content person.I want to somehow share the side of my creative endeavours, so I decided to post updates of my journey as a Wednesday theme here. I shall be posting weekly or every fortnight. Different ideas, inspirations, different mediums, mishaps, explorations.. whatever I am busy with. Basically just sharing about my creative space and different facets of it. I am starting today with knitting. Currently on my needles will be a monthly post sharing some progress photos and talking about the knit or crochet projects I am busy with, problems I encounter while knitting, things I discover as I knit...a bit like a long version of #WIPWednesday. At the moment I am busy with two knit projects: Inara The first project is a sleeveless oversize vest-dress. To be exact I am hoping that it will be a dress. I got 14balls of the main yarn and I hope that it is enough to make it midi-length. I named it Inara - which means sparkling light- because of the sequence stripes.So far I am happy with how its shaping up, its quite girly for me and I am a little worried that maybe its a tad too oversized. So I am thinking of doing the collar ribbing and the blocking it to see if it fits and drapes the way I am anticipating. (For more details vistit my ravelry page) Damla After finishing Zephyr I am kinda obsessed with stripes and Mohair. I still got left-over bits and pieces from Zephyr so I am making a stripe as you feel shawl. Knitting it single strand on 3.5mm.I named it Damla which means drop in turkish. As this reminds me of reflections in dew drops. (For more details vistit my ravelry page) What is currently on your needles?

March 25, 2026

The 100 Day Project 2024

The 100 Days Project started in 2011 with New Zealand graphic designer Emma Rogan, who read about a class called ‘100 Days of Design’, run by Michael Bierut, at Yale School of Visual Arts. The idea behind this is to build a creative habit and learn through continuity. The project has since evolved into an online and worldwide challenge. Every year, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of creating. Anyone can participate.The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every single day for 100 days, and share your process on social using the hashtag #The100DayProject.The next round of the project will start on February 18, 2024- tomorrow A couple of weeks ago, I decided to join the #100dayproject this year.At first, I thought of doing one sketch a dayBut very quickly I had to admit that this slow-mo will never be able to do 100 sketches in 100 days because it takes me hours to finish a sketch. Realistically I can’t sketch for 3 or more hours a day. Also, honestly; I don’t really want to. So I was thinking maybe to commit to 15 minutes of being creative. But frankly, that’s just a cop-out. So I dismissed that instantly. I also keep coming back to sketching as my challenge and I even considered attempting to do a visual journal again. I like the idea of keeping a visual journal and have tried on several occasions- but again I simply can’t keep it up because it takes way too long to sketch. Having done a 30-day art challenge every March for the previous 3 years, where I just sketched every day for 30 days, I know that sketching first thing in the morning is relaxing and also helps me focus and be more productive for the rest of the day. I felt it was easier to keep up my evening routine and my early morning routine.When I tried to do the 30-day art challenge in August last year to do a visual journal - I failed, only keeping up for 23 days.As I was thinking about it, I realized that I haven't sketched much since then. So I took a step back and thought about why I wanted to do the challenge and what would I really like to gain from it. Basically, I would like to rebuild a daily habit of sketching and hopefully help me anchor my morning routine with it. I don't care about having a hundred sketches or a finished journal at the end of this. I want to enjoy this time of quiet and enjoy the small progresses, indulge ideas and inspirations and most importantly the joy and growth continuity brings. So long story short: I intend to sketch every day for at least 30 minutes for 100 days I got myself a small sketchbook - because I like the idea of having a small portable journal to fall back to- but I will just see where this journey takes me. No pressure to sketch anything specific or in a specific medium or journal, just to make the time every morning and enjoy the journey. Are you joining the #The100DayProject?

February 17, 2024

Currently on my needles: June’23

In the last 6 months, I started a lot of projects and frogged the majority of them. Restarted half of them and generally finished only a very few. I keep forgetting to take photos of the finished projects and keep planning to post about them. Hopefully, I will get around to it a wee bit later. At the moment I am working only on two projects: Cassiopeia Named after the constellation because for some reason the yarns remind me of unicorns and the name seemed fitting for a unicorn. Simple toe-up socks that I knit while on the go, striping the two yarns every row, the white-speckled one being the MC. Yarns Das Mondschaf HydraEinhornpups (white speckled) TreLiz AresMadala (multicolored stripey) Find details on the Cassiopeia project page Sea Daffodils This project is another of my idea-to-needles experiment. Let's hope it will work out this time.I am aiming to make a lacey tee inspired by the frozen flowers I discovered on a winter hike in Switzerland. Yarn Mirafil FasciaFrozen Sea #355 I only did some swatching, a lot of charting, and cast on the back so far. It's going to be slow, but so far I really love the fabric and drape I get from the yarn. Find more details on the Frost Flowers project page

June 15, 2023

Currently on my needles

At the moment I am busy with three projects: The first is the Westknits MKAL 22 that I started in October, like a whole lot of others. I am however one of the last to still knit. To be exact I am still knitting clue 1. Yes, you read this right. I am a slow-mo. I am enjoying the knit so far but decided not to stress over being probably the last MKALer to finish it. Calathea is my current crochet project. It (hopefully) will be a kimono-style cardigan. I am a bit iffy about it at this point. I am not sure if this will actually work the way I hope it will and if it will actually suit me. But also I have utter yarn regret. See I really wanted something in what I think of as Lisbon green, but I couldn't find any 100% natural fibre yarn with that color, so I went with an acrylic/cotton mix. And you guessed it, this fibre snob is not sure she will wear something 35% acrylic. I was about to abandon it last night but decided to just keep going and assemble the kimono in a wee bit of a shorter version before giving up on it completely. Last is a slipover. It's also my newest project but so far I am loving it and I think I will finish it very soon. (well, soon for a slow mo so another week or so.) I love the fit and the feel. The yarn feels like a cloud and with the weather dropping to 15C here I could really use a bit of an alpaca cloud hug. Ravelry links for more details:MKAL 2022CalatheaSlipover

November 30, 2022