My idea of fun

And a few not that updated updates (and squares, there's squares, btw!)

I don’t like having fun. Better yet, my idea of fun is not what fun is for most people.

Maybe saying “for most people” is not fair or accurate, since I don’t pretend to know what most people think is fun. As in really fun, fun *for them*, not fun as in “anyone in their right mind would think that is fun”.

I used to go out a lot when I was younger. As a teenager and a young adult, believe me I had some serious fun, going out to dance, spending the night out, and leaving my dad properly worried and my mom properly asleep and not that worried that something could go wrong (or that it was worth losing sleep over it).

As soon as I could spend time at home on my own and could be a little more in control of some of my time, I started being more and more domestic. Not in the sense of doing domestic chores (never found those fun, and still struggle to do them, btw), but in the sense that, when the work day was over or the weekend arrived, my free time was just that: time to be free to do whatever I wanted. And what did I want? Crafts. Exploring and trying doing creative things with my hands. Learning new skills, experimenting and discovering new things, hard things.

Hard things are fun.

Don’t get me wrong. I love watching shows on tv or movies, and I have more than my fair amount of scrolling mindlessly through instagram and pinterest. But where I really have the best fun? Crocheting. Or planning to crochet. That’s also part of the fun. Coming up with new ideas. Trying to put them into paper and figuring out how I can make them come to life.

It’s funny (pun intended) how my kind of fun involves some discomfort. This feeling of not having enough time in the day for everything I want to try and make, or the feeling of simply not being good enough and doubting if I can actually bring to life my vision of a new make, it’s definitely not fun. But it is part of the process. I know it comes with the territory and I love the challenge. I love “cracking the code”. I love the stretch all this gives to my brain and my hands. I love exploring and opening up possibilities (or closing some), even if that means creating more room for discomfort.

How I’ve been having fun lately

It’s been a long time since I’ve last written *and* sent out something around here. I also love writing, but it’s not exactly fun. But it is challenging and also necessary. It serves a purpose, being the first purpose helping me put some order to my thoughts, plans and ideas. Most of these never see the light of day, at least not your day, as you can attest to by the lack of new emails from me on your inbox.

The life-making kind

But I have been having fun. The “discomfort” type of fun. Some of my time has been spent just with discomfort, without any semblance of fun, namely being worried about not having enough money to finish the construction work and decorating my new home and keeping it all going.

Worrying is one of the skills I’ve unwillingly been developing through all my life, and it’s one I’d love to work less at, and get worst at. My brain knows and tries to tell me, to the best of his ability, that it’s not worth worrying and everything will turn out ok. But what does he know?! It also tells me that worrying is part of the process to make sure it does turn out ok.

All I can say is that this project is glorious and I can’t wait to move in and get started on a whole new set of worries and on a new set of projects. This has been long in the making and dreaming, for me and for us. Can’t wait to have a place to call my own. And it is fun to set up a new home.

The teaching/learning kind

Since last year, as you may know if you’ve read some of my previous posts and newsletters, and remember anything from them, I’ve also been finally working on designing and, unexpectedly, teaching crochet. Having a full-time job means I have to be clever with my time and my energy levels, and both have always been a challenge to me.

Slow and steady wins the race, but I don’t really see it as a race. It is something I really (really) want to work on and try (for real), but I do know it’s not easy, nor is it certain that it will work out as I dream. But it is worth the effort and it’s something I simply must do. Even if I didn’t get any opportunities to make some money from this endeavour, I would still crochet and design, and try to share my love for crochet and get more people into the craft and handmade creativity. And that is how I know and accept that it is something I simply must do.

But it’s not that fun in the usual sense. It’s fun in my sense. Teaching classes makes me feel the weight of responsibility: I feel like it’s on me to make sure people who enroll are successful in their making. But as with my own learning process, I do have to keep in mind that, from a certain point, it’s not on the teacher, but on ourselves, to make sure we learn. What I can do as a teacher is to prepare the best class possible, to gently push the person on the other side, and to be available to support them on their journey. And that I try to do. And also to be attentive and a good listener, and learn myself how to be a better teacher. It’s all a process, and I’m confident I’ll get better at this as I make myself open to opportunities and take them seriously. Not forgetting to have some serious fun in the process. My kind of fun.

The handmaking (and also learning, again) kind

I also have projects to start and finish on the designing level. Too many, maybe. And they are as fun as they are discomfort-inducing. Can’t and won’t share more details on them, not as a way to build up momentum and get you excited for what’s coming, but as a way to not put pressure on me. Or not more or too much pressure on me. I already do that all alone just fine.

When I’m ready, I’ll do an update and share some pictures and ideas on what’s happening. There’s a few patterns in the making, including one for a workshop later this year, but I have to take them all one by one, and with a lot of breathing exercises in the process.

What I do want to share is on the learning something new arena. As a way to relax and calm myself down, as a kind of meditation even, I’ve been trying to figure out how overlay mosaic crochet center-out works. And this is fun! The hard kind of fun!

Two of the squares I've made in the past few days in overlay mosaic crochet center-out. The two on the right have since turned into something else, as you can see further down.

I’ve made center-out before to get a round shape, and I love the results, even though I don’t know yet how I can write a pattern for these projects. But I want to make square shapes as geometric as possible, and working in rows doesn’t work as well as center-out, because of how crochet stitches behave. Their tendency to slant to one side means the shape is not that even and squared-off as I’d like, and the metric of the stitches (height and width of single and double crochets) doesn’t make the math that straighforward either.

The two squares above on the right turned to five, and became a Japanese-inspired pouch, based on the Komekuburo design, a small traditional Japanese pouch used in ceremonies and rituals to carry offerings such as rice.

One way to go around it is to crochet center-out. This opens up a whole set of new challenges and possibilities, because the designs and patterns we can make in rows are not the same, or not made the same way, as if you go from the center in four directions. We have to think about increases and making them even and flat, and also experiment with the number of stitches and multiples we start with (I like to use 6 or 12 multiples, but 4 or 8 also work well for squares). And that’s what I’ve been playing with lately.

Another center-out swatch in progress after I finished the third session of my workshop on Museu do Oriente, where I had the pleasure of teaching 7 amazing students how to do overlay mosaic crochet with the continuous method. The project we made from start to finish was my That Blue One with Sashiko, my first ever published pattern, also inspired by Japanese traditional crafts, something that is a neverending source of awe and delight. On a side note, I had to wait more than 1 hour for the bus to get home, plus about 40mn ride, time which was bearable only because… I could crochet! But of course… :D

On my drafts for another day

I’ve been planning to make a messenger bag in overlay mosaic crochet for a long time. Ever since I started exploring the technique, in fact. That first experiment is a real UFO (Unfinished Object), made when I wasn’t aware of the genious Overlay Continuous Method by Susan Lowman. I’ll probably dedicate a single post to this - yet another - learning experience.

The latest try took a lot of stitches and got me reflecting once again about the luxury of handmade and the luxury of time, and about value vs cost vs price. And of what is luxury to us, even if only for us makers. Maybe that post about the messenger bags will be a double-themed one…

What do you think about this: have you ever thought of your handmade pieces as luxury items?

All the best (stitches) to you and see you soon!

Ana

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PS: I don’t know yet how to go about this, but I set up a Ko-fi so anyone who is feeling generous and wants to gently push me and support my crochet endeavours, can do so without making a regular commitment. Either way, I really appreciate just you being here and joining me in this journey! <3