Tip Tuesday: New year, New Me? Keeping your maker creativity

Hi Makers!

It’s Al here, back with a fresh Tip Tuesday to kick off 2017.

I know it’s been a while, well forever, since I’ve spoken up on the blog-- which is why this week’s post is so fitting.

​I am so grateful to everyone who contributed to Tip Tuesday in my slightly intense introverted phase this fall and kept this column going these past few months. When I first came up with the idea of ‘tip tuesdays’, the entire OML team was so supportive of my vision to have shareable, insider tips from maker to maker about a huge range of topics from knitting, needle crafts, social media, selling and so on.

​This week's topic may seem a little out there, but strikes a chord with me, especially in the context of reflecting, re-evaluating and setting new goals for a fresh new year. This week I’m sharing my tips for getting yourself out of a creative rut, or more positively: tips for kickstarting your way into a new phase of making.

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​If you’re thinking “what on earth is Al talking about?” then the rest of this post was written for you! Click on! 

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working living that typical maker life-- excited and humbled every time an order has found its way into my inbox or in person at a craft fair. I began the selling season in such high spirits, overjoyed at seeing all of the stimulating and innovative hard work I had put in over the summer finally come to life. I thought “Yah. I’ve found my stride. I could do this for the rest of my life.” Except, then there was this one night in mid november when I was working on my third charcoal blanket (of the same pattern) in a row at 3 am and things kind of shifted. Let’s be honest, it just wasn’t a good time. In fact, it was a terrible time and all the creative stamina I had earlier in the season was nowhere to be found. Not even a piece of chocolate or the gilmore girls revival could pull me out of the funk-- it was the darkest of days.

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I knew that if I didn’t want this phase to last forever I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get back to those cheerful feelings I had earlier in the selling season in order to keep my knitwear business healthy and stimulating. Obviously these tips aren’t things that will work for everyone, but here’s what did it for me:

1. Reach Out To Your Maker Friends
   At some point during this time I realized that if I was having some of the feelings I can only describe as “blerrrghhhnesss,” certainly I wasn’t alone. I sent out a few feeler messages to some of my pals, and once again this creative community pretty much saved my life/ business. I asked my maker friends how they felt after cranking out the same pieces over and over again and it turns out most of them thought my feelings of apathy were quite normal. Sometimes it’s hard when the only insta posts you see are people publishing new patterns every week-- but the truth is we can’t be creative all the time, and by not always working on something new doesn’t mean your business can’t grow.
   
   
   
2. Reconnect To Why You Started Making In The First Place
   Why did you start making in the first place? For me, it was because I. Love. Knitting. It was that simple. I never had dreams of turning my hobby into a sustainable business until my craft ambitions outgrew my budget and I knew I had to leverage some extra income to keep fuelling my creative desires (read: I just wanted to buy all the yarn but couldn’t afford it). Stepping back and reminding myself what my goals were when I started selling knitwear helped me refocus and help sparked that buried creativity within.
   
   
   
3. Make Something Just to Make Something
   Get out of your head a bit and start a project with no goals or intentions. Have you always wanted to learn how to make a mitten? Try it. Don’t try it so that you can one day make all the mittens and publish your own mitten pattern and run a mitten knitwear empire. Just try it because it’s something you’ve wanted to try for a while. And guess what? If you hate it, or it doesn’t turn out right it doesn’t even matter.
   
   
   
4. Make Something for Someone you Love
   Work on a special project for someone you love and then give it to them! For me this meant going to a craft store and buying special yarn that I knew my gift recipient would enjoy, and making a lace stitch shawl for my grandmother. I gave it to her last week over the holidays and she loved it. Sometimes making the same things on repeat for people we don’t know is a little emotionless, but making something for someone you love is a whole different ball game.

It’s rare in life that we get chances to wipe the slate clean, refocus and start again. New years gives us a unique opportunity to try and make this happen-- and for me that means throwing myself back into the creative side of knitting and seeing where that will lead. It also means reconnecting with the whole OML community & regularly checking in with you guys with Tip Tuesdays. So curious to hear of any other tips you guys might want to share about your creative processes! 

Xoxox, Al
@la.reserve.design
@ourmakerlife

Alison is the knitter behind @la.reserve.design. She has always loved making things with her own two hands and the idea of turning strands of yarn into warm, wearable garments gets her itching to pick up her needles. With a background in textile design, she currently works as a design assistant for a menswear company in Montreal, Canada. Her favorite thing to knit is warm chunky blankets made of cozy, thick wool

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