Look what I made!!

Soooo…what do you think?

I did promise more crafts this year and I started with a vengeance. Okay, a little lie, I actually finished this in two weeks ago, but started in 2014. But we won’t fall out over a teeny tiny detail like that, will we?

And to be honest, this was a practice run. I had a stash of acrylic wool that I bought from Aldi last year and wanted to make a sweater for my cute little button of a niece, but I didn’t want to mess it up. So this is the practice run, and will go to Roz’s doll. the real sweater is still on the hook, started last week and I hope to get it finished in the next few days.
Here’s a preview of the work in progress:

I’ve made in in cotton, and it will have a bit of orange and a bit of pink…okay I haven’t thought the colours through completely, but am very proud of myself.

I really enjoyed making the first sweater. there’s something about starting something from scratch and seeing it through to a completed end that does something remarkable to the human brain. too often we live in a world where we don’t see thing have a start, middle or end. We buy our bread, butter and clothes without being involved in the process of making them, or even knowing what’s in them. We go to jobs where we are often small cogs in a huge machine that we can’t see, doing the same thing day in and day out.  And I have to say from my ever expanding view of the world from a therapeutic sense, that this accounts for a lot of the dis-ease that is happening in the world.

From a personal perspective, definitely. When I’m sitting theree at my desk day after day, week after week and year after year with monthly management reports, annual financial statements and that this will continue to the end of time, I despair.  If my computer breaks, I call someone to fix it. If the phone stops working, I call someone else. And I know I am not a critical part in this business. One of the most valuable things I have learnt from my mother is what she said to me the first day I started working,

“Muuka, never ever think you are indispensible when you start work. You can be the best employee, the best manager, but you have to remember who you are what you want to achieve in life. If you got hit by a bus tomorrow, the whole workplace will come to your funeral and they’ll say wonderful things about you, but even as  they are sitting there beside your graveside, the advert for your replacement will be in the newspaper, and within two years, most people in the organisation will never have heard of you”

These are words I’ve always held close, because it’s the personal connections we make anywhere in life, that are the most important. And when these begin to erode, and we then live in this never ending loop of simply doing and not being, we begin to feel and begin to feel dis-eased.

I know, I know. I’ve gone the long way around of telling you to find something that you love to do, that you can say, I made that. I sought out the materials, I learnt how to do it, I sat, was patient, perfected it (or not, this part isn’t crucial) and finished something. Because that wiring of the brain just fills you with euphoria. And it can be anything: cooking, learning to fish, skiing, using a loom, making a necklace, learning the basic mechanics on your ca, making Ikea furniture…okay, maybe not the last one but I’m pretty sure it does.

I crochet as part of my self-care for college and yes…I know I’ve said it many times before, bear with me! I’m not making up the fact that your brain is rewired or remapped or whatever you call it, when you complete a task. Here are a few links ranging from articles in The New York Times. on CNN, and other research by neuroscientists that show that crafting does to the brain the same thing that mindfulness and meditation has: flooding us with feel-good hormones that make us happier, confident and less anxious in our lives.

And who wouldn’t want that, right?

So, if you are into crochet and would like to try it, the link is here at “every day is a new sweater day“. It’s made in in one long stretch with the sleeves then added on once the body is made, and using solely treble crochet (double crochet in American terms).

Enjoy.

oh, before I go, here’s another view of my draft: