Hi friends! I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are having a bunch of fun chugging away on your Knitalong pieces. I'm excited to dive into this week's blog topic and hope it will resonate with you! This week I write all about why making things is so important and how it's changed me for the better. Let's hope to it!

At a conference I attended a few weeks ago, I got really clear on why I’m in business. That why is because I so whole heartedly believe that knitting has the power to transform us into better versions of ourselves and I hope to share that through my business. I spent the better part of a day tuning into this and writing down all of my thoughts on the subject. My list was LONG! I’ll share a few of those things here with you today but what I’d really love to hear about is how it’s impacted your life. If you’re newer to knitting, and it hasn’t had too much of an effect yet, I hope this post and the words of others in our KAL group encourage you stick with it. We’ll spark a few fun convos over in the FB group this week.

There are 3 major ways that making things has changed me for the better, the first is the confidence I gained once I started to comprehend patterns (also please note that is an ongoing process!). I can remember the first pattern I took on that was a tricky to figure out, once I finished it, I felt on top of the world. I taught myself a number of new skills and was so excited! It wasn’t smooth sailing through that project, there was ample ripping back and redoing but it led to a feeling of confidence.  I learned that I could figure hard things out on my own, not necessarily hard emotional things but hard physical things like knitting a tricky pattern. This permeated into other areas of my life.  It might sound silly if you grew up in a family of DIY-ers or parents that were always fixing up things, but my house was not at all like that and I had to come to it on my own. In the same manner in which I took up knitting, I took up cooking and became a little better in that area of my life. Over time, this feeling that I can figure anything out started to have a bigger impact on my life. I began to feel more confident in my business. I felt like I could tackle hard challenges and get to the bottom of them on my own, even if that meant consulting others that had more knowledge than myself. This feeling has grown and compounded over time to a place now where I feel limitless in what’s possible for my business. If I think back to five years ago, I never would have imagined the path I’m on now.  Now I am fascinated by what I call a growth mindset, which to me means, I’m constantly thinking about how I can do better and be better in all areas of my life. I love learning from experts and taking in information anywhere I can. I especially love to listen podcasts, read (or listen!) to books, travel and practice yoga as a few ways of embracing this mindset. I also love following others that are obsessed with this idea too. They usually have great resources!

My knitting has also brought me in closer touch with own creative spirit. After a few years of more seriously knitting all the time, I started expressing myself more freely through my designs and projects. Knitting and designing yarn became a way for me to tap into that little girl who was endlessly creative growing up and who didn’t care too much about what others thought about what she wore or made. That has been extremely freeing and fun. It’s hard to overestimate how much that’s meant to me. It feels like most of our lives , at least for me, our own sense of creative expression is beaten out of us by society and the idea of rying to fit in. Finding a road back to myself, feels like coming home, like just being me. It feels so darn good. I love expressing who I am and what I like through what I made and wear.

There are so many more reasons but the last one I’ll mention is knitting as a form of relaxation and meditation. After a long day, chilling out with my yarn and making something beautiful is so peaceful and restorative.  I wonder if many of you will agree with that one! Let’s continue this conversation over in the FB group as well.