The Holiday Season is here.....
Posted by Lewis White on
Hoping everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family, friends and lots of food. Ours has been a learning season. Learning how to live with new food requirements. Learning how to manage multiple medications and keep to the schedule. Learning how to face a different sort of future than I had planned for myself. Most importantly learning to be more thankful for everything that we have been given. Each day is a blessing indeed.
"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me"
Philippians 4:13.
Saw a wonderful article on-line today. How to have a True Hobby, Not a Side Hustle Many times over the years I have seen spinners driven to the brink of a nervous breakdown trying to make their hobby "pay". Selling A to justify B for a personal project. Suffering through spinning copious amounts of a least favorite fiber so you can offset that beautiful show fleece that was for sale. Folks, I'm not sure if that is a hobby, a job or just plain mental torture.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with small business, hobby businesses or "side hustles". My issue is when the push to make it pay sucks the joy from your hobby. That's when you need to step back and re-assess. When your hobby becomes a drag on your spirit instead of lifting you out of the pressures and stresses of life. If you are using your spinning or weaving hobby to make a bit of extra cash, that's great. But please don't forget to take time for yourself. Time to relax and stop thinking. Just to feel the rhythm of the treadle and the pull of the fiber in your hands....and to hear that peculiar squeak that the oil bottle can't always locate. Sink into it and connect with the craft and the spinners of the past. Really and truly be present in what you're doing. You'll breathe a bit easier, speak a bit kinder, and enjoy your life a bit more.
A decade or so ago, Mrs. LB undertook the HGA handspinning COE. Now if you know her, then you know she's a bit of a rebel. She can, for example, drive to the grocery. But she definitely doesn't go the direct route. In fact she will go out of her way to take the least traveled roads. I left my keys at home one day and it took her 2 1/2 hours to bring them to the office 40 min away. (I still don't understand that one) Back to the COE...... even though this was something she wanted to do, by the time it was done, she was......militant. Too many rules, too much constraint and too much justification. Her last skein, #40, pretty much summed up her mood at the time. When she had to fill out the card as to what the yarn was good for, she wrote:
"This yarn is NOT suited to hard wearing applications. Basically it's only purpose in life is a knit scarf or perhaps as an accent yarn in a ruana. You see, spinning doesn't always have to have a purpose; it can just be."
Let's all take some time this holiday season to be like skein #40.
