craft as therapy : different crafts for different moods

Being a creative maker can be hard. Being an artist. It's not easy. Well, let's be honest. Being a human is actually hard isn't it. Showing up every day again and again, and trying to do our best. Some days we just want to stay in bed, yet we can't. Some days I just want to write all day, other days I just want to walk in the forest, or cook nourishing warm yummy things. 

I find that with my moods, my emotional ups or downs, those flimsy ebbs & flows of life sometimes I don't want to do any creative work at all. I want to sit in a slump in the sun drinking tea. Or gin. Gin would be good sometimes wouldn't it! 

But there's only so long that I can indulge in this. Some times I need to push and propel myself out of this feeling. Force myself to start the process of climbing out of the hole*. I do find that by forcing some form of creativity upon myself it does help. Craft as therapy, in a sense. 

But not everything I do (I'm a multi-creative, so I DO A LOT) works in every situation. I just wanted to share a few different ways I work through a creative slump, or a down moment... using my creative skills to help me. 

• Things that don't require patterns or perfection are good, nor counting of stitches.

• Things that are repetitive, such as my basket making (pictured) rather than my loom weaving

• Things that give an outcome are sometimes good; like cooking a meal, or making my lunch look extra special, but not like needing to present a perfectly styled photo for a client

• Hand stitching lots and lots of straight lines work for me. Not patterns or shapes or anything particular, but just straight stitch on and on, back and forth across my fabric

• Something that doesn't have a deadline, or even need to be finished; but could indeed sit in a basket of things waiting for the next 'slump' moment

• Something you know how to do, and don't need to look up the how-to instructions

• Something that connects you hands and head, and makes you stop over-thinking everything, makes you slow down into the moment again.

What things work for you? What do you do when you're feeling down?

You can learn simple basket weaving here, and add it to your basket of makings, for when you need. It's also lovely for sitting on the verandah in the sunshine with the kids playing beside you. My raffia is dyed using avocado, turmeric and my not-working-so-well indigo vat (just another temperamental fermenting thing really...). And I do wish I had a photo of my little ones with their Lego spread out around them, but I was too in the moment to even think about that!

* I am very aware that my holes are much smaller than many other people's. Some people need help, to talk with someone, to be given a shining bright torch. If you are someone who needs are torch to shine you way through a fog please DO DO ask for help. And don't listen to the friend who says 'they don't do sad', find someone who is there for you.