When art becomes habit and your habit becomes art
The art of starting and finishing (knitting) projects - Part 4, New design coming soon, etc.
As I sat down to write this letter this week, I realized that there are so many more of you reading this letter than when I started writing in Substack, last August. 🫶 I just wanted to thank each and every one of you who has decided to give me a spot in your inbox. 📨 I promise not to take these few minutes of your weekly attention lightly.
If you are new here, a small re-intro: This weekly newsletter/blog 🗞️ is where I share important and useful ideas learned from my knitting, design, writing and other creative pursuits.
This week I wanted to talk about visual indicators as a strategy to help us stick to long mundane parts of a creative task. We already talked about however exciting the start and finish of a knitting project may seem, getting through the middle remains the biggest challenge. There is no other way than to go stitch by stitch toward the finish. 😭
I am sure it is a terribly bored knitter who came up with the term 'sleeve island' 🏝️ for the tedious task of knitting the sleeves of a garment. It is hard for many of us to look at the sleeve day after day which never seems to grow even after hours.
However, all of this changed one day for me, when I started marking every decrease round with a colorful stitch marker. I came across this tip as a way of keeping track of decreases and to stick to the same decrease plan in the second sleeve. Apart from helping me achieve this technical goal of producing identical sleeves, the colorful stitch markers also did something else. They made me ridiculously happy! ☺️
Every time I looked at my WIP, I was not resenting the sleeve island anymore. I would lift it and give it a little jiggle just to see all the stitch markers dance happily 💃🏻 and get to the task muttering to myself "Alright, how many repeats today?" or something like that. I would even show the stitch marker jiggle to a non-knitter family member and usually elicit a reaction somewhere between mild confusion and amusement. 😆
How can those little stitch markers make such a big difference? Apparently, our brains are wired to love visual information. A huge portion of our brain is devoted to processing visual information more than other types of information. 🧠
In his wonderful and wildly popular book Atomic Habits, James Clear establishes the power of visual cues in altering behavior and building habits. According to him, visual cues are powerful reminders 💪to start a behavior. They serve as progress indicators as well as incredible motivators.
It is also established scientifically that visuals can evoke emotions in us. In turn, emotions can forge deeper connections. It is no wonder that the internet is full of tantalizing visuals that keep us tied down to our screens day in and day out. 🤯 But let's not go there today. Let us try and put this little bit of wisdom to use in our everyday creativity.
The hugely popular comedian Jerry Seinfeld famously advised a novice to buy a wall calendar and mark an X, every day he writes a joke. "After a few days, you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain."
It seems that the key to making creative practice a consistent habit lies in visualizing progress. And I think those visual indicators can not only track our growth but become a little form of art in their own right. 😊
Do you use visual strategies in your knitting? What kind of notions help you best? I'd love to hear from you. 💙
FEATURED PATTERN
Another favorite to wear this season has been my Synclines Shawl and its has gotten me so many lovely compliments too. The 2-color slip stitching makes for a thick warm fabric and the long leading edge of the shawl makes it easy to wrap around a couple times and keeps the shawl snug around the neck.
Pattern: Synclines available on Ravelry and Payhip. The pattern is written for DK weight yarn in 2 colors. But the design is quite adaptable to other yarn weights and yardages as well. I have included some directions in the pattern for such modifications.
CRAFTDOODLING DESIGNS UPDATE
Please keep an eye out for the release of my new design Matte Hood, next week. I will take a break from the weekly essay next week but will be sending you a notification email when the pattern goes live.
OTHER THINGS YOU MIGHT LIKE
For the past three weeks, we have been exploring various aspects of 'The art of starting and finishing (knitting) projects'.
Please go back and read them if you like.
The importance of graceful exits
The art of starting and finishing (knitting) projects
Books I’m Currently Reading 📚
The Confessions of Matthew Strong - Ousmane K. Power-Greene
Watchmen - Alan Moore
Until next time,
Kavitha. ♡
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The title of this post When art becomes habit and habit becomes art, made me think of how folk art has often developed out of habits. Like collecting the family's old clothes to make a quilt. One sees that stack of clothes and starts thinking of how the prints and patterns might work together in a guilt. Certainly, some quilts are works of art! In the garden, we might start propping up the green beans with bamboo poles and they become quite attractive that way and one enjoys working in the garden just a little more for having done that.
Love the use of stitch markers to keep the knitting happening. I often use little gold safety pins to remind myself of pattern repeats and garment shaping. I also like to knit both sleeves at the same time whenever possible. I don't mine sewing sleeve seams if I can knit both sleeves at the same time.
My little trick to working towards the finished item, is to keep the finished piece image in mind. A picture of the sweater is usually near me as I knit. Somehow this negates my time spent getting there. I learned this quite accidently when I needed to have a lot of dental work done as a child. I wanted the work done, but it was not fun. Then one day, I told myself to just ignore everything until I was walking out the door of the dentist's office. It worked! I have been using this trick ever since when faced with an unpleasant or boring task.
Got to love a visual strategy! Despite this being a very tech digital age, lots of my students at uni (including young students) really find it helps to 'make it physical, make it visible' pinning big colourful encouraging things to their walls (like the session notes we jointly produce). I love the idea of colourful stitch markers to get through sleeves!