The theme of this year for me is Just One Thing. Part of the idea is to remind myself to just focus on one thing at a time, rather than get overwhelmed and burned out by trying to think about ALL of the things at once. Although we’re now a good few weeks into the year I’m still feel like my ADHD brain is bouncing around all over the place, but I’m determined to keep bringing myself back to it and see where I end up!
The other part of Just One Thing was choosing one aspect of what I would like to be doing long-term and focus on that. I chose to focus on fabric for quilting and crafting, and I was off to a good start with developing my plans when, a couple of weeks ago, my confidence completely plummeted. I felt totally out of my depth, all the self-doubts started creeping in and the ideas I was getting excited about seemed to completely drop out of my brain to be replaced by some rather unhelpful thoughts including this stinker… “Who in the world is going to buy quilting and crafting fabric from someone who is ridiculously slow at doing any quilting or crafting with it herself?”
I love sewing, both by hand and on a machine, but for the most part I am a VERY slow stitcher, with the exception of embroidery, where randomly I seem to be able to embroider at a slightly niftier pace. In recent months I have come to accept that I can’t force myself into being someone that can put a quilt together within a month, let alone a week like some of the amazing quilters on instagram! Plus I’m always going to be in awe of anyone who can cut pattern pieces at any kind of speed - when watching The Great British Sewing Bee I’m in constant awe at how the contestants can sew an entire outfit in less time than it would take me to cut out the fabric for it!
In recent years I’ve also been learning to work with my neurodivergent brain, and part of that is experimenting with different approaches to the crafts I enjoy, so that I can do them in a way that gives me a better chance of seeing them through - while still accepting that some of them are just destined to be enjoyed for a short while before ending up in the UFO* pile (*A crafting acronym for our many UnFinished Objects)
Thankfully I’d already realised - but somehow forgotton in the middle of my self-doubt - that part of the reason why I’m creating and crafting the things I am is precisely because of being such a slow fabric crafter, and I need to own my slow craftiness rather than be ashamed into silence by it!
And also - just because I take a ridiculously long time to enjoy the fabric designs I’m creating shouldn’t stop others enjoying them in the meantime! Just because I’m a far quicker fabric designer than I am at sewist doesn’t mean I can’t keep creating things for others to enjoy crafting with!
Now I’ve reminded myself of this, and the other initial thoughts I’d had around what I want to share and how have come flooding back, I feel like I can move forward again! Fingers crossed there’ll be no more big wobbles about my work for a little while!
A wall shaped tangent
Even the biggest wobble can’t stop my creative cogs whirring, and while I was in the midst of self-doubt and uncertainty on the fabric side of things, I got distracted by wallpaper.
I’ve been designing something for the upcoming Warm Minimalism challenge on Spoonflower, which feels way beyond my comfort zone and totally outside my general style of design, so I had a trawl of DIY and wallpaper websites to try and understand what might be classified as Warm Minimalism, and spark some ideas about how to create something minimalist that also felt like me. I ended up reading up on wallpaper trends for 2024 and - while I left my subconscious to figure out minimimalism - got the idea to create a wallpaper inspired collection using some of my existing patterns as a starting point.
With my Just One Thing theme this year I had promised myself I wouldn’t get distracted by home decor, but my brain was hyperfixated on playing with the idea so I just went with it. And in the end I’m not that mad at myself at all.
In the past my “quick win” distractions have often taken a huge amount of time and effort, which has never ever repaid itself, whereas this distraction was actually genuinely quick, and is a nice little experiment in trends and SEO that will be interesting to keep an eye on over the coming weeks and months. It also helped me feel like I was doing something proactive when I was having a really tough moment with life in general, alongside wobbles around my main business plans for this year.
Plus it got me playing with a colour palette I wouldn’t have necessarily gone for otherwise. Despite being more muted than my usual choices, I do really like it, and there’s a pattern in progress that I have on the back burner, which I think I might end up using it for too.
As it’s on Spoonflower it’s automatically also available as fabric, however later in the year I might evolve a more intentional quilting and crafting fabric collection out of it all too!
While I do want to stay focused as I can this year, going of on this little tangent has helped me realise that not all distractions are bad. Sometimes when things are feeling really challenging, and you can’t see a way forward, it can be good to take a step away and stretch yourself in another creative direction for a little bit. It’s been really helpful to recognise that not all distractions are bad, and I can trust myself to find my way back to where I want my focus to be.
You can head to Spoonflower to browse what I’ve created so far for this collection. I am seeing this as an evolving collection, an area where I can play and experiment with different ideas, so I’ll keep you updated on new additions!
I’d love to hear what you think about my adventures in a more muted colour palette… is it weird that I’ve put down the bright colours for a second? Or is it fun to see something a little different from me?
How green is too green?
Earlier in February I mentioned my frog pattern that I’ve entered into the Leap Year Frogs design challenge over on Spoonflower - well the voting is now open!
I know I’m not meant to say this, but much as I love where I got to with my design I’m not feeling super confident about this design doing very well in this challenge - having been playing around with the more muted colour palettes above I think I might have gone a bit TOO green for this one and that’s probably put some voters off! What do you think? Do you love full on froggy green? Or do prefer your frogs a little more muted?
Saying that, I’m not giving up completely, I know with the Spoonflower Design Challenge every vote does count, with it normally taking less than 100 votes to get into the top 300, so there’s still a chance that it can still do well enough to get a half decent place.
If you have a few minutes while you grab a cuppa or watch the telly then I’d really appreciate your vote.
You don’t need to login to vote. Just keep scrolling through until you spot my entry - you need to vote for a minimum of three designs so you can drop another couple of votes while looking for my design. Voting is open until 8pm GMT on Tuesday 27th February.
All of this lovely froggy fabric is available over on my Spoonflower shop, so whether you prefer your frogs in green, yellow or blue do go and check it out!
I’m now off to get our March design finished, I was hitting a bit of a brick wall when it came to what I want next month’s quote to be, but writing the first part of this post has helped me decide. Now I can doodle on and get that done, and hopefully have the March calendars with you at the beginning of next week! Until then take care, keep creating and don’t forget to keep an eye out for my 100 Day updates in my Substack notes and on my instagram stories (when I remember to share them 🫣)