I have a plan
Two questions crossed my path and stumped me recently: What are your creative goals for 2013? If you could make something for anyone in the world, what would it be?
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
The easy answer is that The Dapper Toad and I are transitioning our focus from making handmade items–which are difficult to profit from–to designing them, allowing us to create anything we can imagine. However, these questions made me realize I wasn’t dreaming big enough: given the opportunity to design anything, what would it be?
“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”
― Gloria Steinem
I encourage you to stop reading, give yourself room to pace and a decent view, and ask yourself these right now. For a better year ahead, seriously, go do it. Get out of here! Shoo!
Learn and explore
One of my creative goals is to collaborate with knitting and crochet artists I admire on new projects that let us dream big. Really big.
A perfect opportunity to hit up San Diego-based Marcy Kraft of Crochet Grenades arose when I visited SoCal for my 93-year-old grandpa’s birthday. Marcy’s work transforms objects through yarn bombing, which you know is right up my alley. She does beautiful corded lettering, has a great sense of color and proportion, and loves to dream big–of course I wanted to play with her! Cruise on over to her Facebook page to check out her gumball bollard, dangling dirigibles, beachy surfboards, and sign up to crochet simple granny squares for 60 giant Rubik’s Cubes to be shown at this summer’s Comic Con.
My sister, Jill of The Dapper Toad, was also game. She is known for her beautifully-photographed, squee-inducing knitting and crochet patterns like Octopuss and Shelf Elf, which you can download here. As my Siamese twin and partner in crime, we work well together by complimenting each other’s skills and encouraging our exploits. I’m so lucky!
After much scouting (incredibly carved out of Marcy’s super-mom schedule), texting, and brainstorming, we hatched a plan to create an epic, 32 square-foot Etch-a-Sketch. An artistic toy that takes coordination and skill to use, it’s a fitting tribute to collaboration, don’t you think?
Who would you work with?
Networking with pre-filtered people face-to-face is a great way to meet people you’ll have a lot in common with. Marcy, Jill, and I never ran out of things to discuss, like long-lost souls speaking a common language. The only downside to reaching out to people in your travel destinations is that you have to leave!
Pick an area of your work or life and think of people you admire. What can you propose working on them with? Is there a project you couldn’t do alone that’s perfect for collaboration? New places or techniques to explore? Share your dreams in the comments and paste me the links to their Facebook pages or websites so we can all indulge!
Coming up
Another admiree of mine is Diane at Crafty Pod, who produces the only fluff-free, informative craft podcast. When she asked for bloggers to dream up plastic canvas projects, I saw a cheap technique I’d never used so said yes! Follow my Facebook page, RSS feed, or Instagram @knitsforlife to see tomorrow’s silly project. And don’t forget to join my entourage to get exclusive discounts on upcoming Knits for Life knitting and crochet patterns.
KNITS FOR LIFE 