Day dream your ideas into life
How often have you thought of an idea for a project and needed to let it bounce around for a while? Day dreaming acts as a creative incubation period, allowing our brains to wander to keep healthy. It also functions as a form of local sleep, allowing our tired neurons to rest.
Mind wandering is often most effective during simple tasks and can greatly enhance your learning and boost creativity.
So try musing over patterns, projects or yarn choices whilst washing up, walking the dog, or showering. These mundane tasks keep your hands busy but your mind free to run in the background. Letting your mind drift allows your brain to engage in offline processing, helping the new information stick and new ideas to surface. That’s why sleep on it often works.
And if you find yourself saying you have no time for day dreaming… you really need to make time for it. To enjoy its stress busting and sleep enhancing abilities. Take 15 minutes off to yourself, sat in your car, in the bath, in the garden or a quiet park. No planning, no mental lists, just pure aimless wandering of where your mind needs to go.
“Positive daydreaming can reduce stress and enhance the ability to problem solve.”
Creating is all about setting free our imagination and bringing forth something unique from that idea, through our hands and our chosen mediums. By choosing to be more intentional about your projects you may find you are actually more productive.
In European countries where slow fashion is more popular, they often use real wool for its durability and take quite a time deciding which pattern for a garment. Often choosing something they will be happy to wear for years to come, in a timeless design and in colours that suit their own palette, not necessarily trend shades.
You can still apply this logic to synthetic yarns and fibres as not everyone can wear wool. I create some of my blankets from synthetic yarns as I like to be able to share my patterns in an affordable way.
So do you ever find yourself tempted by a new shiny project doing the rounds? Being naughty and not finishing your current one and then feeling overwhelmed? So maybe just give it some timely consideration instead of rushing in. Let it float in your mind and perhaps finish whatever is on your needles, hooks and bobbins first.
