That is, until Wednesday, when Greg told me I need to take today off. “But Friday is a babysitter day! We pay her so we can work. It’s burning money to pay her when I don’t work!”

That Greg, though. He’s wise. “You’re not getting any work done anyway. Duh. You need a break. Take it. You deserve it.”

So today my feet are warm and dry because I finally bought myself winter boots that fit. I had time to try on every boot in the store, and it was relaxing and I felt good.

I had my eyebrows threaded, because primping feels good.

I spent well over an hour in my favourite store, and I left with four items I absolutely love (even though I didn’t actually want to spend lots of money, but I love them enough I know it’s worth it). And one of those items is skinny jeans that don’t make my ass look bigger than it actually is (which is big), and so I’m downright excited.

I walked the dog.

I’m drinking tea.

And I feel good. I feel clear-headed. I feel indulged and energetic.

I needed this.

And I bet you need this too. So I’ll play the role of Greg now, and give you permission to take a day off. Even if it costs you money. Because you’re no good to yourself or to your business if you’re rundown and sluggish.

So tell me, what are you going to do with your day?

Being Nudged to Practice What I Preach is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

She recently spoke at TEDxVictoria about why calling our offline life “real life” diminishes the legitimacy of our online experiences, contributions and relationships. I wish I’d been there to hear her speak, but the beauty of TED and YouTube is that we can all see her talk right here:

I used to apologize for my online life, much in the same way I’d shrug my shoulders and look away while I mumbled that for work I ran a crochet website. I stopped doing that a long time ago, and here’s why:

Through my online life – the relationships I’ve formed, the writing I’ve done, the ideas I’ve fleshed out, the things I’ve learned, the inspiration I’ve found – I developed my creative identity.

That’s no small feat, people. Before I got in touch with my creative side, I was a wreck. I was confused, depressed, directionless, self-conscious and generally lost. Not until I felt comfortable sharing my ideas in public, not until I met other people who felt (or had at some time felt) as confused as I did, not until I knew I had the freedom to try and fail and try and fail again, was I able to get in touch with what I need and want.

I found my people online, and that enabled me to find my people offline.

My whole life improved because of this. My offline relationships changed as I gained comfort and confidence. My ability to speak about my ideas in person benefited from my having fleshed those ideas out online. Running an online business informed my approach to doing business offline.

It’s all the same.

And as Alexandra says so well in her talk, not only does it undermine our personal experience to apologize for our online lives, it undermines the collective good that can can come from embracing online life as real life.

(My favourite of her ten points is #5. Which is yours?)

Offline Life + Online Life = Life is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

My Name Is Fail, by Flickr user ~db~ (CC by-nc-nd licensed)

In Rothfuss’s universe, the most powerful of all the magics is in naming. When someone is able to understand a thing so fully as to grok its utter essence, he can manipulate that thing by naming it. The first book of the series is called The Name of the Wind, so I don’t think I’m spoiling anything to use naming the wind as an example. When one can name the wind, one can call a storm, or one can calm one.

Naming a thing is powerful, dramatic stuff.

In my session at Hello Etsy Portland last month, I asked the participants in the room to take a couple minutes to think about their fears, and to write them down. And then I asked them to share. It may not be as dramatic as controlling the weather, but there is an undeniable power in naming – out loud, with others.

But just as it’s no small feat to grok the utter essence of the wind, naming your fears requires a degree of honesty and courage beyond simply writing a list of things that make you uncomfortable. All of us can say wind, but only a few can name it, and then only some of the time.

Naming our fears in a way that allows us to control them requires understanding them all the way down to their subtlest essence. We’re all afraid, to some degree or another, of failing – and each of us has a different definition of failing. To properly name your fear, you need to spend some quality time with that fear. Is it a money fear? A pride fear? A competition fear? A success fear? A judgment-of-others fear? Are you really afraid at all? Maybe you’re just feeling pressured to follow your business idea but your heart isn’t really in it. Maybe you feel like there’s too much to do and so you’re doomed to fail. You can only properly name something that really exists, and only when you fully get it.

When Rothfuss’s character names the wind, he’s only able to keep hold of that name for a limited time. So he must use the time wisely, and so must we when we name our fears. We don’t want to start living in those fears. We need to grok them – to feel them up and down, let them wash over us, smell them, taste them, commune with them – and then we need to step away from them so we can dismantle them, jump over them, burrow under them or simply pucker up our lips and blow them away.

The Power of Naming is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

With a couple of important yet not universally applicable exceptions¹, you cannot control what others do with your work.

The minute it escapes your possession, your work will be interpreted, judged, manipulated and sometimes downright defiled by people you don’t even know. One day I’ll tell you the story of how Greg reacted when his parents hung one of his stunning mosaics over the toilet².

This is the nature of creative work. Hell, this is the nature of some dude on Twitter overhearing your vacuous conversation on the bus.

And I’ll argue till I’m blue in the face that this isn’t a bad part of creative work. Even if it stings. Even if it offends.

Which is why I think this post by Katrina over at the Salt City Spice blog is bunk. In it she argues that it’s bad behaviour to publicly bookmark (on Pinterest) a product with the intent to make something like it yourself, specifically if it’s a handmade item. That somehow it’s failing to support crafty businesspeople.

But that’s not how it works. The onus is on crafty businesspeople to make products that people will buy.

If your products are constructed very simply and you photograph them well and you market to a crafty audience, you’re going to find that some potential customers will make something similar for themselves instead of buying from you. If you want fewer people to do themselves and more to buy from you, you’re going to have to create some sort of perceived value that convinces them to buy your goods instead of making some on their own. This is totally possible. It happens all the time. Look at how many people turn a profit selling zipper pouches.

Even if your products are complex, people may take inspiration from them for their own projects. So what?

The scope of Katrina’s post is limited to recreational use – she’s not even talking about the far more complicated topic of where the lines get drawn when the parties in question are all selling things³.

There is an insidious undercurrent of rule-following in the crafts world. Did you know there are people out there who think they could get arrested for altering a crochet pattern for their own use? They think making a short-sleeve sweater with long sleeves instead is violating the designer’s copyright.

Their fear of breaking these rules (that don’t exist) hinders their enjoyment of their craft. And then there’s the effect it has on their creative expression, in general.

That’s an extreme example, but as evidenced by Katrina’s post there’s a far more widespread assumption that we need to watch out for people’s feelings when we make creative decisions. And though of course I’m not advocating rampant assholery, I do think our creative business community would benefit from a somewhat tougher attitude. Not an attitude of everyone for himself, but an attitude that as businesspeople, we sometimes need to be headstrong rather than soft-hearted.

Creative work is personal. And so it can really hurt when people behave in ways we wish they wouldn’t when it comes to our work. But the sooner we accept that we can’t control these things, the sooner we accept that the free exchange of ideas is the basis of a healthy society, the sooner we’ll be able to return our focus to creating a sustainable business for ourselves.

A business, I hope, that participates in the exchange of ideas and knowledge in our creative community.

Prying Control from Your Cold, Cramped Hands is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Anyway. I just stumbled onto this poster on Pinterest, and I must vehemently disagree.

Don’t hide from your fear. Don’t deny it. Don’t feel ashamed of it. Everyone who creates things – and especially those of us who want to make a living being creative – feels afraid. The kicker is not to be paralyzed by that fear. The kicker is not to give up before you get started. The kicker is to accept that failure is a part of creativity.

So.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

But do it anyway.

Someone in my session at the conference said, “You can be afraid and not do it, or you can be afraid and do it.” I wanted to lift her up on my shoulders and parade her around the place.

And when you fail – for fail you must at some point or another, or maybe even every day – take stock, rev your fear back up, and get back to creating.

Be afraid. Do it anyway. is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Maybe this will do it.

Dear crafts,

For the last few months, I’ve felt like I’ve been unfaithful to you. I’ve been thinking of myself as a maker.

I know this comes as a bit of a shock – it’s a bit of a shock to me, too. I don’t even know how to solder.

It’s just, with Maker Faire Vancouver and everything, I’ve met lots of people and it seems these people are my people. Mostly because it doesn’t even matter that we don’t all make the same stuff. Mostly because we do like to think about the bigger picture of how making stuff fits into our lives, our communities, our society.

I still love you, crafts – I’ll always love you – I’m just not in love with you right now, you know what I’m saying?

It’s your focus on the way things look and your disinterest when I want to talk about how things work or what they mean. It’s how you like to stare into shop windows but you’re not excited about ideas.

No, you’re right. Many crafters are interested in the whys and the hows. It’s why I love spending time with other makers who are also crafters, even if they don’t think of themselves as capital-M Makers – I believe crafting is making. The crafters I love spending time with are also interested in craft as ethos, not just craft as activity.

I can see how you may find this confusing.

It’s possible you’ll never really understand, but I know you agree that I need to be happy. I need to have conversations about all sorts of meaty ideas related society, art, technology, education, history, materials, technique, science and aesthetics. I have those conversations with some crafters, absolutely. Crafters I love with all my heart. But as I said, they’re makers, too. Most of the activity surrounding crafts isn’t these kinds of conversations – it’s ogling over cute cats with a bird on top.

I know what you’re thinking – cute cats with a bird on top do, indeed, have a place in our lives and culture. But I’m not that interested in cats or putting a bird on things. Unless you feel like tossing around ideas about why cats and birds and owls and deer are such a huge part of projects and conversation amongst crafters… No? Right. See, that’s my point.

I’ll continue to learn a lot from you, craft. You’re an important part of my life and always will be. I just need to spend more time with makers, now. I’ll teach them how to crochet, don’t you worry. And I’ll learn a lot of things that will almost certainly affect the crafting I do.

I’ll shout from the rooftops about how important you are – to me and to everyone.

What do you think about maybe having an open relationship?

Much love,
Kim

Dear crafts, can we see other people? is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Of course, we live with someone who’s absolutely desperate to crawl, and otherwise rolls around everywhere, and rubs his saliva-wet hands on the wool, attracting fuzzies he then of course licks.

He hasn’t coughed up a hairball yet, but this is what our living room looks like now.

I think the alphabet goes very well, don’t you? (No, I don’t really.)

*ETA: I mean that pretty much literally – we’re going to cut that old rug up so the dog can still have some to sleep on. She loves that filthy old thing.

Decor… with a Baby is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Roy Takeno reading paper in front of office (LOC); Adams, Ansel, photographer. (Library of Congress)

Last week Canadian television journalist Kai Nagata quit his job and blogged about why. It’s a long read, and worth it.

I enjoyed his post a lot, both as someone prone to quitting jobs, and as someone keen to see principled people speak up about how their chosen industry could do better.

This morning, CBC radio show The Current had Nagata on as a guest, and he’s as articulate and clear-headed while speaking as he is in writing.

The Current also played reactions to Nagata’s blog post from other Canadian journalists. Many of them seemed very critical of him for reasons I find baffling. I don’t understand why people take his quitting personally when Nagata did an outstanding job of not ranting or blaming or name-calling as he criticized the formulaic, entertainment-focused, ratings-enslaved system of television news.

Lots of journalists seemed put out by the fact that Nagata is 24 years old. They say that if he’d stuck around longer, he’d X, Y or Z.

Look, I’ve been there. Every damn job I’ve had I’ve been the young precocious one, rapidly taking on more responsibility and expectation. And with every damn job I’ve quickly come up against frustrations. Big frustrations. And just because other people don’t find the same things frustrating, or just because some choose to repress their frustration so they can get their job done, doesn’t mean my decision to act on my frustration is wrong, counter-productive, immature or impulsive.

People seem inclined to want other people to have the same experience they had. If they worked slavishly for thirty years to accomplish what they accomplished, then it’s somehow not fair or not right or not real or not deserved if someone accomplishes something similar in a far shorter period of time. That’s short-sighted, selfish bullshit.

The reason I’m unemployable is that I’m unhappy working in someone else’s organization. I think too fast and I’m too uncomfortable compromising some of my immoveable principles. I have a very hard time accepting a refusal to change or experiment when I think that change or experimentation will be productive.

It’s not immature of me to say these things. It’s the result of quitting enough jobs to have developed a very productive level of self-awareness.

Some of us aren’t wired to effect change from within. Some of us are wired to learn as much as we can while we enjoy it, and to let that learning stew until we’re ready to apply it to something else.

I’m sure I’m projecting far too much of my own experience and desires onto Kai Nagata’s story, but I don’t care. He’s done the television news industry a solid by telling his story, and he’s done the consumers of television news a solid. I very much hope he’s set himself up to continue shaking things up. I hope he finds tremendous opportunities to create an outlet for journalism that adheres to his strict standards.

It seems to me that Kai Nagata is the future of something. I’m excited to see what that something is.

On Quitting is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Canada_Day, by Sam Churchill on Flickr (CC-A licensed)

Happy Canada Day! And happy almost-Fourth of July!

(Perhaps more importantly, from my perspective at least, happy My-Birthday-Is-the-9th!)

While we collectively enjoy our barbecues this weekend, let’s think about our own independence, shall we?

Two years ago Tara Swiger left her day job to go all-in on her creative business, and I’ve loved watching that business grow and morph and evolve over time. To celebrate her second independence day, such as it is, she asked her friends and colleagues to share their own declarations of independence, and I was tickled to be included. Here’s what I wrote, as it appears in the PDF Tara put together:

Give that PDF a read, won’t you? It’s filled with the sort of everyday freedoms that empower us to be happy.

So my dears, what are you declaring your independence from?

Declaring Independence is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Someone decided we should have a knit-along for any Jared Flood pattern. I’ll skip the details and sum up by saying the madness of the crowd led me to agree to make his startlingly beautiful new lace shawl pattern, Rock Island.

I usually knit very simple, straightforward things. And I knit very slowly. And I don’t enjoy paying attention to details. And I like to not look at my hands when I knit.

Rock Island is, shall we say, involved. And I have, maybe, half an hour each day for crafting. But whatever! I cast on.

This shawl has a nifty construction: you start off knitting the edging, which is a very long, narrow strip of lace. Lace worked on both sides in a simple enough pattern, but one that even habitual lace knitters say they find impossible to memorize. Suffice it to say this beginning part of the shawl took me weeks to complete. In fact, I finished it just the other night.

And here’s what I immediately noticed:

I followed the pattern incorrectly when I worked the first few rows (on the left, in orange). Instead of working in garter stitch, I did a couple of rows of yo, k2tog.

Before casting off, I followed the instructions correctly, resulting in the wee garter-stitch bit on the right, circled in pink.

I prefer the lace, to be honest.

Anyway, I sat there looking at these two very different ends of the edging, each of which will reside at one of the two side points of the triangle when the shawl is completed. I discovered I was confident that, with furrowed brow, cursing, and Google, I could undo the cast off, rip back the garter stitch, and rework the final few rows to replicate my initial mistake. The very worst case scenario was that I could rip back to my last lifeline, undoing about 14 repeats.

I thought about all that for two minutes. Then I thought about how many freaking weeks it took me to knit this damn strip, and about how eager I was to pick up just shy of 300 stitches along one edge to get going on the body of the shawl.

And so I decided to leave it. The shawl’s for me, not for someone else who might mind that it’s screwed up. I don’t mind that it’s screwed up. And I bet no one will notice when it’s all done and I wear it.

How do you feel about mistakes? When you screw up, can you live with it? Make it a “design element”? Or do mistakes plague you to the point of madness?

I watched this great interview clip with Mark Frauenfelder, editor of MAKE magazine, this morning, and if you couldn’t already tell, I’m with him 100% about how to approach having made a mistake.

[tubepress video="mRO_MQgRLD0"]

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This weekend, June 25-26, I’ll be bringing Mighty Ugly to Vancouver Mini Maker Faire. Come by the booth between 10am-1pm each day to make an ugly creature! And stick around to the very end of the event to hear me speak about ugly and creativity at 4pm on Sunday.

How Much Mistake Can You Live With? is a post from Kim Werker's blog.