It’s just me this week – I’ve got lots of things to tell you about:

• I’ve got my first stand at Woolfest Auckland! Will I see you there? Bring your Truly Myrtle shawls and hats, I’d love to see them. I’ll have all my patterns printed into cute A5 booklets.
• I’m sharing a booth with Rosewood Wool and we’re hoping to create a friendly, comfortable space where you can have a bit of fun trying on shawls, feel gorgeous wool and have a chat. Rosewood are bringing their very comfy chair for people with weary legs and breastfeeding mums.
• Join me on 11 June at Robyn Egge Yarns for my first Trunk show (so many firsts!). You’ll be able to try on shawls & hats, get advice about shawl & hat knitting and purchase my patterns with Karen’s gorgeous yarn.
• I’m also teaching at Robyn Egge in July. Are you nervous about knitting shawls? Want to expand your skills? I’ll show you lots of useful techniques so you’ll feel confident tackling shawl patterns. Book early, tickets are limited.
• My new shawl pattern Zelda has been published! It’s a long crescent shawl with a fabulous border that’ll make you feel like a knitting genius – it’s much simpler than it appears! Grab your copy from Ravelry before 8am, Saturday 28th May (NZ time) and automatically go into the draw for 4 balls of Outlaw Yarn (Bohemia Sport) – enough for your own Zelda Shawl.

Musings About Sharing our Making

I had an interesting email this week from a listener wondering about the point of blogging about what we make and sharing it online. What is the point without a business? Does anyone read it anyway? Why bother?

I replied to her with some ideas about why I thought it was worthwhile. I talked about the changes in blogging and wondered if a “mini-blog” on instagram might serve as a better vehicle for meeting like-minded people.

It lead me to think about the general inefficiency of creativity and was reminded of my conversation with Rachael Laves about saving time and Seth Godin’s view that we should blog every day because it’s good for us. I also listened to an interview with Kevin Kelly, one of the co-founders of Wired Magazine this week and found his thoughts about creativity and productivity very interesting.

Kevin takes the view that creativity begets creativity and we benefit from making lots of little mistakes. That’s essentially how evolution works. It’s better than one huge mistake. We learn to think creatively and that’s good for everyone.

I see the extension of our making to creatively sharing via blogs and social media as having lots of benefits. We are inspired, we inspired others, we learn about ourselves and we become part of communities that value us.

What do you think? Do you have a blog? Do you use social media to share what you’re making?