A Season Ahead

There is something wonderfully absurd about weaving woollen scarves in the middle of a heatwave.

While much of the country has been searching for shade and ice creams, I've been in the studio sitting in front of a loom dressed with my latest Crossbill colourway. Rich oranges, warm browns and glowing reds stretch across the warp, looking remarkably like flames. It's beautiful, but I have to admit, it has made me laugh. If ever there was a colourway to weave during thirty-degree heat, this probably wasn't it.

The irony isn't lost on me.

As makers, though, we're often working a season or two ahead. While everyone else is enjoying summer, we're thinking about autumn. Long before the leaves begin to turn, we're planning the work that will hopefully keep us busy through the colder months.

This summer has reminded me just how strange that can feel.

A few months ago I found myself thinking a lot about productivity and the pressure we can put on ourselves to make the most of every spare moment. I never quite found the courage to publish those thoughts, but they've stayed with me.

In many ways, they're still the questions I'm trying to answer.

The school summer holidays are fast approaching and, with them, fewer hours in the studio. My instinct is always to look at the calendar and think about everything that still needs to be done.

There are scarves to weave.

Photographs to take.

Shows to plan.

The garden needs lots of attention.

The house constantly needs cleaning.

There's a growing pile waiting to be listed on Vinted.

There are pictures still in boxes, patiently waiting to be hung.

It's very easy to focus on everything that hasn't happened yet.

So this week I did something entirely unlike me.

I made a spreadsheet.

Give me cones of yarn over columns of numbers any day, but I have to admit it has been unexpectedly reassuring.

Rather than carrying around a vague feeling that I should be making more, I worked out how many scarves I already have in stock, how many I'd like to weave before autumn and what sort of income I'd like my work to generate over the coming months.

The work didn't disappear.

But it became clearer.

Instead of one overwhelming mountain of jobs, I could see individual threads. Each one manageable on its own. Woven together, they'd eventually become something much bigger.

As I started writing this post, I realised something rather telling.

The last time I thought about writing it, the Turtle Dove warp was still on the loom.

Since then, Turtle Dove has been finished. So has Magpie. The Crossbill warp is now under way.

Perhaps I've been making more progress than I've been giving myself credit for.

Creative work has a habit of making us look towards what's next before we've taken the time to appreciate what's just been achieved.

This year, I'm trying to build my business in a way that feels sustainable. That doesn't always mean weaving at full speed. Sometimes it means planning ahead. Sometimes it means updating a spreadsheet. And sometimes, during a heatwave, it means accepting that weaving wool isn't the most sensible way to spend the hottest part of the day.

I'm beginning to realise that these quieter moments aren't time lost. They're part of the work too.

After all, every scarf begins long before the shuttle starts flying across the loom.

It begins with an idea.

A colour palette.

A plan.

One thread.

Then another.

Then another.

I'd love to know if this resonates with you. Whether you're a maker, a gardener, a writer or simply someone juggling the changing seasons of work and life, do you ever find yourself concentrating so hard on what's still left to do that you forget how far you've already come?