Threads of Inspiration: Links from the THREADSTACK Community

Thoughts on procrastination as it relates to anxiety, benefits of crochet for depression and questions for the fiber/yarn art/craft community here ...

Jun 17, 2024

Welcome to THREADSTACK’s weekly roundup of writing about the world of fiber/yarn arts/crafts. We had two contributions from the community this week, plus one from me and a couple small excerpts that I loved.

Image from a current collaborative project I co-facilitate.

Huge thanks to
Jeremy Mathew
of
The Patchwork Principle
for sharing:

“A personal essay on the timeline of the making of this quilt alongside a timeline of the genocide in Palestine. Musings on how art is important to respond to the times we live in.”

The Patchwork Principle

We All Live in The Garden of Time

Today’s post is dedicated to Palestine. If you’re able, please consider giving to the fundraiser organized by Substack writers here: “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate... We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some …

5 months ago · 15 likes · 5 comments · Jeremy Mathew

I recently decided to toss out everything I’d worked on in Year One of my VisCrit graduate degree and write my thesis on Craftivism, so this is right up my alley. I am looking specifically at large scale fiber art installations and exploring how they function to create change but also how sometimes they simply function to spread joy which is a different way of creating change. I loved this quote from Jeremy’s piece:

“Through making art we can unlearn helplessness. Art reminds us of our shared humanity and our common language. We can redefine our values for ourselves and experience a more meaningful existence.”

I’ve participated regularly in collaboartive crochet art projects for various causes and also just for yarnbomb joy-spreading, and this resonates because sometimes I have felt so helpless as one person in a big world that seems like it’s doing insane things … and often my own energy/ depression status/ mental health means that I can only do a tiny little bit but when I crochet a square and send it to a project and it combines with a bunch of other voices and grows into something, I feel not just less helpless but also more connected to community. This isn’t exactly what the piece is about but that’s what the quote made me think of.

It was really interesting to see the timeline of global events against the timeline of making in this post because both things are true - we are each one person immersed in a single life that consists of a handful of activities (chosen and less chosen) and also we live in a world where many, many things are happening.

And huge thanks to
Pattie Klimek
of
The Joy of Handwork
for sharing this beautiful sashiko piece:

The piece that she wrote about this is on a topic many creatives can relate to: PROCRASTINATION. Pattie shares, “I work against this every day and I think others may also. But I learned to embrace it as part of creativity.”

The Joy of Handwork

Procrastination

Thanks for reading The Joy of Handwork! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Yes I do have character flaws and procrastination is the one I indulge in the most. I can always find something else that urgently needs to be done, like cleaning, when I have a deadline and this new Intro to Sashiko class sample needs to be done next we…

8 months ago · 1 like · 2 comments · Pattie Klimek

In the piece, she mentions several interesting ways of understanding our experiences with procrastination. Do go read the whole thing and see all the extra photos.

One thing she mentions is reading elsewhere that procrastination is a means of dealing with challenging emotions and negative moods, and that hit home beacuse I’ve done a lot of research/writing in the past about both procrastination and perfectionism as symptoms of managing anxiety. This shows up in all kinds of different ways. Often, in creative work, we don’t even necessarily realize that we are anxious because it’s a low-grade anxiety and/or we have “high functioning anxiety,” but something about making decisions or not seeing the work get done the way that we want or fear around sharing it when it’s done pushes us to procrastinate. So in that way, sometimes it can be useful to ask ourselves why we’re procrastinating and if there’s any anxiety underneath it. Which, of course, there might not be. Honestly, sometimes procrastination is just part of a person’s creative process and we don’t need to overthink it. But sometimes it’s beneficial to ask ourselves the deeper why.

And from me … I’m sharing this link from the archives:

Benefits of Crochet for Ten Symptoms of Depression

Feb 14

Read full story

I have done extensive research into crochet as therapy and written about it widely. This is a super simplified version of some of the biggest benefits of crochet for depression that I initially experienced myself which was what led me to doing that deeper research. It’s always good to share the basics, I think. And it gives a little insight into how I came to crochet for those who don’t know it.

Around the THREADSTACK web …

Last week I went through the THREADSTACK directory and found recent posts from people to add to this link share, but I don’t want to keep doing that each week. I did, however, just read these two sets of words that I found in posts by

Suzan Colón

of medKNITation and

Kavitha

of While I was Knitting and I wanted to make sure to share …

From Suzan:

“The drawing you make, the scarf or shawl or even turkey you knit or crochet, the meal you cook, the bread you bake—you’re making something where before there was nothing. Making is magic.”

From Kavitha:

“Making is indeed an essential part of the human experience. The sheer act of making helps us thrive as a species in ways we cannot even begin to comprehend . These arts and crafts not only give us the ability to produce an artifact but also provide immense satisfaction and happiness within their processes.”

CHECK-IN … Do THREADSTACKERS Want These Roundups?

What nearly all THREADSTACKERS have said they’re here for is connection/ community so my vision is that we can all share our work here weekly and comment on each other’s contributions and start conversations that we really enjoy and care about.

It’s starting off slowly but we’ll see … We are only two weeks in so maybe it’ll just take a little bit of time to get us going. But maybe something is off with my vision? Or maybe for some reason submitting the links isn’t easy? I figured it was worth a check-in, so, in the comments (or in chat if you’re more comfortable there) do please tell me your thoughts.

What do you want to get out of THREADSTACK? Do these weekly link roundups make sense?

Housekeeping:

I’ll be updating the THREADSTACK directory later today (and weekly through the summer) so check it out to find all of the people here who are writing about crochet, knitting, weaving, quilting, embroidery, sewing, etc.