Getting Your (Craft) Mojo Back

Guest Post by FiberNerd

It’s easy to loose your craft mojo, whether it’s due to an injury, family or work obligations, or you’re busy with your garden.  But, as someone once said, winter is coming.  For me, fall is usually a time to get my craft groove back, so today I’m going to talk a bit about ways to do that.  As always, your mileage may vary, but these are just some jumping off points.

Try Something New

This always gets me excited, but I’m a process crafter.  I will save techniques I want to try for the right moment, like a dragon hoarding gold.  If you don’t have anything that you already want to try, dedicate a little time to finding new techniques.  Whenever I’m suffering from ennui, I’ll dig into a new method, and it always brings new energy to my craft.

Shake Things Up – Literally

One of the easiest ways I find to get inspired is to go clean my craft room.  I will usually find things that I had set aside for a specific purpose.   I do a “stash toss” once a year, in which I physically move everything in my craft space, empty every project bag and drawer, and it always brought a lot of inspiration.

Turn to Your Tribe

In the Ravelry group, we have a saying:  “One of us, one of us”.  I often find inspiration from the crafting community is a good way to get some ideas and energy to really focus on making.  There are many knitalongs  and other craftalongs out there depending on your needs.

“15 in 2015 with Haldecraft and String Theory Colorworks”  is a great example.  This is a long term craftalong, which is really flexible to what kind of things you want to knit, crochet, spin or weave.   There’s a community who chat and share their projects throughout the year.

There are also shorter, more intense craftalongs.  Some have very specific rules, as in “knit this shawl pattern”, and others more flexible and can be suited to your needs.  Look around Instagram or Ravelry long enough, and you can probably find a craftalong which suits your interests, whether they are entrelac, crafting for charity, football, or a specific sci-fi show which was canceled after 13 episodes.

Some groups give new ideas to solve an existing problem.  Want to improve your spinning? “Spin 15 in 15” challenges spinners to spin for 15 minutes a day, everyday.

So how do you get your craft mojo back?  What are your fall craft plans?