My Lifestyle Guru Disqualification

Online identity, knitting celebrities and internet jealousy. We have covered a lot here recently. I'm going to return to the discussion but first I want to share a slice of what it is all about (for me, anyway): knitting.

This morning I cast off another sample for my Doggerland collection. I think I first mentioned the collection about a year ago - well it has been a long journey to get here and I'll write more about this as I release the patterns. But I just love looking at this pile of samples (plus random bits of yarn). The pile looks so right even if the samples still need to be dressed and it is lacking a couple of core pieces still to be knitted.

I am getting there! Woo!

And I think that brings me neatly round to the topic that Fourth Edition has been circling around recently: success.

Some people want a big car. Other people want to be recognised in the supermarket. All of us want to be able to pay our bills. I have spent a lot of time thinking about success and how I define it. I like being able to pay bills, but I am definitely not concerned with driving a car or being stopped in the street. No, I really truly love when what I produce resembles what has been going on in my head. When my brain and fingers work together to produce something that stays true to the core idea and tells the story I want to be telling.

'Story-telling' was a recurrent word in the discussion. It is perhaps a post-modern conceit that we tell stories in order to construct ourselves but I think I do relate to my craft and my designs as forms of story-telling. I want to explore my Scandinavian heritage; the landscapes both inside and outwith myself and try to make sense of the world through knitting.

I somehow worry(!) that I hover between textile art and textile craft - that somehow my ideas are too absurd and abstract for the relatively simple pleasure of working a piece of string with two sticks. I have spent almost 12 months trying to nail Doggerland because it started out as a huge, unwieldy idea. When I showed my introduction to some friends, the feedback was enthusiastic but agreed that maybe I should try to be a touch more accessible.

And so I am here looking at a pile of unblocked knits and I feel so proud. To me, this is success.

And this is who I am: I design knits inspired by psychogeography, land art, and Mesolithic archaeology. I wear red and green together. I am quiet in public and most happy when I'm with just a handful of friends. I love early 20th century culture and T.S. Eliot is my favourite writer. And I think the Eurovision Song Contest is the best thing since sliced bread. All that combined pretty much disqualifies me for any position as a lifestyle guru. Also, I eat the cake as soon as it's out of the oven.

Besides, the idea of a knitting celebrity is still weird. If the founder of Wikipedia has trouble identifying himself as 'internet famous', I think it's fair to say that we need to re-assess the whole idea of internet fame. The internet is an awfully big pond.

What Would Happen If You Had To Be Yourself?

Something very cool happened in my comments section yesterday. A really interesting discussion started to unfold - people started to talk about the whole "yourself as a brand" and "performing yourself in public " aspect of the craft/knitting business.If you've been reading Fourth Edition for a long time, you'll know this is one of my major hang-ups as an indie designer and tutor. (I even wrote a long post about it as part of the work I did with Glasgow University last year). I want to share some of the points made in the comments because I think they are asking some very important questions about branding, marketing, social media and (for a want of a better term) 'cult of personality'. It may not be straight up yarn-related but I hope it'll provide an interesting glimpse into what it means to work in the craft industry.

I was disquietened by her comments about the need to be positive all the time. Admittedly she is using herself as a brand and may want to keep back some stuff and have a private life. But the more we have this “you must always be positive” message around, the harder it is for us to be honest with one another about how we feel

- Stephanie of The Foggy Knitter

I find it’s very hard for me to come to terms with “personality as brand” and “public persona” but I realise that it is how the business works. I have struggled with this for a long time (how I would prefer to just lurk in the shadows!) but the podcast made me confront myself regarding this.

- Karie of Fourth Edition (that'll be yours truly!)

I struggle all the time with the need to be a “public persona,” or a “personality.” Especially since part of what I do for a living is teach classes! There’s a certain online pressure to be this happy, successful person who can share all the secrets of success. But what I’d rather do is gather quietly in classroom spaces with my students, and give them my all. That doesn’t make for sexy marketing copy, though. :-)

- Sister Diane of Craftypod

That “have to be happy” is a pressure we feel from both the big, lovely craft bloggers (my gorgeous living room! My sleeping baby!), but we also feel it from the inside of our own heads! No one wants to feel like a loser…and telling the internet that you’re not perfect (in a space dominated by the perfect) is a quick way to loser-town. (At least, in my own head.)

(..)

At the heart of all this is *expectations*. My expectations of myself. My reader’s/student’s/client’s expectations, and then all those expectations that I’m making assumptions about. Who even knows if they exist? But they certainly guide the way we act/present ourselves in this space.

- Tara Swiger

The podcast gave me a lot to think about & the blog post has added more. I, too, struggle with the personal brand idea. I’m quite shy which may be why.

- Anniken Allis of YarnAddict

Not in the comments section, but on her own blog, Vanessa reflected:

I’ve found that acknowledging that I’m feeling envy and it’s probably unfounded helps me let go of that anger. Then I try to really analyze just what pushed that button. Once I get to the root cause, I look at it from all sides. Is this image that person is presenting the whole truth? What am I not seeing? A messy house, uncombed hair, other to-dos that fell to the way side. Those aren’t presented on the internet.

There is so much to unpack here but the central question has to be What would happen if you had to be yourself?

Knitting & Social Media - Reflections 2

This post is one in a series of posts extending the talk I gave at Glasgow University as part of the Handknitted Textiles & the Economies of Craft in Scotland workshop series.

Social media and knitting are closely connected.

Knitting blogs gave young knitters a space to talk about their craft and enabled them to interact with each other. Ravelry is now the mothership for all online knitters nowadays: we interact in groups, we search the pattern and yarn databases, we amend database entries, we add photos of our knitting, we marvel at others' creations, and we connect.  I use Twitter much more than Ravelry these days, though. Twitter allows me to schedule things, ask/answer questions, meet interesting people, and laugh/cry - and do all these things with ruthless efficiency and a great signal-to-noise ratio.

The trouble with having a visible social media profile is that you need to perform yourself in public.

Despite my online presence, I am an introvert. I find social interaction draining and difficult. I am much more articulate when I type than when I speak. I find a roomful of strangers quite daunting. As you can imagine, working throughout Wool Week has been simultaneously incredibly inspiring and immensely draining.

Social media is a fabulous way of branding yourself. I am not a natural marketeer and I find the "B" word a mite upsetting in some respects - but I view social media in two ways: it is a great tool for connecting with people and it's a way of telling the story of your work.

But I am tired of Karie Bookish. Let me qualify that: I am tired of performing Karie Bookish. She is me and I am her, but I am exhausted. I love knitters and I love talking about knitting (even if I have a complex relationship with the practice) but I get so very tired of myself. After fifty minutes of working my bit of Wool Week, I wanted nothing more than escape and find a sequestered place far away from all social interaction. But how could I do that when I am essentially my own brand? I can see I will need to find a strategy for coping in the future, as I am due to work more big events and I don't want to end up as burned out as I was Sunday afternoon.

(Strategies on a postcard, please).

When you are are so visibly your own brand, social media come with added responsibilities too. I have seen dozens of businesses crash and burn through ill-considered use of social media: bitching about customers, admitting to fraud, blowing off responsibilities or just coming across as very unpleasant individuals. Sometimes ignorant use of social media is worse than no use of social media: if you only tweet adverts for yourself and refrain from interaction, people will unfollow you. There is a reason why it is called social media. I tend to recommend that you set up anonymous accounts on social media sites in order to learn the relevant etiquette if you are completely new to this way of communicating - that way you do not have to worry about potential faux pas affecting your business.

Despite the many pitfalls, social media are important components in making knitting flourish. It has allowed charismatic, enthusiastic people to 'spread the gospel' of knitting not being a time-capsule craft. The new channels provide a way of interacting with other people who share your interest across the globe. Knitting is a craft that is very much alive and kicking - and thanks to social media you can find and interact with people who share your passion.

Addendum: I met a lot of fantastic people this past week - many of whom I had only met online prior to Wool Week. I was lucky enough to have a stall next to Helen of Ripplescraft at The Lighthouse - I can only recommend having Helen as your stall neighbour: she kept me sane and caffeinated. Fellow designer Joyuna and I had coffee in the middle of Glasgow on a sleepy Sunday morning - she's just made the front cover of Interweave's Jane Austen Knits 2012! And I met with book artist Josie Moore following Friday's Glasgow University workshop. I took great pleasure in discussing William Morris over cream tea - I needed that.

Handmade Living

Handmade Living landed on my doorstep this weekend. It is a lovely, accessible and crafty lifestyle magazine which encourages people to make a go at things themselves.

And (probably because I am the sort of person who likes to have a go at things herself) I am in this issue.

There I am. Hello you.

Blogging (and micro-blogging on Twitter) may give you the impression that I am a bubbly extrovert person, but I am not. I am quiet, introvert and only truly relaxed when in a small group of friends. I am never very comfortable talking about myself - and giving the interview to Handmade Living was really difficult for that very reason. Like pulling teeth, I tell you. Luckily, the journalist was very patient and kept loping me some very good questions that made me relax and open up.

So, if you have arrived here thanks to Handmade Living: hello!

It is a funny old world. One day a girl may be in the depths of despair as her world tilts on its axis, then she decides to "make a go of things" out of sheer bloody-minded determination and a few years down the line, magazines ask her questions about herself as though she was somehow special or interesting. Yes, it is a funny old world.

A Creative Life Is Mine

I was asked for career advice recently - and quite apart by being floored by being asked, it also made me think very hard about what it is I do and why.  This coincided with a friend sharing this blog post about creativity, process and blogging with me. Forgive my rambling, meandering post, but I have thoughts in my head..

One of the most common reasons people give preventing them from doing something creative is that it has already been done. (..) It is as if there should only be a certain number of people in any creative field, as if it were a party in a small house and could get too crowded.

I believe strongly that everybody is creative - this imaginative spark is what makes us human. When I run craft workshops, I always try to push people into embracing their creative sides: 'what happens if you do X & Y? Which colours do you like? Try to combine those.' It always comes as a shock to people but I don't have a textile degree - yet I work within the knitting industry as a craft teacher and a knitting designer among other things. I don't have an art degree, yet I have exhibited my work in galleries. Does this invalidate me as a Creative? No. It just means I am autodidact and I take some interesting detours during my work process.

We are taught that creativity is the expression of a higher ideal in a finished object of great beauty and skilled execution (..) We look with lust and desire at finished products and believe they are created by specialists using talents beyond our mortal capacity to understand.

Our brains try to trick us into thinking that unless we are Picasso, Mozart or Shakespeare, we have no right to express ourselves creatively. I once read Plato. He had a few things to say about ideal beauty and our human inability to attain this. Also, the only way to become better at doing something is by doing it.  I am not a great artist, but the more I draw, the better I become. One of these days I might even become capable of describe the world I see!

We are (..) separated from our own creative power which is what makes us depend on shopping to satisfy all our psycho-spiritual needs. 

And this is key. All marketing depends upon us wanting to be someone else than ourselves. Do you want to be exotic and gorgeous? Try this dress? Do you want to be quirky and creative? Here is the perfect scarf! But what if you could make a dress that feels like you - wouldn't you feel better about yourself because you made the dress yourself, it is exactly how you want it to be, and you get to express who you are?

Even those who appear to be such ‘natural’ creators, those that have identified themselves as ‘creatives’ early in life have had some crucial intervention, some teacher or parent who told them they had talent (..) .

I guess I try to be that crucial intervention whenever I run workshops because I think it's never, ever too late to embrace to inner desire to make stuff.

Now for the crucial quotes:

The value is in the process and the finished product is a continuation of that process, affecting the lives of others, that scarf you made for your dad lives on in the process of his life. Value itself is a living process not to be confined to a number or a thing.

Yes, it is cheaper to buy the scarf and no, your scarf won't look like it was machine-knitted in China - but you created that scarf. Without you, that ball of yarn would just be a long string balled up. This is what still gets me about creation to this very day - that whole thing about making (on a related note, in Scots English a poet is a makar which plays wonderfully into the whole language-as-creation idea I once adored so much).

And

Success, slick production values, money, attention, these are all byproducts of a process of self discovery that will last a lifetime. And they may never come. If the process is right for you it won’t even matter anymore. Any stage of that process is as essential as any other.

This. This.

I don't work with knitting because I made a career decision ages ago. Working within the knitting industry is hard work, I scrape by, and it is far less romantic than you may think. But knitting defines me. I do this because I cannot not do this. It is who I am. And I am more like you than you know.

Day Four: Landscape

The West Coast of Scotland? It rains a lot and we frequently do not get much above 20C. But it is pretty here and I have plenty to wool to keep me warm, so it works out. What I hadn't planned on was how much the landscape would inspire my colour choices..

Shades of pale brown mixed with grey skies and hints of mossy green. You can see the Campsies in the distance if you look hard enough!

Grey-blue lichen on trees. Bark an enticing grey-brown with  - yes - hints of mossy green. This photo was taken during a walk around Possil Marsh which was rudely interrupted by heavy rain.

Mossy green! Spawling across reddish brown! This sight is very common in the Glasgow Arboretum, just a few minutes from Casa Bookish.

What has all this to do with my knitting and crocheting? Quite apart from being overtly fond of mossy green, I am also planning a pattern collection of accessories all of which will be knitted in colours oddly reminiscent of the photos above. My poetic partner says that I am wrapping myself in Scotland. It is a nice thought.

PS. Yes, this was supposed to be about seasons. We often have four seasons in one day. Layers make sense.

You can find more blogs participating in the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week by googling 3KCBWDAY4. If you have come here as part of the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, thank you for visiting. I'll still be here once this week is over and I'm usually blogging about arts, books, films, language besides all the craft stuff. Do stick around.