Sometimes you just have to do something different

My goal yesterday morning was to crochet a small flower embellishment for a wee tunic I had knitted.

I have to confess to putting this seemingly small task off for a number of months now.

But the garment needs to be completed and with the weather looking cloudy and windy I gathered the resources I needed.

My skills with a crochet hook are pretty minimal but the pattern told me “easy”, “simple to make”, “basic” and so I told myself I could do this.

Hmmm 2 hours later my fingers and thumbs were in a muddle, the number of “undoings” was mounting, as was my frustration level.

Right I thought I’ve given this a good go, I’ll go and do something completely different and come back to the crochet later.

The garden work eased my frustration and allowed my brain circuits to focus on weeds but to keep processing what I’d learnt in the morning.

Once back to my crochet project my good old brain suggested I try something new with the crochet hook and suddenly I could see progress and something appearing in my hands that resembled the picture in the pattern. I perservered, reread the instructions, tweaked my approach and voila I had done it!

It really does pay to change pace, environment or activity when things don’t go well or the ideas dry up. All the while trusting that our clever brains are still working on the problem. Then return to the task with freshness and (hopefully) success.

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