Slow craft, slow studio

When I first started drawing patterns, I tried to publish one a month. It was exhausting. The patterns weren't bad, exactly, but they weren't tested as well as I wanted them to be, and I didn't have time to sit with them before sending them out.

So I slowed down. One pattern a season. Maybe four a year. Sometimes three.

It changed everything.

A pattern that takes a whole season to come together can be sample-stitched twice, walked through by other makers, and rewritten in full before it ever lands in the shop. It can sit on the cutting table for a few weeks while I notice the little things, the seam that wants a different finish, the diagram that needs one more arrow, the colour note I forgot to write down.

It also gives me time to make other things. To plant a window box. To finish reading a book.

Slow craft has been the most generous teacher I've had. I'd recommend it to any maker tempted to speed up.