February is upon us. The dead of winter is here. Alas, we are stuck yet to endure many more weeks of cold weather, icy hazards and short days, which leave us languishing for sun’s warmth and radiance. So what do we do? One of my goals for my “year of crafting dangerously” is to find cool ways to fuse my different crafty loves to raise my craft-scene to higher levels. So here’s my crafty combination to bust the winter blues: Sniff & Stitch! Specifically, combining aromatherapy and a wonderful knitting project. Here’s how . . .
Before you pick up your needles, put yourself in a good mood! One simple and inexpensive way to do this is to try aromatic essential oils. Available at most health food or vitamin stores, there are many wonderful scents for you to choose from to ease anxiety and improve mood. However, I am going to focus on two great mood boosters: (1) grapefruit and (2) orange. All the citrus scents are wonderful tools to improve mood, promotes joy and ease nervous tension, but grapefruit and orange are my personal favorites for winter...
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Tags:
aromatherapy, blues, knitting, winter
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Learning new skills is hard for everyone. Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward. I have recently started teaching crochet to a wonderful group of students, many of whom have some challenges in their daily life. Despite these challenges, they do me the blessing and politely (and I hope enthusiastically) sit through my classes. None of the students have learned before and I doubt they have any in depth exposure to "messing around" with yarn, never mind hooks or needles. One of our limitations is that we can only commit once a week to actual instruction (and I know that practicing during the week is not practical for many of my students - but once they get "hooked", I am confident someone will take their work home with them). In light of the time constraints, learning the skill will be a slower process, which is fine. However, any tried and true yarn worker will tell you that practice is key. Practice nurtures the development of skill, self-confidence and enjoyment, all feeding into each other. As the class took shape, i dedicated 2 classes to crocheting, teaching slip knot, chaining and in the last class single crochet,...
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adaptive, crochet, knitting, special needs
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