Sometimes, when things aren’t going totally well in life, I find super solace in just taking a moment to list the things that I love, and the things that I’m grateful for. It always grounds me. It brings me back to ME and seems to set all the good things back into motion. It’s not a trick that works for everyone, but it works for me.
In the last year since starting this humble little blog, I’ve had a lot of these moments regarding the life of my “business.” I’ve struggled so much with intention, with deciding what shape my ambition for this little web space has been, and squaring that with the pressures and expectations I absorb and perceive from the rest of our yarny community and mostly from myself. So, the thing I apply to my life woes, I tried applying to my yarn life and it gave me so much clarity, so here it is. I love:
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Buying Yarn
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Trying Yarn
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Finding favorite yarns
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Creating original patterns
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Having meaningful interactions with other creative people
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Collaborating with people I admire
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SHARING what I create
It was also really helpful for me to list the things that I don’t like about my yarn life, but for now I’ll keep those things private. It’s a post for another day, and I think I’ll get to sharing that, but just not yet.
I took a while to reflect on those things and thought long and hard about how I could take ONLY the things I love, and use them to really turn my hobby/business into a TRUE passion project.
I’ve taken into account my limitations, and tried to adjust my plans for my business keeping those in mind. After hitting the ground running with this little design biz, I prided myself on being a workhorse and being able to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. But over time, I realized that I was missing some important moments yarning while playing with my kids, or pulling all nighters to finish a project. I realized that they don’t call it “slow fashion” for nothing and pushing SO hard to keep up with the folks I admire wasn’t actually helping me. It was burning me out and challenging my normal focus on calmness and kindness and pushing me into a space I didn’t want to be in anymore.
SO, what the heck does this all mean? It means that Teagan and Lu is evolving and switching gears a bit. Teagan and Lu now has a primary focus: YARN REVIEWS!
Guys, all heaviness aside: I love yarn, and I love all of you. I want to try the yarns. I want to buy (or be gifted, wink wink) the yarns. I want to tell YOU about the yarns. That’s where I find my happy, so I’m going to give that slim focus a shot and see where it takes me. Here, on this blog, you can expect (primarily) just one thing: honest and candid yarn reviews. I also have a goal of providing a FREE pattern alongside each of the yarns that I try, but it’s baby steps at this point.
Being the former teacher that I am, I’m going to offer my reviews to you based on the following criteria:
Overall Quality – I’m going to let you know what it’s like to work with this yarn. I’ll expose them for the good, bad and the unforgiveable (manufactured knots and all).
Value – I’ll assess the price of the yarn versus how much you get and whether my cheapskate self think it’s worth the moolah. I’m a bargain hunter through and through, so you can count on complete honesty in this arena. And, in the instances in which I’ve been provided yarn for reviews, I’ll tell you whether or not I’d shell out my own cash for the yarn.
Color Selection – Sometimes, I find yarns that I love but the colors aren’t my cup of tea (I’m looking at you, LB Jeans).
Spin — The quality of the spin for all yarns is something I can’t quite tell you how passionate I am about. But, you’ll find out soon. I don’t spin my own yarn, but I sure do notice it when I buy yarn. This is an area that I think is a bit overlooked when yarns are reviewed and I really look forward to learning even more about it as I try more yarns.
Weight Analysis — I’ll let you know some information that might be missing from your commercial yarn labels, like accuracy of the weight of the yarn, wpi and my impressions on where yarns fall on the weight scale (yes, puns will be included).
Recommended Projects — I’ll let you know what each yarn is calling out to me to be made into. Because, yep, sometimes the yarn speaks to me (Please know I am not being literal. Yarn doesn’t talk. If your yarn is talking to you, please see a professional. Like a therapist. For real.)
Best Qualities – I’ll sing the yarn’s praises in this section. I’ll tell you what I LOVE about this yarn, because there is always something I love.
Drawbacks — If the yarn is lacking in any area, I’ll give you my unfiltered thoughts. Let’s face it, we choose different yarns for different projects because they each have their benefits and drawbacks. I’ll give you the dirt on where the yarn is lacking in this section.
Patterns — Finally, I’ll recommend patterns for the yarn. I’m hoping to one day have an original free pattern for each yarn, but at times where that isn’t possible, I’ll point you in the direction of my favorites for that yarn.
So, I’m SO excited to be offering this new facet to my blog and I hope you will love it too.
For starters, Here are my first reviews:
Mary Maxim Natural Alpaca Tweed
Mary Maxim Simply Natural (coming soon)
Red Heart Heat Wave (coming soon — WITH a video!)
Lion Brand Luxe (coming soon)
If you want your yarn reviewed, please email me!
Teagan And Lu 