Looking forward to 2024

In looking forward to and reflecting 2024 I have created three intentions for myself. These will help me focus for the year ahead and in clearing off things that do not serve me.

Back in January last year I filled in a perfectly imperfect 2023 planner, by Beth Kempton. I had never done that before, but I challenged myself to do it. At the time I had just started to explore my own writing process, allowing myself to write wilder and more unrestrained. I had come to the conclusion that all writing is good and all writing leads to deeper writing. In my planer wrote that I wanted to focus on developing and exploring my writing during 2023. I listed three intentions for the year:

• getting started on writing my book
• create an online short lecture, and possibly a course
• finish my knit sleeve jacket.

During the year I did create a short online lecture, Pick your fleece, plus the five-day challenge Flow. I also published an online course, Spindle spinning for beginners. I also finished the knit sleeve jacket I had worked on since 2019. But when it comes to the first bullet on the list, so much morse than I could ever imagine happened – I got myself a literary agent and a book deal with a U.S. publisher for my book Listen to the wool. You can read more about that here.

Intentions for 2024

Since I managed to fulfill my intentions for last year, and then some, I decided to repeat the challenge for 2024. These are my intentions for 2024:

• Write, write and write some more
• Follow a textile
• Connect with fibery people.

Write

Since 2023 was so dramatic in terms of real-life adult things with deadlines and expectations regarding my book, I need to keep deadlines in 2024 too. I need to submit my manuscript on October 1st. So, naturally, writing will be one of my intentions for 2024. It would be anyway, though.

I have spent every morning since Christmas in my writing cave. Just the other day I finished one of the longest and most research heavy chapters. When I get back to work again on January 8th there will of course be less time to write, but I will still be able to write a few times a week.

My morning ritual, that includes a writing practice, will still be an important part of my day. I need a space for wild writing and for welcoming whatever wants to be written onto the page, not just the structure of my book. I do this with a pen and a journal. Writing on a computer has its charm, but crafting my words with my hand allows me to write less restrained and from a deeper place in my heart.

A solo writing retreat

Beth Kempton offers a virtual writing retreat that I have been curious about. I enrolled in the retreat and booked myself four nights at an Airbnb tiny house in a town just a three hour train ride from my home. The tiny house has large windows with a spectacular view over a lake. Those were actually my requirements when I browsed for accommodation – a tiny house, a spectacular view from my writing space and just steps away from a dip. I will have my retreat in the end of March, and the hosts promised to keep a hole in the ice open for me and my daily dips when I arrive. I am so looking forward to this and where it may lead me.

Write some more

I also enrolled in a live 7-week writing course in May and June. At the moment I have no idea if I can carve out the time to do it live, but if I don’t, I will just do it later, when the book manuscript has settled.

Follow a textile

I have lots of exciting fleeces in my fleece stash at the moment. As I have picked them I have got ideas of how they may want to be spun and with what kind of textile I want to make them shine. Some ideas involve knitting yarns for different sweater projects, others involve loose weaves to full in a fulling mill with my wool traveling club in May.

I also have four meters of a seriously yummy linen/wool twill fabric for which I have an idea for a larger project.

Connect

As I read through the planner I had filled in for 2024, I saw that almost all of it were solo things – writing, enrolling in online courses, spinning and sewing. I am very much of an introvert, but all the more reason for me not to hide in a cave. I need to connect with people to stay connected to the world. And by connecting with people I mean one at a time with deep conversations in a nerdy subject.

As Dan and I have started taking photos for the book we have visited a number of sheep owners and their flocks to take pictures of Swedish sheep breeds. These trips have been so valuable, and Dan and I have talked a lot about how deeply the visits touched us and how much we learned. These meetings, I have realized, are such important parts of the book and of my understanding of wool and spinning. I want more of these connections, for myself as well as for the crispiness of the book.

I have said no to new course inquiries before the manuscript deadline, but I will be teaching my five-day course at Sätergläntan as I have for the past years. That is also a lovely opportunity to connect to fibery friends.

A commitment

In the winter writing retreat I am enrolled in, I got the assignment to make a commitment for the year to come. This is what I came up with:

Dear Writing,
thank you for being a solid rock in my life
for encouraging me to make space for words.
Thank you for making moving my pen so beautiful,
for giving me that tingling in my hands to shape lines into letters and words,
all the way back to when I was twelve
and wanted to style me p:s and r:s in the same
bobbin-lace shapes
as my dear aunt Harriet’s.
Thank you for opening the door to exploring inwards
where there is no limit beyond the sky.
Thank you for offering me a writer’s eye
who can see the stars in a piece of moss on a sunlit rock.
Thank you for serving me a soup of hot and nutrutious imagination
about things I could actually never have imagined
without your gentle support.
I will return your generosity by writing,
every day,
to writing wildly, softly,
sparkling and whispering.
I will commit to you
by reading others’ words to fill my writing belly,
by exploring my crafting process
with wool flowing through my hands and mind,
and by moving my body,
because I believe that moving the body helps moving the mind
out of stagnation and into new worlds and possibilities.
I will peek out from my writing cave once and again
by connecting to other spinners and wool people
to fill my crafting belly,
to being curious about those around me
and seeing others’ views than my own.
I will keep choosing writing,
listening to what wants to be written
and being kind to my writing life.
I am a writer and I will keep myself nourished
with words.

In that, my friends, you are my most important critics and I thank you for reading my words.

Happy spinning!

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You. can find me in several social media:

• This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
• My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
• I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
• I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
• On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
• Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
• Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
• I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
• In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
• I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.