Have you ever read a book and felt compelled to place post-it notes in it because you know you want to return to many of the pages? Hook to Heal makes me want to do just this. It's a creativity exercise book that offers suggestions for using crochet to improve all aspects of your life - exactly my kind of thing!
I read Hook To Heal over the holidays and thought I'd share a review with you. It's written by Kathryn Vercillo of Crochet Concupiscence, a specialist in the area of the health benefits of crochet.
Each chapter covers a different area such as "facing fears", "mindfulness crochet" or "giving back" and starts with Kathryn’s own experience and research as a graduate
student studying Integral Counseling Psychology. Then she shares exercises for using crochet to work through some of
the issues related to the area.
There are a grand total of 100 exercises to try! As I read through the book, I could put the exercises into three categories:
1 "Yes, that would be useful. Wow. I'm going to try this." <Insert post-it note.>
2 "I've done this before and there are even more suggestions for me to try here. Excellent! <Insert post it note.>
3 "Oh no, I don't want to try that. Even the thought of it makes me feel uncomfortable. Why am I feeling so uncomfortable? I must examine this further." <Insert post-it note.>"
I particularly like the exercises under the Self-Esteem topic on turning negative crafty talk into positive affirmations. I practice yoga and have tried unsuccessfully over the years to meditate, attempting to observe and chase negative thoughts from my mind. I just can't do it and it makes me feel even more of a failure than when I started out! I find that replacing the negative with positive is so much better for my self-esteem. And reading Kathryn's crafty spin on this is just marvelous!
Affirmations are also the subject of a current craftivism project "You are So Very Beautiful" by Betsy Greer, godmother of Craftivism and Mary England. (I've written about meeting Betsy in person here. I'm a big fan.) Betsy writes that:
"Craftivism is about healing ourselves as we stitch, and then healing the world with the product, so this project is about taking a microstep to help other people, to let them know that they are so very many wonderful things. And to remind ourselves that we are so many wonderful things."
Handmade signs are being left out for free in Baltimore, Vancouver and London on February 9th. Find out more about the project on Betsy's Craftivism site.
Anyway, back to Hook to Heal before I get too sidetracked! I can see this being a really great book for people who already crochet and find it relaxing and want to get more out of their craft. I can also see this being a good book for people looking for a new relaxing hobby because the exercises are suitable for beginners to the craft. And finally the book would be a useful resource for those who practice crochet as therapy in a professional capacity.
Head on over to Createspace or Amazon (paperback or Kindle) if you want to get your own copy!
New to me: guest blogging
At the end of the year I wrote my first ever guest blog post. It was published on December 18th on the wonderful Kathryn Vercillo's Crochet Consupicence website. The article is entitled "The Back Story of my Growing Blog". Why don't you head on over to read it? If you don't already know Kathryn (pictured below) you should really get acquainted. She is a freelance writer, blogger and fellow crochet lover and I first came across her when I spotted her book "Crochet Saved My Life". In my mind, she is the leading authority on the health benefits of crochet and my holiday reading has been her latest Hook to Heal book which I've enjoyed immensely. What a treat!
It took a long long time to write my guest article. I just wanted it to be perfect because I was so keen to impress Kathryn. I was also visualizing a huge number of people finding out about me for the first time via my guest piece and worried that perhaps they wouldn't like me. Anyway, I mentioned my block to a professional writer friend and he advised me to just write the guest post as though it was for my own blog Crafty Escapism and his advice worked! The words started to flow again. Phew!
I've just finished my second guest post for a brand new crochet magazine being set up by a good friend and talented hooky lady Catherine and I'm repeating to myself "it's going on MY blog, it's going on MY blog..." to prevent any further blockages. It's a big topic - the health benefits of crochet - so keeping to the word limit is the challenging element this time. Of course I'll let you know where it is, when it's live.
All my blogs in one place with Bloglovin'
I've just discovered Bloglovin. I am now keeping all my favorite blogs in one place - genius! I do enjoy reading other people's blogs. I guess that's one of the reasons I'm blogging too, having been inspired by others. In Bloglovin you can search for any blog by name, click on the follow button and new posts will appear in your feed. I've installed the app on my phone and I am loving it.
In the past I've been a little haphazard in the reading of my favorite blogs. For some, I receive emails but they tend to get overlooked in the email deluge; others appear occasionally in my Facebook newsfeed but Facebook decides on what I see based on a complex algorithm so I suspect I miss a lot. I have saved some as icons on my iPad screen but I have icon overwhelm so these get missed. Bloglovin keeps them all together. The design is cute and clean and I'm a sucker for a user friendly interface.
Finding other yarn-related blogs
Bloglovin are also suggesting blogs that I may like based on my existing blog choices. I can enter a search term and search by category. It's all very helpful. Another place I go to find fellow craft bloggers is my favorite go-to-craft community Ravelry. There is a Ravelry group Blogging: a place for and about blogs with over 2,300 members. Not all of these members are bloggers! The group is for crafters who blog, read blogs or want to start a blog. I'm excited about adding new members to my new easy-to-access blog feed. Members of the Blogging group are invited to post their blog articles each month so it's really easy to see to find recent posts in a single thread.
