Getting over 'the ick'

I’m sure you can relate to making something (or writing something, or cooking something, etc.) and at some point during the process thinking ugh… this is just not right…

When I started working on some new pieces for my September pop-up, I had a major ‘ick’ moment. I’ve experienced it with knitting (and sewing) projects in the past, but then it was only ever an annoyance. I could easily set aside my work. It was just a hobby! No repercussions if I didn’t finish those metallic yellow knitted shorts next month or next year… or not at all. But now, as I’m shifting to designing and ‘making’ as a business, the stakes are much higher. This feeling of ick felt like an existential threat.

And so I thought I’d spend some time diagnosing how I got to this point, and sharing how I worked through it. And to be clear I don’t think this feeling is wholly unavoidable - but at least it’s something I can learn from (I hope).

The initial attraction

Early in the summer, I came across a sweater at Goodwill that was a light lime green color - and I had to scoop it up. I liked the idea of making a sweater in what I’m going to call ‘Next Season green’, aka the acid green / chartreuse color I’ve been using for my brand, and I thought this yarn would be a good addition. And then #bratsummer happened - so I picked up this grassy green sweater at Big Reuse.

In August, when I started planning out pieces for my recent September popup, I intended to center everything around these two greens. My loose plan was to knit 1-2 sweaters and a vest in a mixture of green, black, white / beige, with maybe some pink accents. I dabbled in a digital sketching app (Adobe Fresco), and slapped together a mood board, pulling in some more pinks and reds, and called it a day:

The sudden feeling of disgust

Without much more thought, I started knitting a green vest. And I could tell right away, it was bad. I hated it. I finished the back panel, took this photo, and then unraveled it pretty much immediately 🤡

The immediate rejection

Step 1: I put all of the yarn away. My kitchen counter had been covered with yarn for days and I needed to not see it anymore. Especially the green.

Step 2: I worked on something completely different for a day. Specifically, I sat down to write this newsletter about the sweater I had designed and knit for New York Climate Week:

New York In-Between Week

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Ultimately I had to pivot & push ahead. I couldn’t show up to the pop-up empty handed, so I needed to change my plan. I was already set on the idea of testing out selling smaller (less expensive) accessories, specifically scrunchies. So I abandoned the plan to make the 1-2 green sweaters and a vest, and instead spent the rest of my time working on scrunchies. I decided that I’d bring my most recent custom sweaters to the pop-up as samples - even though they weren’t for sale, they were great display props & ‘proof’ of the product design / quality.

The post-mortem

Looking back, it’s obvious to me now that I just didn’t spend enough meaningful time on design. I went through some of the motions, but I didn’t have a well-enough defined vision of the end products. And, I hadn’t done enough testing, editing, and iteration to validate that the materials & colors I was using would look good together. I had started knitting without knowing exactly what I was making. Not so surprising that what came out wasn’t good.

A couple of ‘tactical’ takeaways -

• Before unraveling the vest, I took a deeper look and tried to identify sections where the colors *did* work together. I liked the light lime with the natural white, and the pink. I took note, because maybe this combo could work for a summer-y piece in the future.

• The grassy green had more blue in it than the greens in my mood board and it just wasn’t cooperating with the other colors I’d selected, and I’d started to hate it. I reflected on one of my earlier pieces, which incorporated a strand of salmon-colored yarn. Honestly, I’d thought that the salmon color was pretty ugly on it’s own, and my ‘solution’ was to pair it with browns, grays, and neutrals, creating an ombré effect that I really liked in the end. So I knew it was possible to work with a challenging color. I did some color palette-ing and I could imagine taking a similar ombré approach with dark teals and grays, maybe for late-winter or spring:

  

Learning for the next go around

Something I’ve struggled with in this journey, especially the transition from a personal project & hobby to a brand, is spending time on design, and design-related activities. Subconsciously (and I guess now consciously), this part of the process feels somehow indulgent to me? The purchases I’ve felt most guilty about have been markers and colored pencils, for sketching my ideas.

Maybe it’s because these activities (sketching, creating collages and mood boards, etc.) have been hobbies of mine in the past. Maybe it’s because there is constant and overwhelming pressure to jump to ‘execution’, in general. Even in my professional experience as a digital product manager, the visioning / scoping / design phase of a new feature or product often got short shrift.

As part of a reflection / retro exercise after the popup, I wrote the following reminders (mantras?):

• Create beautiful products

• Tell an engaging story

• Put yourself out there and talk to people

• Stick to your values

Sometimes my brain tricks me into feeling like I can’t afford to spend my time on these activities, when the reality is - I can’t afford NOT to.

This isn’t an argument for letting perfectionism win out over ‘good enough’ but to always keep in mind what’s important. And, especially as I think about / plot out the future of Next Season, these experiences give me a better understanding of where the business needs the most help.