It's Okay to Slow Down - Working on a Long-term Project
Recently, I finished my Vipers in the Ivy fantasy suiting project. This took over a year of planning, weaving, sewing, embroidering, etc. Well over 200+ hours went into the creation of this outfit, and I wouldn’t take any minute of it back. I learned so many things throughout this saga, from new techniques to more efficient ways of working old techniques. Most of all, I learned how patient I can be, and that with a little determination and resilience, I can accomplish great things.
This project was a “re-do” of an old project from many years ago. I designed, wove, and sewed a Victorian-inspired hooded jacket. While I loved that project, I have learned so much more about my crafts and myself, and decided to revisit this project. As I’ve been working on this project, I’ve been documenting the whole process and uploading it to my YouTube channel. I was trying to maintain a consistent post schedule while outputting good quality work - I realized really quickly that this wasn’t sustainable.
The nature of craft and art is that it’s slow. Even when you’re using tools that help speed up the process, the heart of it is slow work. Once I untethered myself from a consistent post schedule and let each segment take as long as it takes, I found a new joy and love for the work. I know enough about myself that I put out poor quality when I rush or push myself past the exhaustion point. If I’m going to spend any amount of time doing this, I should take the time to do it well.
These days, when the social media algorithms are changing faster than my hairstyle, and the need to chase the “hot new thing” is prevalent in the content creator community; there’s a desire to get as much work as you can out that can ride that wave. The number of videos I’ve seen that glorify the rushing of work concerns me, as it almost never fails that the creators and artists say something along the lines of “I’m not happy with how this turned out,” or “If I had more time I could have done it better,” or “This project burned me out.” It’s that last part that makes me saddest. Making should be something that brings us joy, comfort, satisfaction - it shouldn’t make us hate what we do. When I used to design knitwear patterns and projects for a living, I fell into this pattern of behavior, and it nearly killed all passion I had for textiles. I hate to see talented makers dropping off due to burn out, and resenting the work they once loved.
It’s okay to slow down. Take the long way round. Take the time to put in the detail and work that will make you happy and proud of what you made. I understand that a professional content creator who relies on their content to make ends meet must in some way play along with the current state of things, but I hope that we can move forward and allow for some change to happen so fewer makers burn out and lose passion for their art.