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Knitting for What We Need, Crafting for Transformation & Care
- Sönna Schuttner
- Aug 21
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 28
How craft can sustain us in seasons of transformation, and why the right balance of simple and complex knitting matters.
8.21.2025
My dear Tangled Makers,
I have been attending a circle in a magic garden this summer, where we’ve been talking about birth — not only the birth of children, but the birthing of ourselves and our projects. This week the theme was transformation. In the context of my work on the literal transformation of my fiber practice into Wool & Wyrd, I was struck by how much I need the steadying support of knitting and my connection to craft. By pressuring myself to "make" this transformation come about before I return to classes in the fall, I was loosing touch with the very reason for it. I was gifted a phrase this week coined by Queer Nature: Resist Disenchantment.
This entry in the Wool & Weather journal is written by me, Sönna, as a reflection on my fiber practice and my life. No AI ghostwriting, no ads. Just field notes from Wool & Wyrd, where I share how craft sustains me through the seasons of change.
Resistance is an active commitment, and in many cases, an imperative. My practice demands that I create space for enchantment: the quiet joy of stitches slipping through my fingers, the green smell left on my hands after walking with the Land, the warmth my shoulders hold after being kissed by the sun.
Jump to:
✦ The Risk of Forgetting Why We Began ✦
In the space created by the break from classes this summer, I have crammed a to-do list three summers long. I know soon I will be called back to learning prototype drugs, making care plans and creating patho-maps for various diseases and will have little space for the spread sheet side of Wool & Wyrd. Rebranding is no small undertaking and in my usual overachiever fashion I took it all on head first.
Diving in head first caused me to hit the paradox head-on: In becoming so busy doing the “work” that is necessary to share this practice, as I feel called to do, I risk loosing the very enchantment that has called me to share.
We all know that even craft can get swept into the productivity machine. We say we’re resting, but inside we’re still measuring worth in finished objects, deadlines, or whether a project is “worth posting.” Do you ever feel guilty for Knitting without producing? Or the opposite—guilty for wanting to stitch quickly when all the social media posts praise “slow stitching”? Have you ever wondered if your Craft “counts” when it doesn’t look like the perfect coffee-and-yarn tableau?
In becoming so busy doing the “work” that is necessary to share this practice, as I feel called to do, I risk loosing the very enchantment that has called me to share.
✦ Creative Endeavors and the To-Do List ✦
While sitting in the circle this week, I considered my works-in-progress and realized: none of them were giving me what I needed. Each one demanded focus, thinking, or record-keeping—good things in themselves, but not what my heart and hands were craving. And in not having my craft to call me up for air, I was diving ever deeper into my to-do lists.
... there is a time and place for the easy knitting, and a time and place to challenge ourselves—just as life has lazy rivers and rapids. Both are needed. Both matter.
Take my Bluster Shawl. Usually, she’s the definition of an easy, comforting knit. But somewhere along the way I ran into a math error that needed solving, and until I worked it out, she wasn’t a safe harbor anymore. She was a puzzle waiting to be solved.
Then there was my million miles of secret knitting (yes, secret so I can’t share her yet, though she is demanding many hours). This project is simple enough in and of itself, but she requires me to weigh yarn, measure progress, make careful notes, and resist the urge to just knit intuitively (that last bit is especially hard for me). It’s the kind of work where I can’t trust my instincts, I have to follow instructions exactly and ensure that they are clearly relayed.
And then, the spinning project. My plan is ambitious: to spin suuuuuper thin singles and chain-ply them into self-striping sock yarn with shorter color changes. In order to make that vision real, I needed consistency—1200 yards of consistency. (Dude, that is twelve football fields of single-ply before the chain-plying even begins!) Which meant my fingers couldn’t just do their usual intuitive dance. I have to instruct them, moment by moment, to behave as I ask. And let me tell you: my fingers don’t listen unless they sense my eye on them. If they sense my attention has wandered, even for a moment, they go back to their old ways, laughing at me while they spin the fingering weight yarn they love to spin. 🤣
All this meant that my hands were busy but my spirit was not being fed. I wasn’t resting into my craft—I was working in it. Every project became another item on the to-do list. I need my knitting and spinning projects to be the stable ground I can return to as I craft this transformation.
Here is a little WIP Wednesday reel to give you a peek, not just of my projects, but of my current state of being a hot mess! (Literally ‘cause it is so hot out!)
✦The Balance Between Rest Challenge ✦
Knitting Pattern To Support Us Through Change
On my way home from the Magic Garden I made a decision: I owed it to myself to create the space for a project that could sustain me. A project that would let me knit without thinking too hard, without keeping score. So when I got home, I sat down and solved the math mystery in my Bluster Shawl, restoring her to her rightful place as an easy, cozy companion. (It was such a simple error - I needed only to set aside space to go hunting for it.) With that one adjustment, she once again became a project that could carry me through transformation, a blam rather than a burden.
Sometimes I need to remind myself: there is a time and place for the easy knitting, and a time and place to challenge ourselves—just as life has lazy rivers and rapids. Both are needed. Both matter.
For me, the entire Bluster Pattern Collection are those steady companions. Each knitting pattern plays on the broken rib stitch which is simple and easy to memorize and grounding. They are the projects I reach for when my hands need to move and my spirit needs rest. If you are interested in exploring the collection, I linked these images to the Wool & Wyrd webshop page where you can find them all.
And then there are patterns like the Plant Lady Shawl, Bellingham Bay Shawl, or the Acorn Street Beanie which delight the part of me that craves challenge. They are intricate, rewarding, and intellectually stimulating. They offer me the deep satisfaction that comes from coaxing order from complexity, from holding concentration long enough to bring lace or cables to life. (I'll go ahead and link up each of the images below to their shop listing also.)
There is no one right way. Sometimes we need enchantment through ease. Sometimes we find it through effort. The magic is in knowing what we need, and just as importantly, making space for projects that meet us there.
✦ Resisting Disenchantment in Craft and Life ✦
That phrase—Resist Disenchantment—is still circling in my mind. It keeps reminding me that my fiber practice isn’t only about producing things. It’s about remembering why I make in the first place.
I talk about Wool & Wyrd as my fiber practice because I believe craft connects us to something greater than ourselves. It connects us back through time, to all the hands that have made before us. It connects us forward, to those who will hold what we create. It connects us to the Land, as we shape what she offers into warmth and beauty. And it connects us to each other.
And connection takes tending. I reflected on that deeply in the context of community and wrote about it in last week’s Wool & Weather entry →You can read about that here»
To resist disenchantment, and to tend my connection to both Craft and the Land, I’ve set a few small practices for myself. Three times a day, an alarm reminds me to pause the work of transformation and return to what sustains the work: once to knit (or spin), once to walk with the Land, and once to weed.
I am giving myself permission to choose whichever project I please - be it on a to do list, relaxing enough to let my mind wander, or complex and entertaining. The walks leave my shoulders whispering of the sun’s kisses and my hands fragrant with green (because I’m always stopping to have a conversation with one plant or another and inevitably end up petting them). The weeding allows me to care for the space I call home and my ego is pleased by winning a little battle I have engaged in with the invasive plantie who thinks she can take over. She is spikey and is not welcome here because she bullies the deer and sheep, cutting them up inside. She came from elsewhere and doesn’t play nice with the creatures who lived here before her. So I pull her, giving the space back to those who cannot stand up to her and allowing me to participate in the balance.
These practices remind me that enchantment isn’t abstract. It’s in the dirt under my fingernails, the stitches on my needles, the warmth of community.
✦ The Final Thread ✦
Craft, at its heart, is more than what we make with our hands. It is how we shape ourselves in seasons of change, how we steady our breath when the world feels uncertain, and how we resist the current of productivity long enough to listen to what our hands, hearts, and the Land are telling us.
In times of transformation, we need both kinds of projects: the simple knits that let us rest and breathe, and the complex ones that challenge us to grow and spark that deep sense of satisfaction. Craft (and for me, especially knitting) offers both comfort when we need to be carried and stimulation when we need to be stretched. The balance is where the sustenance lies. And in that balance, we find a way to resist disenchantment, because it calls us back to the pulse of connection: to ourselves, to the Land beneath our feet, and to the long lineage of makers whose stitches still echo through our hands.
May our stitches shape more than fabric, may ground us in craft, Land, and community,
~ Sönna🌀
✨ What projects are supporting you right now? What steps do you take to resist disenchantment? I’d love to hear your thoughts and see your WIPs in the comments! Do these reflections resonate with you? Share them with a friend!
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Wool & Wyrd is my fiber practice, empowering makers to knit with confidence and intention, shaping not just our stitches, but our connection to Earth, craft, and community.
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So beautiful, insightful and full of wisdom.
This post is oh so true. It is so easy to get caught up in various self-imposed fiber arts deadlines that it takes all the enjoyment out of our practice. Thanks for the reminder to resist disenchantment and enjoy the process!