Changes

Hi! Happy Summer!!

I haven’t written in a while. I do have lots of exciting new ideas and works in progress, but nothing finished yet, so... I just wanted to say hello, and share a peek at what’s going on behind the scenes.

The past few years have been a major time of flux for my family and my work. It’s been a huge time of shifting ideas, locations, homes, family size, priorities. We had our second kid in 2017. My husband quit his job and went back to school full-time (he is doing a 4-year program to become a large animal veterinarian, with a focus on food animals)! So, we had to move and then move again. I’ve worked hard to maintain a sense of family stability for the kids throughout all these changes (also TBH I’ve worked hard some days just to keep them alive and to keep myself from yelling at everyone), and found myself thinking deeply about how to be a better parent, and then how to be a better human in this world.

I think all of these big changes gave me the opportunity to stop and ask myself big questions. What is my meaning in the world, what do I have to offer? What’s really important to me, and why am I doing the things I do, how do I create a deeper connection between my personal values and my creative work? All this moving and questioning has left me with some complicated feelings about needing to make changes, and also some really exciting ideas about how I want to move forward, new ways I’d like to work. So I’m in a pretty experimental stage of exploring new ideas right now, which is actually kind of awesome and exciting! And maybe a little bit scary.

I’m not making any drastic changes to my business at the moment, but I’m definitely thinking about making some gentle transitions into new ways of working. I’m feeling out new ways to create, that feel more mindful and less hurried. To be honest, I’m hoping to move towards a model where I create less, and sell less, but do so with more care and more depth of spirit, if that makes any sense. 

This is all a work in progress, but the most exciting new project is creating a new line of scarves with recycled materials. This means that the creative process is much slower, as each piece is different and each one needs to be made in its own way, depending on the material, colors, patterns, etc. I’ve started collecting old t-shirts, cutting them up and printing some of my favorite pattern designs on the reclaimed fabric, then stitching them together by hand, using traditional Japanese sashiko stitches and cotton threads.

I will have the first pieces finished within a few days or weeks, and hope to have nicer pictures to share when they are done. I’m hoping to have a collection of these new recycled / reclaimed scarves finished in time to bring them to Common Ground Fair in the fall. But for now, I’m still in the experimenting and playing stage, which is pretty fun. I am hoping that this project will always have room for playing and experimenting a bit, since by nature each piece will be unique. 

 

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I’m used to sharing finished products or more polished, photogenic parts of my process, but I hope there’s some value in sharing the messy and unfinished parts of the process too. I promise to follow up with some updates on the new work when it’s finished! 

Until then, you can always find some little glimpses of my world on instagram, facebook, and you can find my work online, www.morrisessex.com

Thank you so much for your time and your support!!

Eliza