One week two finished projects, that‘s what I promised. And? Do you think I have finished?
SUSPENSEEEEEEE
Yes, nearly. Both the Muru Kai shawl and the hexagon jacket are finished in knitting/crochet. The step which is still missing is sewing in the yarn ends, but even this I already started. While thinking about this progress and pondering how I will write about it I noticed how uninteresting it seems to simply finish a thing… without bigger hiccups, no drama... I simply got it done. No real topic for an interesting blogpost.
Unless I discovered a secret method to get everything done under the blue sky. 😯
Today‘s blogpost will on the one hand summarize the lace pattern on my hexagon jacket and the core ideas of „Tiny Habit‘s“ from BJ Fogg. A book I obviously am very late to discover and perhaps all of you have read meanwhile? If not you can get a first idea here and blatantly lie to your friends stating you „naturally“ read the book a long time ago.
Tiny Habits
Let’s start with the Tiny Habit book... No idea if it was by chance that I started this book a week ago or if my mind was primed through the needlework wip challenge to find solutions for all the unfinished tasks (aka needlework projects). The revelation of Tiny Habits is: do not rely on motivation. Motivation will come and go and there is no chance one will succeed with tasks which need more than one action by hoping motivation will hit several times. Techniques which focus on increasing motivation or increasing willpower are bound to fail. Motivation, so BJ Fogg, is good for huge one-time actions like defending your child or fighting for justice etc. But daily writing into a journal or eating healthier are not things which are implemented by motivations. And finishing a multitude of wips falls into the latter category (in my opinion – perhaps it’s different for you and you get a huge adrenaline kick out of sewing on 23 buttons in a row…:-D)
So, if motivation is not the driving factor, what then? BJ Fogg presents his readers a schematic which shows how much more two other factors count: prompt and ability. He specifies that there are two variables - motivation on the y-axis and ability on the x-axis. Inside this space he identifies an „action-line“ everything under it will not get done, everything above will be done when presented with the right prompt. I will visualize this with something extreme: Your motivation to sew well-fitting high fashion clothes which let yourself look like a super model may be high, but you barely learned to sew. You can see this will get you not above the action line and you will not sew a fashion collection desite the high motivation (I am speaking of myself :-DDD). But there is hope…
Wips and Tiny Habits
Now we will look at our boxes/closet full of wips. For example, my hexagon jacket as it was last week (sleeve cuffs with lace part missing, jacket needed some rows at the middle of the back, border stitches missing, and the yarn ends needed sewing in).
On the motivation axis I would say it sits in the lower middle because:
- I meanwhile have enough handmade jackets in my closet
- The initial rush about the unusual construction is gone (I now understand how its crocheted)
- The weather is warm, and I won’t wear it right away
- But I like the yarn color and have some garments I want to combine it with
- I like the fit on me.
Now let’s look at my ability:
- I can do all stitches which are used at the lace part of the sleeves
- There are only some rows to be done which won’t need much time
- I am unsure how I need to adapt the sleeve pattern, as the original lace part of the pattern will result in much too long sleeves
I would conclude that for me the project is fairly easy… not super easy because of the modifying thing on the sleeves. Here is the schematic with my hexagon jacket
Surprise surprise (not) you can see it is above the action line. And here come the third variable into play. Although a project is above the action line does not mean it gets done. Because you also need a prompt or trigger to start the behavior. As you can observe my jacket rested in a box for longer although I was obviously able and mildly motivated to finish it, but what I needed was the @needleworkmonday #wip challenge to get me started. This was the prompt which started my behavior.
Sleeves are nearly done
Naturally this is not all but only the basis of Fogg's behavior theory. It is only the method to evaluate your habit/behavior and then you naturally need to act. In my case, as the hexagon jacket already was over the action line I only needed a prompt. But it will not be so easy for my „dungeon“ wips (@crosehille nicely coined term) which surely falls under the action line (as you can see already as the wips are not touched by me for ages, no action at all).
BJ Fogg’s though has a action plan for behaviors which seem too hard or too boring to do (like dungeon wips) and hopefully I will next week present you another wip I tackled with his method. And moreover, I will give you a (completely unscientific) review of his method and perhaps we all discover together a perfect way to get everything done. EVERTHING 😉
Addendum: Crochet Hexagon Jacket
For my hexi jacket I decided to not crochet the whole amount of 18 lace rows. After I sewed the sleeves together, I crocheted two rows of dc and simultaneously decreased the stitches to 44 (which you need according to the pattern for the lace). Then I knitted the next three lace rows which consist of three different clusters. I finished with 6 sc rows where I decreased more than half of the stitches to form the balloon sleeves. Last row of cuffs and around the whole cardigan I used my beloved twisted single crochet. In my eyes this stitch gives such a polished finish.
I hope you have a lovely and successful wip-week 💕 And if you like, tell me about your best strategy to finish hard things? (did you read Tiny Habits already? Your opinion?)
From 1.7.2022 to 31.7.2022 you can buy my Basquy NFT's on opensea (not expensive and unique - go fo it 😇) The project is curated by Artespace gallery und you can find all of my ten artworks here. Buyers get free entry to Venice Biennale 2022.
Thank you @crosheille for initiating and @marblely and @kattycrochet for hosting the #needleworkmonday and the community builder team @lauramica and @romeskie I am so glad to be part of. If you want to see more beautiful projects with yarn, fabric, and most of all needles, follow @needleworkmonday. Or even better grab your needles and keyboard and join the #needleworkmonday community.
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This makes sense. It explains the psychology of my bags of UFOs. !BBH
For me it explained why I have so many problems to start huge projects (long text for example) Hopefully I will have time to try the method more deeply
Because this is such an awesome post, here is a BBH Tip for you.
. Keep up the fantastic work
Big thanks for joining us here and I love the idea you shared. Thanks.
Happy you liked Foggs method :-)
I like the cuffs on the hexi jacket and its overall shape.
I get the prompt/possible combination - the prompt is where needleworkmonday (or any third party) prompt/challenge is so useful!
Waiting in suspense for the method to work with dungeon wips ... 👽
I was not sure about the cuffs at first as I also liked the wide version of the sleeves, before I finished them. Good to hear you like the style. I am not sure if I should write it in here as I kind of committed to finish my wips, but I maybe want to start another hexagon jacket :-DDDDDD
I hope I did not bite more off than I can chew with my dungeon promise... because I think the method works best for long term habits.
Hmmmm... but perhaps "having too many wips/not finishing" qualifies as a long term habit :-DDD
I love the sleeves and it's looking so nice on the jacket, thanks for sharing @neumannsalva
Ohhhh so nice to hear you like the style. I was not sure if I should crochet the narrow cuffs or if it would look better when the sleeves are wide at the cuffs.
I have to admit it, that I really love your way of writing. It looks like @neumannsalva was really talking to me in real. And I can't help but smile of the words you're using. And I started to wish to be like you. But then I realized that there's only one @neumannsalva that can do that. Though I'm still hoping to learn your ways. 😁
Anyway, I was amaze how you able to draw the idea from the book to easily explain it to us. And how you're able to sample your wip on that x and y axis thingy. And your hexagon jacket looks pretty. I like it. 🥰
THank you so much, this is such a huge compliment and I am blushing. I am not always sure my English is ok and that my humour is understandable from the writing :-D And please don't feel pressure to change, I love your posts, the wonderful photos and how you dive into the crochet. And I looooved your idea to give the wips levels of difficulty <3
And with the book: I am really interested into the behaviour model of BJ FOgg and I already tried to explain it to my husband... then I thought, why not use it for needlework. So glad, you liked the schematics.
Cool jacket @neumannsalva. I wonder when would i ever made a jacket like that.. and my best strategy to finish hard things is i usually push myself harder to do, i usually make tiny steps everyday by pushing my self harder
Thank youuu for the compliment. So sad its super warm right now and I have to possibility to wear the jacket... And with the hard things, I guess I am similar and mostly try with pushing harder. This new method though tries a different approach,, kind of making things easier for oneself. I am very curious if it will work...🤓
You should be patient to be able to wear the jacket then :). Well i wish you a good luck with the method @neumannsalva.
Thank you so much for the support <3
Yaaay!! You’re done making the hexagon cardigan. It’s so beautiful, I love the cuffs you made for the sleeves 😍😍
Yes, I am done 🎉 And I only tried it because of you 💕 I have seen this construction but always said „later“ Your cute cropped version was so nice, that I needed to try it out (now I dream of another one, but I am forbidden to start something new… you know wip challenge 🤣)
Thank you again for your lovely post about this hexagon construction
I love how you took the philosophy of the book and used your jacket as an example. This really does make sense and I think it will help a lot of people. Seriously, now I’m going to be thinking this way with the next WIP I find 😁. So glad you shared this, thank you!
I really love the look of your jacket and the cuffs on the sleeves. Congratulations for finishing your goal. Though, I must confess I LOL’d when you said the only thing missing was “sewing in the yarn ends”! 🤣🤣😂
I laughed because we know how much you
enjoydon’t love doing that.😄😘
wow! great!!! you made it!!!!! I love how you finished the sleeves. this jacket looks great with your dress. very interesting ideas in this book. but it's not so easy to immediately catch the author's idea 😃
Oooh we should definitely share more ways on how-to-workout-motivation, or should I say getting-things-done, since you said it, motivation might not be the only thing needed to complete a project (I know that to well, the desire to sew all those fashionable clothes that you want to wear right away once you had the idea and not wait for hours of work you have to put into it) I guess enjoying the process is another important point, to me, sometimes there is no point to force eighter.. what I mean is there is times for certain work (for example not, late at night when you already tired or when you hungry and so on...)
And the jacked looks soo pretty!! I love how you finished the arms! Also it does look like it would be still very wearable, despite the warm weather, over a dress as you did:) (the evenings might still be chilly)