Nourishing Your Mind While Crocheting
6 Ways to Feed Your Soul While You Crochet
One of the things I love about crocheting is that I can nourish my mind while my hands are busy. I have so much I want to know. My soul is hungry and I need to feed it. Creativity is coursing through my brain waves and I need to harness it. I am full of ideas and always longing for more.
“Ideas lead to thoughts that turn into actions that form the character and conduct of children.” Charlotte Mason.
This is true for all persons, mothers included. It is why we must nourish our minds on worthy ideas.
So now, how do we get these great ideas? From great minds. And we can put ourselves in touch with them while we crochet!
I began reading as an escape. It was what I needed at the time, when I was a child in an overwhelming world. Thanks to CS Lewis, Charlotte Mason and others literature has become so much more than a refuge to me. I see how ideas have been passed down to me through the books I’ve read. And how I have always hungered for that mind food as Mason explains it. I read with more intention these days, but no less pleasure. And with that I will begin the list, 6 Ways to Nurture Your Mind While Crocheting.
#1 Literature via audio books
Here is where audio books have changed my world! I was against them for so long, until I heard a wise mother explain that people have been telling stories orally forever. For the most part of history people have been getting their information and ideas through their ears. That changed my perspective. I still prefer a physical copy of a book and usually have 3 or more going at any one time, but I always have an audiobook cued up as well. The right narrator can make it such an enjoyable experience. You also need the right books, those that have withstood the test of time are a good way to start.
The literary Life is a great resource for finding beautiful stories and they have a podcast to listen to as or after you read! Their reading challenges are a great way to get started if you are new to great literature.
My favorite audio book to date is David Copperfield by Charles Dickens narrated by Richard Armitage. If you need something shorter to start with, I also love Heidi by Johanna Spyri narrated by Johanna Ward.
Audible, Librivox, Libby and your local library are the sources I use for audio books.
#2 Audio bible
This could fall under #1, but I feel it deserves its own place in the list. Sometimes I just listen and absorb the word of God passively while I crochet. Sometimes I am more intentional with it. There are apps that allow you to repeat a verse in order to memorize it. I’ve also used you tube or podcasts for Bible verses set to music.
#3 Pray
What better way to feed your mind than to speak with your creator? Take time to pray over the work of your hands. Pray for the person it is intended for, pray for the loved one that will be wrapped in the fibers you weave together. Speak blessings over the head or hands that will fit snuggly inside the finished work. Talk to your God about whatever you like. Spend this time with Him and thank Him for the blessing of hands and yarn and people you love.
#4 Listen to music
Composers, traditional hymns, folk songs passed down like history, fill your mind with sounds that are true, good and beautiful. Just listen and learn them by heart and praise God for the rhythm, the sounds, and the stories in each one.
#5 Explore your imagination.
Take time to let your mind drift over the seas of your consciousness. We are stimulated with information and entertainment nonstop, just shut it off and ride the waves of thought, stored up in your mind. If you find this one hard or not enjoyable please go back to #1 through #4. You need an ample supply of ideas and you will never be bored, even when your own imagination is your only entertainment.
#6 Just Be Present
I am constantly being pulled so many ways during the day. As a stay at home/homeschooling mom, there is laundry, dishes, lessons, messes, basic needs always calling for my attention. Sometimes I feel like I am always doing for those I love, but never really giving them my full attention. I find that I struggle to just be present.
So I always have a project that is transportable. Something I can take outside while the kids play in the backyard or sit next to them on the couch. Crocheting is soothing to me, it tends to shut down the to do list in my brain. Rest for 15 minutes, sit, crochet, listen. Really hear to the birds chirping, the wind in the trees, the little voice taking all the time in the world to get one very important sentence out. The impatience that I often meet my loves with dissolves when my hands are busy and my mind is not distracted.
It’s important that woman continue to grow and learn. We were created curious, desiring to know. Our hearts are creative, our hands are meant to make and love and our minds yearn to be in touch with the world around us and the ideas that have been passed down and resonated since the beginning. Let’s go crochet outside and read good books, lots of them.
Read my thoughts on why nourishing your mind and crocheting brings rest here.
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My name is Heather and I have been crocheting for over 20 years and making up my own patterns for almost as long. As a home school mother, heavily influenced by Charlotte Mason, I have a passion for mother culture – that is the continued self education of mothers. Through learning useful skills, creating art and reading great literature, all who so desire can continue to grow in wisdom and virtue. I believe that for mothers this is especially important as an example to our children and for the nourishing of our souls.
Through these free crochet tutorials and free crochet patterns I hope to share the joy and rest that I find in this art. In this space I pray to form a community of like minded woman, who are inspired to live up to their potential as whole people formed in the image of a wise, creative and good God.
Please leave a comment below or find me on facebook and Instagram. Share what you have created and let me know if this pattern was helpful!
-Heather
