As I write, the house is filled with boxes and empty shelves as we are getting ready to move into our new home in Ballarat. We will have a proper garden again, there’s a little greenhouse, room for chickens and over a dozen established fruit and nut trees in the back and front garden.

There’s not been much energy left for making at the moment but I do have some spinning on the go. It gives my brain a rest from all the logistics of relocating four people and a dog whilst keeping everything as normal as possible.

This is a lovely chocolate Finn x Corriedale from Fairfield Finn’s shearing from last year. I am making a worsted 3 ply fingering weight for a cardigan and the spinning is giving me such pleasure.

This is an unstyled picture of my making and mending station. It’s a lovely but battered Deco occasional table that I always intend to be clear of clutter but is usually completely colonised by my bits and pieces. I sit in the chair next to it, right next to the window and the natural light and reattach buttons, mend dog toys and bear ears and sew up holes in tights and leggings. It is also where I spin and knit.

Perhaps you are wondering why I didn’t tidy up to take this pic, after all, that is what we do on blogs and Instagram. We style the set, take the pic, edit the pic and then publish a beautiful, ordered scene. But life is not like that. Life is messy. Packing tape sits next to a vintage tin next to an ugly but useful plastic bag for my flicker which I don’t want to loose. My knitting bag is pretty side down and I think there are even discarded hair ties from my kids on the table. You can just make out my knitting basket underneath the table, a medusa-like tangle of yarn and sleeves. My spinning wheel is just out of shot.

I find I am becoming increasingly wearisome of all the hidden labour of artifice which dominates our online craft photos. Orderly lines of tools and staged knitting with cakes and tea just tire me at the moment. We are not companies finessing every aspect of our brand…we are makers and making is messy. Making is about process and skill not simply a finished object set within other pretty objects. Where can we see the process? Where can we see the entrails and bones of being creative?

Let us embrace the entrails of our creativity dear readers, they are the true medals of everyday life.