The Muffs Letter
June 15, 2024
As I go on this fibre craft journey, I am always creating new systems to work through challenging fibre art tasks. I started making systems when I felt sick, exhausted and couldn't get out of bed. I began doing fibre art from my bed anyway. Eventually I dragged myself out and spent an hour each day in my living room studio. Then it was two hours and so on. I thought it was never going to end and my memory suffered, so I began to systemise everything and continue to use these systems to this day. A year back, I thought others may also be struggling, so I shared my systemisation on Etsy and it was a success. Since then I have been sharing Muffs systems (in felting, knitting and hand dyeing) in Muffs Etsy shop.
I kept forgetting what I was doing and made so many mathematical mistakes. I couldn't work for some time so Ibegan selling made to order felted slippers but would often get the sizing and fibre amounts wrong, having to redo 6 hours of labour intensive work again to only have it lost in the mail. I was a beginner, so exhausted and didn't have time for it so I developed a template system for all slipper sizes with all the amounts on each template, so that I would never get it wrong again. Then when I got an order for a pair of slippers I knew exactly what to do, how much it cost and in what time it could be completed. I became a felted slipper maker master and went on to make more felting template shapes and plan to make many more.
Every day I was driven to enjoy the process more and the struggle less. I was being guided towards my interests that aligned with the capacity that I had.
I actually started selling a lot of felted slippers. After 6 physically torturous hours of felting slippers by hand with low iron and low b12 and a multitude of food intolerances, I ended up even more exhausted and burnt out. I decided this wasn't the direction I wanted to go. I pivoted and began to learn to knit and dye my own yarn. This led me on another challenging journey of systemisation. This was my passion but it involved a lot of numbers, calculations and important tid bits to remember. My mind just didn't have the capacity. I began recording everything I did. I wrote down all the recipes. For some reason or another, I couldn't follow knitting instructions so I made my own and I wrote them all down. I repeated and perfected them over and over again so I would never forget and I would be able to draw and write instructions for myself that were easy to follow.
I am still making systems and sharing them. I use every recipe, template, shade chart in Muffs Etsy shop. To this day I still struggle with consistency, social media and writing. I hope that you will journey with me as I discover a new system for implementing this newsletter and as time goes on I will find my unique and consistent way to get my message out there.
I want to share everything I know with you, so you can hone in, save time formulating, cut the confusion and enjoy the process and fibre art part of it more.
Thank you to all of those who have supported Muffs development and continue to cheer me on.
You can view all Muffs listed fibre art systems here:
https://muffs.co.nz
If you are curious about how Muffs Etsy shop has developed, the link is here:
https://www.etsy.com/nz/shop/MuffsMerino
If you prefer to follow on Instagram you can find me at:
@muffsmerino on Instagram
Kindly, Lori from Muffs Merino
