Years ago I was in the Brownies (like Girl Guides but for 7-10 year olds) and wanted to get my art badge. The criteria was to make a piece of art, so I took in one of my paintings, expecting to straightforwardly trade it for the badge. (I’ve written about this before, but am thinking about it again just now).
I swiftly learned I’d need to work harder. The Brownies leader (Brown Owl) sat me down with a pile of pencils and told me to draw a messy, sprawling spider plant that was sitting on a filing cabinet in the corner.
“It’s so hard” I whined. “There are so many leaves, how am I supposed to keep track of them all”? “Why must I draw something so difficult and ordinary”?
But Brown Owl believed in me. She instructed me to look at the spaces around the leaves to help me find its position in space, to look at the colours of the plant. Really look. I’d never looked so hard before. My mark-making became curious, careful, intentional. A record of seeing and discovering.
I stopped feeling cross and became totally absorbed.
By the end of that evening, I’d earned my art badge.
But I’d gained something bigger, too: the priceless insight that we can find wonder and beauty in our lives just through paying attention to ordinary things, and celebrating them creatively. This idea has stayed with me since, and lives on in my work nearly forty years later
Before that amazing evening, I’d always looked to my imagination – castles, princesses, fantastical beasts – for things to draw and paint. This was my first experience of looking at something mundane and finding that this, too, could be extraordinary. It was my first experience of making art by looking curiously at the messy wonderful stuff of daily life – a process I’ve been repeating ever since.
It’s a sentiment that’s beautifully summarised by this poster from Christine Hill’s 2004 exhibition Home Office, at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York City. I visited and interviewed Christine Hill then – 21 years ago (!) – and this photo I took has been above my desk everywhere I’ve worked, ever since.
That’s what I mean when I talk about celebrating daily life creatively.
Most of life is not fancy.
Most of life doesn’t look like the painting of a castle or a fantastical beast or a princess that I brought into Brownies to trade for an art badge.
Most of the time it looks much more like a straggly spider plant on a filing cabinet. And most of the time, when we lavish love, attention and creativity on our life – when we sit down to trace and notice and love on its details – we can see that it is beautiful and complex and wonderful. And we remember that we are capable and effective and resourceful. That we can do stuff. Creativity is a source of hope, a source of love, a way to insist that little things matter. A way to heap up attention and care on the world around us. A way to form connections.
This is what I care about here at KNITSONIK. More than anything, and especially now.
I care about cherishing what we normally overlook. The things that are underloved. I care about creative processes that give us a deeper feeling of connection to our real lives. With each other. With the details of being a human being on this planet. I’m interested in what happens when we take the time to care for those things, to tend to them and give them our attention; to make them big and bright and shiny through our creativity. In the power and process of that. In how those kinds of creative processes can give us courage, and make us feel hopeful and effective.
I find I’m at my happiest and fullest when I am encouraging you to join me in this mission. I feel like I’m doing what I am supposed to be doing with this one human life I have when I am using it to show you how to knit your life, journal it, or – forthcoming – how to commemorate it with rubber stamps.
It doesn’t matter if my hands can knit or not, the impulse to do this one joyful thing – to keep on celebrating daily life through creative practice – keeps pushing me onwards.
I strongly feel that every tiny heartfelt thing we make in this mode – however small – is one small sandbag of hope that we can stack against a tide of despair.
When I published my KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook – a book that shows you how to turn your everyday life into stranded colourwork knitting – it was meant to be practical. I wanted to show how you to take any object in the world and, with some creative effort, find ways to turn its details into a palette of yarn shades; motifs to knit; and shimmering sequences of colour.
But perhaps the more important thing about the Sourcebook is that it also a book about cherishing your life. It is a book that says your street is important enough to warrant going to the trouble of turning it into knitting. That says your commute means something. That weeds and bricks and roads mean something. It may not seem political to insist on the importance of these small things, but it is.
Especially at times when the people in power are doing everything to crush out hope.
Eleven years after publishing the Sourcebook, people still write to tell me it is causing them to find inspiration everywhere. I’m so humbled by these messages and so happy, too. Because I know how lovely it is to learn that the possibility for wonder is all around.
In the act – in the work – of drawing that spider plant, I realised it was wonderful. And that doing the creative work of trying to really apprehend it – had entirely changed my relationship with it. Nearly forty years later, I have forgotten neither the spider plant nor that precious revelation.
Why am I telling you this?
Because I want you to know that I’m planning to keep trying to pass on the spark given to me by Brown Owl, years ago. In my books and patterns, in my school, here on my blog. Because I hope you’ll like this story and that it will remind you of times when you felt the power of your own creativity. Because I think it’s important to remember in this moment that we can find and make a special kind of magic. Because in the world of 2025, I feel we need that magic more than ever.
Because I hope you maybe feel the same?
Do you?
Let me know in the comments.
Yours in celebrating daily life with whatever is at hand,
Fx
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Felix, Thank you for this post and for your work. Because of tarmac Tuesdays, I still find myself noticing the tiny details of my daily walks- plats throwing shadows on the walkway, lichen growing on an old fence. You a wonder and a treasure.
I always love when the opportunity arises to share my favorite quote, and it so fits with the ethos of this post. “Recognize joy when it arrives in the plain brown wrappings of everyday life.” (Judith Viorst) I have strived to live by these words since discovering them as a teenager. Framing this as an act of resistance makes it even better.
Felix, I love it when your emails come! I know I will be thrilled by your enthusiasm, your insight and your love of sharing. You have been such an inspiration to me in my knitting, weaving, journaling, art, just EVERYTHING! Thank you for continuing to activate my creative mind.
I love that, ‘celebrating daily life with whatever is at hand’ – so needed and important, sometimes I need reminding that it’s rarely our grand gestures, but our repeated small intentional acts that add to the goodness in the world. Thank you, Felix, you enrich my life immeasurably – and I’m definitely looking forward to your rubber stamps course!
I love the connection you make between celebrating the everyday and resistance. There’s an idea I keep encountering in these times of terrible destruction which is along the lines of ‘mend the bit of life that you can touch’, which I think is similar. For me it’s especially about nature – celebrating the often unnoticed nearby, which is as full of wonder as any of the big, famous places if we learn how to look.
I love that, ‘celebrating daily life with whatever is at hand’ – so needed and important, sometimes I need reminding that it’s rarely our grand gestures, but our repeated small intentional acts that add to the goodness in the world. Thank you, Felix, you enrich my life immeasurably – and I’m definitely looking forward to your rubber stamps course!
Thank you so much for your letter of encouragement! There is so much worry here in the US, every day seems to reveal a new calamity. Digging into my creative self has been hard under such weighty concerns, but as you put it so well it is a bringer of hope, learning, and delight.
I love this and have saved it to re-read when the world gets a tad overwhelming. I am unable to practice my art (hand-knit design and knitting) full-time but when I do have the time … wow, you have hit it on the head! There is great good in the world, and sometimes it takes REALLY looking at a situation to find it … but it is there. Sending hugs!
I retired 3.5 years ago and have been loving having unlimited time to explore creativity, which I do every day. I recently ran into someone I know slightly who said “Yeah, I tried retirement but sitting around all day doing nothing was not for me, so I went back to work.” I used to work with a number of people who felt the same way — could not picture a life outside of the day to day work. Lack of imagination? I think about that a lot and feel sad for someone who cannot see the potential that free time allows one to explore!
I so look forward to your posts-the words, art, love of the small beauties in life. I am inspired to create and reminded to try to relax/exhale in that moment. Thank you
Yesss. So much survival and joy in noticing the tiny amazing things. I think it was Robert Macfarlane who I read saying ‘wonder is an essential survival tool ‘ (but he probably got it from yet another careful observer ) Particularly since becoming sick & disabled, practising this has been one of the most valuable things for me. I’ve loved your recent stamp carving BTW & you’ve inspired me to start trying it out too! Thank you
Thank you for introducing us to Brown Owl and her wisdom, Felix. I love that you sound more at peace, Felix.
Always listening over in California,
Mary Jane
You have a lovely way of expressing yourself. Couldn’t agree more with you. I’m a lifelong every day knitter and I’m starting to bird watch. It really slows you down.
I love your letters.
I love this so much. Small Joys are indeed to be found everywhere and are so important in life. Your writing is such a joy.
Dear Felix, I think finding joy and love in small things, has kept me alive. Love!
In early spring, honeybees wake up from their winter torpor and start foraging again. One of the flowers they rely on then is the dandelion. I was never one for weeding my yard, but now when I see the dandelions, I think of all the honeybees they’re nourishing.
I have been knitting socks since late January. My agita is being transmuted into something beautiful and warm. I’m on my seventh pair. No small amount of angst here, unfortunately. {sigh}
Yessssss!! ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
I have been making art/knitting journals for many years. So much fun and inspiring to make these- a lot of collage work.
That sounds amazing – collage is so wonderful because it lets us hang on to many of the material things from our daily lives and commemorate them, somehow.
That is a beautiful story about being in the Brownies. Brown Owl was xtra-ordinary and a true teacher and artist.
I owe Brown Owl so much – she was so encouraging and I’m so grateful that she pushed me to work harder for my badge! Her actions are also a reminder of how impactful we can be when we really engage with the people right in front of us, enough to see what it is that they need.
Felix, amazing post! I live near Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Your books have inspire me to draw the flowers that grow in the Blue Ridge mountains and turn them into knitting postcards. Following your steps has brought me great comfort. Finding the extraordinary—the tiny little flowers hidden in the forest—has helped me reclaim my freedom and return to my “human-self.” You see, I spent 24 years serving in the US military and recently retired in November. I forgot how it feels to be me! Your book, the colorwork postcards, is getting me there. Thank you for your inspiration. You have made a positive impact in my life. Inspiring others to create art is possibly the most extraordinary form of art. And you are doing just that. I am grateful!
R/Mags Sunderhaus
Thank you for your lovely encouraging comments, and for sharing your story here.
Your knitted postcards sound amazing and I’m so happy if any aspect of my work has brought you comfort.
Your story of finding your humanity again through the act of meeting the tiny little flowers hidden in the forest is beautiful and relatable. I’m currently going through a process of discovering all the tiny things that wash up on the beach here. Something about giving that quiet attention to the world around us puts us in touch with it – and with ourselves.
I do feel the same, thank you, but in tough times I forget. Thank you for the reminder.
I love your bullet journal class and I’m learning to do colour stranded knitting. You are such an inspiration, thank you!!
Your thoughts as expressed in words show me that you use language itself as an art form. What a beautiful picture you have created with words.
I have your fingerless mitts in my library and when I saw them again here I decided I have to knit them! Dandelions are such a good example of art around us. We see them as weeds and these mitts are a reminder of how their beautiful yellow cheers us up.
Oh yes! KNIT THE MITTS! I love the dandelion as a quiet symbol of resistance. I never think of them as weeds anymore but I think they are still unfairly treated as such. Still: they grow where they are not supposed to, they root themselves too deeply to be weeded out, we try to get rid of them but they remain. All hail the dandelions!
I am so glad you are in my life and are doing what you do! You are so good at reminding me what is truly important, even when it all feels for naught. Thank you!