Let’s face it. Life can be stressful. There’s something beautiful about creating something with your own two hands… it gives you a chance to unwind and be in the present moment.
I find the act of being creative very therapeutic. It’s a healthy way to de-stress, or just create something fun!
Why I Knit, Sew, and Make Things
Let me tell you the back story of how I started down this creative path… it was definitely not something I expected to pursue, but it’s the journey of how I got here to creating this website.
I have always been artistic and musical, but like most people, my attention was focused on work, school, and things that “really mattered” in life.
I never considered the arts to be something I could actually pursue as part of a career path, so instead, I went full-force to pursue the sciences and tech.
After working in a demanding tech job, my creative side kept wanting to be expressed, so after months of deliberation, I finally decided to change course.
I quit my job, took a bunch of classes to create a portfolio, then applied to design school, and then business school too.
I had the crazy idea to pursue two masters degrees at the same time. I wanted to make the most of the time I was “not working.” With an incredibly insane schedule and barely any time to sleep, I found myself hospitalized during the middle of finals!
I had overworked myself to a point of extreme exhaustion and got a major case of the flu, pneumonia, and tested TB positive. I spent a week in the hospital and I was placed on extremely strong antibiotics for 6 months, that lasted into my wedding and honeymoon.
Oh, it was crazy times during my 20s.
It was also a big learning lesson that I wasn’t invincible, even though I was young, and that I’d have to take care of my health.
My Journey to Health & Knitting
After I graduated from my masters programs, I moved temporarily to San Francisco from Chicago for an internship. It was there that I knew I had to focus on wellness after the wear and tear on my body over the past 3 years.
I went on an all organic detox diet, started exercising again, and then stumbled upon a knitting store in my neighborhood that made me want to buy all the yarn in that store!
I wanted to take a knitting class at the store, but they didn’t have one that met my schedule, so the shop owner recommended I learn from a book, which I purchased.
I took that book home along with some super chunky yarn and big needles and knit my first scarf that day! It was exciting times.
Learning to knit brought me so much joy and a sense of accomplishment that made me so happy.
I wish I could say that that was the end of my insane life and I found balance and peace and bliss. I had taken great care of myself during that internship in an effort to restore my health, but after that, I decided to take a consulting job that required demanding work and travel. My life ended up being very intense yet again!
If I didn’t learn the first time, I definitely did after the second time of wearing myself out.
After a year and half of intense work for clients, I knew my body couldn’t handle the intense stress I was putting it through. After much negotiation with work, and trying the work-at-home thing, the constant stress didn’t let up, so I finally decided to leave permanently to take care of my health.
It was a good thing because a week after leaving the job, I was hospitalized again for a week. Again, with pneumonia.
It was time to recover… again.
That was not the end of my health journey, though.
Later that year, I had a miscarriage, and I had to go in for surgery. And after coming out of the operating room, in my groggy state, I told my mom and my husband… “I want to knit and sew.”
To this day, I think it was my spirit that was talking when I was not yet fully conscious yet.
I was worn. I was depleted, and I needed to be filled up with something nourishing. In that moment, for me, it was knitting and sewing.
After going home from surgery, my mom taught me how to crochet, and I picked up knitting again during that week of recovery,
Knitting As A Tool for Healing
Had I not gone through the experiences that I did, I would not have known that doing something creative with your hands could be a tool for healing.
I ended up working again as a contractor in a position that was much less intense. During my free time, I was knitting everything I could get my hands on.
That was the beginning of my knitting journey. That was 2009.
I have YouTube videos up on YouTube that I put up for myself and others when I was trying to remember how to knit each year after that. You can find my updated YouTube channel here.
I even tried to create a blog back then. I had another one after that, but later took it down and sold the url to someone else. These were just ways for me to share my passion with anyone that would read or watch at the time. 🙂
My Journey to Fashion Design
Learning to knit was not the end of my creative journey. I had also been taking sewing classes on the side whenever I could.
What started off as sewing classes ended up through a series of events leading me to move from Chicago to New York to attend Parsons to study fashion design.
Never in my life would I have predicted this path. It was definitely never part of my plan, since I already had two masters and considered myself done with school forever. I had never once considered going into fashion, although I did watched every season of Project Runway, marveling at the skills and creativity of the contestants.
I can only say that God led me to fashion design school for some unknown reason to me. It was new, unexpected, but I can honestly say I loved every bit of it (except for the all nighters).
Starting a Business
While at Parsons, I was pregnant my daughter and gave birth just after graduating. Since I was a new mother, and was surrounded by all things baby, after initially pursuing creating a women’s clothing line, I opted to create a baby brand called Little Kims instead.
I learned so much from that business, but the truth is that I really missed working with my hands.
Back to Being a Maker
I needed to do something tactile and creative, which is why I am now creating this blog.
I began to reconnect to my love of fiber arts, sewing, drawing, painting, illustration, and other crafts, and continued to take courses exploring many different mediums.
Through it all, I discovered that creating and making is my happy place. Perhaps it is yours too!
I’ve launched courses to teach people how to knit. If you’re interested in learning how to knit, you can start there. I plan to continue learning and teaching through a variety of different mediums to help you explore your creativity!
My hope is that I can help people expand their skills and find joy in doing something creative. My intention is that this is a place that you can continue to come to find inspiration for your creative journey ahead!
