Tribes

Something I am seen several articles on lately, especially in conjunction with New Year goals and resolutions, is about finding your 'tribe'.  

I was fortunate enough, early in my needlework phase, to find a lovely group of women as my tribe.  We met on Thursday nights at the local needlework shop and stitched, solving the problems of the world as we went along.  But best of all, we all spoke the language of needlework.  We understood the need to own every pattern a certain designer published.  We congratulated each other on finished pieces, ogled new colors in fibers and linen, coveted needles and scissors and supported each other with our common 'thread'.

And then, unfortunately, I was without my tribe.  The needlework store closed and we were all cast adrift, a tribe without a country.  My upbringing kicked in and the "I can go it alone" mentality took over for many years.  While I still knitted, crocheted, sewed, and wrote, it wasn't the same.  Some of the joy was removed from it and made the process seem a little less bright.

Now I am fortunate enough to have found my tribe again.  I am living in a community where I am surrounded by friends who speak the same language, both in fibers and in writing.  What is interesting is I also have found my tribe online too.  I have made friends hundreds of miles away who understand the need to have yet another piece of fabric, or skein of yarn or start yet another project.  Those people who actively cheer me on or enable me by pointing out in a 'did you see?' way.

Want to get excited about what you are working on?  Be able to walk into a quilt store and the owner knows your name and remembers what the last project you were working on was.  Walk into an art gallery and the owner references a post you just wrote.  Meet up with a friend and she hands you a piece of fabric because it will work on something you have in progress or thinking about starting.  Have a tribe member bug you to account for why you haven't done something on a project.  Add yet another book to your stack because someone thought this was a book you would enjoy reading.

Having a tribe around you, or at least in my case, inspires me.  I can see 100's of possibilities which I probably wouldn't without them.  They support my desire to write 50,000 words in a month and understand when I say at the end I am scraping all but 1000 of them.  They ask for my advise and give advise back on projects and ideas.  

Tribe members who understand that at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning, while the rest of the world is still fast asleep, I am taping together pieces of paper to use to make a string quilt foundation because...well, just because.