Your Creative Rituals
A 15-minute creative practice that adds to your life, not your to-do list.
Here's the shape of it
Your Creative Rituals is a six-week creative practice that we'll do together. Practice, not performance, and nothing to fall behind on.Fifteen minutes a day on a project you love, a short weekly audio lesson, three live online gatherings, and a cosy community space to share.
Six weeks from August 8th. £59 one-time payment.
There is something you keep meaning to get back to
You know the one. An ancient WIP in perpetual time out. A sweater-quantity of yarn at the back of your stash. A stack of empty notebooks, a closet of supplies for some future project, some future you. Maybe it isn't a thing at all. It might be an idea that lives on a tattered post-it on your desk. It could just be a wistful feeling, a desire to be creative that you’ve hardly acknowledged.The call is quiet, but it's persistent. And no wonder it's hard to answer: it's time, and energy, and everything that fills a day. The uninterrupted hour never arrives, and the making keeps sliding to the bottom of the list.I know how that feels. I lived in it for years.
I didn't need a year.
I needed 15 minutes.
Every January I'd write ambitious lists and beautiful, unrealistic schedules. This year I'd be more organised, more disciplined, and finally have the time to feel creative. Every February I'd text my sister to ask whether February might be the new January. Then it was March. By December: there's always next year.What changed things wasn't a bigger plan. It was a smaller one. Just fifteen minutes, most days, on the thing that lights you up. It seemed too small to matter. It was exactly small enough to work. Over time it stops being a to-do and becomes a ritual, one that gives your creative life a rhythm that holds even when things get hectic.
What happens in 15 minutes
Over the years I've complimented many makers on their work and watched the compliment get waved away. Oh, I just followed the pattern. I could never design anything. I'm not really creative. But they chose the project. They chose that yarn, in that colour, and made something that wasn't there before. That is a creative act.Here's what I've learned. The fifteen minutes isn't really about the project getting finished, though it will. It's a small, low-stakes space where you get to know your own eye: what you reach for, what you love, what you'd change. Do that day after day, with a little less judgement than usual, and you start to recognise yourself in the things you make.Making things is the doorway. What's on the other side of it is you.
A small creative retreat
I built this to feel less like a course and more like a retreat that runs alongside your ordinary week. Here's how the six weeks work.A short audio lesson each week. A warm, unhurried reflection from me on the week's theme. Around twenty minutes, with a transcript if you'd rather read. Listen on a walk, in the car, or with your knitting in your lap.A daily fifteen minutes on your own project. The heart of it. Choose something you have or something you've longed to start, and give it a small slice of most days. No target, nothing to finish. The point is showing up.Rituals that make the time feel like yours. Lighting a candle, making the tea, laying out your things before you begin. Small acts that turn fifteen borrowed minutes into something that feels like it belongs to you.Optional prompts and exercises. Journalling, reflection, small experiments. Take the ones that resonate and leave the rest. There's no test at the end.Three live gatherings and a cosy corner online. We open together, meet in the middle, and close together, with a community space in between to share what you're working on. More on the calls below."I loved the pace of the course and your weekly messages gave me a lot to think about and some very practical ideas." — Juliann
A structure that supports you, not one that keeps score
We begin on the same day, meet three times, and finish together six weeks later. A beginning, a middle, an end. It turns a vague good intention into an actual occasion, something to say yes to, with other people saying yes beside you.But as soon as a course has a schedule, an old worry turns up: what if I fall behind? I didn't want to build anything that felt like pressure. So the calls are fixed points, the lessons are at your own pace, and the daily making is entirely yours. Give your fifteen minutes whenever they appear, or miss a few days and pick it up again with no ceremony.There's nothing to fall behind on. Just an open invitation to keep gently coming back, and good company for the days when life gets loud."The creative rituals helped me to put time in my day for knitting." — Maria
New this time: we do it together
Your Creative Rituals began as a self-paced audio course. When the first cohort helped me develop it, they asked for one thing more than any other: to do it together. So this time we will, with three live gatherings marking the season.The Opening Ritual - Tuesday, September 1st - A warm start where we set our intentions, choose our projects, and start side by side.A mid-course check-in - Tuesday, September 22nd. A knit-night or crafternoon, depending on your time zone, roughly halfway through. Bring whatever you're working on and be reminded that everyone else is finding their own way through it too. However far along you are is exactly far enough.The Closing Ritual - Tuesday, October 13th We finish the way we started. A chance to look back at our six weeks of small, steady making and mark it properly.We'll choose the call times once we see who's joining us, with our worldwide community in mind. Come to all three, drop into whichever you can, or simply know they're happening. There's no pressure to attend if you have a scheduling conflict or don't feel up to it on the day. We will also have a warm, private message board where you can pop in and out to ask questions, share your progress, and cheer each other on.
If making matters to you, you'll be in good company
I wrote this for anyone who loves making things. Knitting is the world I know best, so it's the one I draw on most, but any craft or creative pursuit belongs here just as much.It's for you if creativity matters to you but keeps getting crowded out. It's for you if you already make most days and want to do it with more intention and a little company.It's for you if you're finding your way back after a long time away, or working around hands and eyes and energy that ask you to go a little slower now.And it's especially for you if some part of you suspects you're not really creative. I'd gently disagree, and six weeks of unhurried making might change your mind from the inside, which is the only place it ever really changes.
"Participating in the course had a profound effect on how I see myself as a crafter. I was a software security expert for my career and have mainly seen myself as a technical, business oriented person whose talent was in mental pursuits only. To gain confidence in using my hands and creating with my hands has been the most rewarding journey." — Sharon
Hi, I'm Helen
If you're here, we're probably already knitting friends. I'm the designer behind Curious Handmade, mum to two gorgeous girls and one small, fluffy dog called Sindy.I've been making things for as long as I can remember. But the busier I get, the more I've learned that creative time doesn't happen on its own. If I'm not careful, life's thousand small demands crowd it out completely. The good news I keep coming back to is that it takes surprisingly little to find my way back.A few minutes a day, kept up gently, is enough to keep the embers glowing. Your Creative Rituals is how I'd like to share that with you.""Every aspect of Creative Rituals felt so personal and intentional. I loved everything about it." — CJ
Whatever you've been meaning to get back to, this is your invitation
The thing you keep meaning to return to has been waiting patiently. It isn't asking for a clear afternoon, or a tidier life, or proof that you're the creative sort. Fifteen minutes and a little company is enough to begin. The rest tends to arrive on its own once you do.The Creative Rituals community space opens August 8th. I'd love to have you with us this time.