Many of you will have figured out by now that things aren’t quite what they used to be around here. I’ve mentioned a few things here and there on Twitter and Rav occasionally, but since I’m still getting occasional questions I thought I’d give everyone the full story in one go.
Almost a year ago I started increasing the level of my freelance work and gradually expanding the spinning/writing/teaching with a view to it eventually becoming a full-time career. In October I quit my part-time day job and started seriously into the task of growing the business even more.
Sadly, it was about the same time that my body started to complain. By Christmas I had a shoulder issue I couldn’t ignore and my back was having problems as well. To cut a long story short, particular issues with my body mean I just can’t keep up the kind of sitting still spinning for hours that I wanted to be doing. Time on the computer isn’t so great either. My Osteopath advised yoga and pilates to strengthen muscles that I’d allowed to become extremely weak (not good in my case) and the first part of this year was focussed on getting my body working again.
It feels great now to be practically pain-free but I still have bad days and I have come to accept that the spinning career is just not feasible. I also rediscovered how much I adore Pilates (I practised for years in Australia) and I dredged up a very old dream of gaining my instructor certification. That is well underway and will become my new day job, hopefully by the end of autumn this year. Keeping my body strong and mobile is the solution to my problems and making this my career will help a great deal.
The spinning will not cease of course, you know me better than that! I will still be teaching in London, and there will be the occasional article published. The part that I really can’t manage is the hours of spinning and knitting involved in releasing designs and testing for tutorials, although there will be new ones occasionally. This blog will still be a Knitting/Spinning blog, and the website will remain with tutorials etc. in place. I will no longer be trying to grow the business, but will be able to relax about just doing as much as I am able to and want to, without worrying that I can’t manage enough for it to be viable.
I hope you all stick around, even though there will be a little less traffic here. I love hearing from you and nothing is going to curb my enthusiasm for all things spinny even if I can’t actually do as much as I’d like.
Thanks, and happy summer!
Diane xx
Entries (RSS)