Advertise on podcast: The Making & Mending Podcast

In this episode I'm sharing more about an oral history project I'll be running this year - I want to find out how people with disabilities, like myself, used needlework to explore a sense of place and heritage during lockdown. I'm excited to explore topics like resilience in isolation, material and making vs consumption, connection with family stories and more.  This of course relates to my Stitching Together project, which you can find out more about here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/stitching/ Thank you, as always, for listening! Love, Yarrow

Happy new year! In this episode I'm talking about how I am centring mental health & wellbeing in my creative practice this year - removing barriers, creating space for accessible participation & dreams, finding the sweet spot of gentle accountability and indulging wildly in flow states!  More info about my web design work is here: https://pinkwellstudio.com/ and you can join Stitching Together here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/stitching/ Thank you for listening! Love, Yarrow

Perhaps an odd day to publish a new episode, but I thought this might be nice to share today for anyone who also feels a little overwhelmed with the festivities at a time of so much uncertainty and upheaval. Finding and exploring one's creative voice is something I have been thinking about a lot this year - I explored stripping back the media overwhelm, identifying core messages and symbolism and, as always, unraveling perfectionism. I hope this episode gives you something interesting to think about too! Here is more info about the Stitching Together community: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/stitching/ Love, Yarrow

If you're like me, having gentle accountability to slow down & be creative makes it much more likely for you to do things that bring you joy. Maybe you too feel that you need it more than ever.  After a bit of a break I am bringing my Patreon back, because I miss our creative time together and also because I am excited to share my research on radical needlework with you. In this episode I am sharing the new structure for my Patreon/Stitching Together in 2024 - a community space focussed on making, mending, writing & wellbeing.  Learn more here: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/stitching/ Thank you for listening! Love, Yarrow

In this episode I am talking about what slowness means to me in my practice right now and how I've learned to still appreciate the process when chronic illness and disabilities slow me down. I'm taking a longer view on things, thinking about how slowness makes space for observations and stories to be woven into my work and how stitching and carving supports my wellbeing in so many ways. I'm also asking questions about devotion, the value of time and the beauty of simplicity and simple aesthetics.  I hope that if you've ever felt too slow you'll find comfort in listening!  Here is more info on Stitching Together in 2024: https://www.yarrowmagdalena.com/stitching/ Love, Yarrow

In this episode I am talking about taking a specific question into the darker time of the year, thinking about what spiritual practices I want to commit to this season, trying something new & gathering tools that are meaningful to me. You can join my Substack here if you like: https://yarrow.substack.com/ Love, Yarrow

In the second instalment of my Getting Ready for Winter series I am sharing things that have helped me pay more attention to what I love - making, cooking, wandering and having conversations. As the days grow shorter many of us feel we want more of those things, but it can be so so hard to make time. If you feel the same I hope this episode will offer you some ideas & inspiration.  You can join my Substack here: https://yarrow.substack.com/ Love, Yarrow

Hey friends, I'm so excited to be back here with a little series on getting ready for winter, seasonal rituals & living a soft & creative life. In this first episode you'll hear more about how I inhabit my home and make it a place of easy, playful and accessible creative expression. You can join my Substack & the Spark sessions I mentioned over here: https://yarrow.substack.com/ Love, Yarrow

This episode is such a wonderful note to end on before I am heading into a little break - it was a true joy to talk to Justine & Larisa who wrote the wonderful book called The Grieving Therapist. I hope listening will feel as comforting as it did for me. Here is some of what we talked about:  Diving deep into collaborative creative projects Processing pandemic grief and making meaning from what happened Exploring what change might come from loss Justine Mastin, LMFT, LADC is a psychotherapist, author, and so much more. Justine runs Blue Box Counseling, a private practice in Minneapolis, MN and is an AAMFT-Approved Supervisor. She literally wrote the book on Therapeutic Fanfiction—Starship Therapise: Using Therapeutic Fanfiction to Rewrite Your Life—and she offered support to healers in The Grieving Therapist: Caring for Yourself and Your Clients When it Feels Like the End of the World. Justine also co-hosts both the Starship Therapise and Dark Side of the Mat podcasts and has presented a TEDx talk. TedTalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmtZU0_xmKY&t=1s Larisa Garski is the chief of clinical staff for Empowered Therapy in Chicago IL. Larisa is the co-author of The Grieving Therapist: Caring for Yourself and Your Clients When it Feels Like the End of the World, and Starship Therapise: Using Therapeutic Fanfiction to Rewrite Your Life. Larisa has also contributed to numerous other books on pop culture and psychology, co-hosts the Starship Therapise podcast, and is an AAMFT-approved supervisor. The Grieving Therapist book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724011/the-grieving-therapist-by-larisa-a-garski-lmft/ Starship Therapise podcast: https://www.starshiptherapise.com/podcast/ Thank you for listening!

For this episode I had the honour of talking to Joelle of Butch Yoga again - we had a great first chat for episode #159 and so in this one we got to dive a little bit deeper. Here is some of what we talked about:  Finding time for stillness in one's body Bringing in joy, self-compassion and playfulness  Letting things move through our bodies Joelle is a non-binary butch lesbian who is really into queering spirituality. Joelle started practicing meditation and yoga in 2007. Then in 2009, they completed an Master of Arts in Cognitive Studies with a focus on Philosophy, Psychology, Linguistics, and Neuroscience. That means before Joelle was on a yoga mat, they were in lecture halls studying the mind, but their professors didn’t teach how to work with the mind to find happiness—and then Joelle found in most yoga classes they teach practices to work with the mind and body, but don’t usually go in depth with the concepts! And it’s been rare for Joelle to find queer yoga spaces, and even rarer to find other butches in those spaces—so Joelle created Butch Yoga as a space for butches and gender non-conforming friends to study and practice spirituality together. More about Joelle: Joelle is a white Latinx Jewish person who has been living on Mayan land in Guatemala for 7 years with their 3 cats https://www.instagram.com/butchyoga/ https://butchyoga.com/ Thank you for listening!

Hi sweet listeners, I am delighted to bring you a charming, inspiring and joyful conversation with the wonderful Melissa Word. I have loved her Grief Threads program so much and could listen to her talk about bodies, grief and art forever. Here is some of what we explored: Approaching dance & movement in a totally new way Listening and learning from our grief Opening our arms wide wide wide to what art can be Finding secret information inside ourselves Melissa Word is an artist, dancer, writer and somatic facilitator. Her work takes the form of live performance, workshops, textile collages, drawings and newsletters. She specializes in creating transformative group experiences for people who want to feel more creative and connected to themselves–quilting classes for grief, movement classes for anxiety relief and body image repair, voice work for expanding consciousness. She is a current arts educator with the Alliance Theatre, and formerly with the High Museum of Art and Boys and Girls Club of Atlanta. Her pedagogy is based in somatic inquiry, presence and mindfulness practices, experimental voice work, intersectional discourse, liberatory social movements, and the perennial power of play. https://www.melissaword.com/ https://www.instagram.com/melissawordstudio/ Thank you so much for listening! 

In this episode I am sitting by the river with you to think about the summer ahead. Three different ideas made me feel that approaching it as a season of creative recovery would be a really good idea on so many levels. I am also sharing two practices that might help you get intentional about the next few months in your own way.  I decided not to start a private podcast in the end, but might do in the future. Thank you for listening! Love, Yarrow