Chapter 2 – Everything happens for a reason.

I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. Even if we don’t know what that reason is. Small things can make a big difference. For me it was two buttons that changed everything.

My Mam and dad had been on holiday and they had bought me two clock faced buttons. I love Alice in Wonderland and my parents thought I might like them. I don’t remember how long I had been holding onto these buttons but my Mam and Dad thought I could make something with them. I love brooches and thought it might be fun to make them into a brooch. This was a small decision that changed the direction of my life. 

I started doing some research online, and I fell down the rabbit hole, I had discovered Steampunk. If you don’t know what Steampunk is, it is a reimagining of our society with future technology from a Victorian age. If you ever watched the Sherlock Holmes films with Robert Downey Jr. That’s essentially Steampunk. I fell in love with the aesthetic and the creativity associated with steampunk. I ordered some supplies and started making jewellery. I also liked that you could create a Steampunk alter ego. This appealed to me, I could create a persona outside of my teaching job. I don’t know how quickly I decided after this to turn this into a business but I moved swiftly. From the gift of two buttons I started my business Ava Kitsch. Ava Kitsch became my life raft, this was something I could do for myself. I could take my business skills and knowledge and start my own handmade business. There were different routes into selling my jewellery online and I had my plan, I had my life boat. I had a new goal to focus on. I had the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy and thought long and hard about it. It was a difficult decision to make because I loved teaching but I wasn’t my best self. Once the decision was made though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, for the first time in a long time I could breathe again and I was excited for the future. I had a new goal to focus on.

I left South Tyneside College with the plan of growing my handmade jewellery business into something financially viable that would support me and my family. The universe had other plans. 

The first thing to happen was an unexpected opportunity to do some work as a bookkeeper for a bathroom showroom. One of my former colleagues was getting her bathroom fitted and was talking to the owner. They needed someone for 6 weeks to help with a VAT return. When I was teaching this was one of the subjects I taught. She passed along my details. I went along expecting it to be 6 weeks, a bit of money while I worked on my business. Six weeks was actually 6 years and my role grew and I became their marketing and finance manager.

The second thing to happen was a phone call out of the blue from Sunderland College. I had applied to do a course, I wanted to upskill and, well I’m still waiting for the phone call about the course. Instead this was another opportunity for work. I’d signed up with an agency when I left my teaching job, they had passed along my CV. I hadn’t expected it to lead to an opportunity, not many schools offer business studies as a subject and South Tyneside College wasn’t the only place to face cuts. I went along and met with the curriculum leader. It was part-time and would fit around my other commitments. This was meant to be a year. I was there for 7 years.

I couldn’t have predicted the next 7 years. I’m going to skip over lots of it but in this period I worked as a marketing and finance manager for a bathroom showroom, I returned to teaching, but part-time, lecturing at Sunderland College. I was running a Facebook group for small businesses, I was on the management team for the South Tyneside Business Forum, I was, very briefly, a director of a CIC and I still had Ava Kitsch and Made by Ava and Travelling Ava. This was all happening at once. I was spinning a lot of plates and listing all of those things has actually worn me out. I don’t know how I was doing all of these things. I was growing my skills and experience. I was meeting lots of different people and making new discoveries and connections all of the time.

I am getting better with professional boundaries but often I go with my first instinct to say ‘yes’ to an opportunity and figure out how it will work after. I am an overthinker in lots of areas of my life but when it comes to work I grab interesting opportunities as they come along. Trusting the Universe, trusting that I’m in the right place at the right time.

Ava Kitsch had been my life raft, it had been the goal I could focus on. I was having a lot of fun with it but it was hard to do things consistently, especially when I had stretched myself so thin. 

I love to learn new things,  Elizabeth Gilbert talks about following small moments of curiosity. I love this idea and have embraced it through my journey. Afterall what is a journey without a bit of sight seeing? I love to discover new things and when I started Ava Kitsch I was learning all the time. Not just how to run a business, the social media marketing and online selling bits but also more about my craft. 

I started Ava Kitsch with 2 buttons, but Pixie and Bumble started with 2 free crochet hooks I got with a craft magazine. My mam has tried to teach me to knit many times over the years. I love the idea of knitting but it didn’t feel comfortable and required more concentration than I’m capable of. Crochet though was different, it is quick to learn and so versatile. The crochet hook became my magic wand. Once I’d mastered a few stitches I realised it was repeating patterns, sequences of stitches and numbers to create texture and shapes. I started to design my own patterns for simple accessories and added Made by Ava to my jewellery business. 

Four years after starting Ava Kitsch, Travelling Ava was born. I had been designing simple accessories, mostly scarves and teaching myself to crochet and write crochet patterns. I had an idea stuck in my head. I thought it would be fun to try making a doll, a mascot for Ava Kitsch, something cute for my instagram. This took a lot of trial and error and I made a few dolls before the idea in my head became a reality. The moment she was finished I knew she wasn’t a mascot. I can’t remember where the travelling part of her name came from, but I knew in my heart she was an adventurer and explorer. She started coming on adventures with me, days out to places, she went on holidays with friends and family. I was trying new things and visiting new places by myself and becoming more independent. I was still navigating my anxiety and Travelling Ava helped me feel less alone. I enjoyed writing about our adventures, adding them to her blog. I started writing other patterns for other crochet characters and felt strongly that this was my thing. This was what I was meant to be doing. 

The universe had thrown another curve ball, I had been having lots of tests and investigations to find out why I couldn’t conceive. This is a story for another time but it is an important note because that shaped my decisions moving forward. I needed to look after myself, I needed to manage my anxiety, I needed to simplify my life.

Thank you so much for reading to my story so far, it continues next week with Chapter 3. Take care beautiful daydreamer.