Who is Dora?
Have you ever had a moment where you suddenly stop, take a look at yourself and think “hang on a minute, I’ve got this all wrong”?
I have. Quite a lot actually but I’ll keep it relevant, for now at least! The first time of note was about 10 years ago and involved some pretty poor decision making in a hairdresser (think lego head). My kindly friends likened me to an exploring cartoon character and my alter ego Dora was born (Dora is not my given name, but it outlasted the haircut).
Next came the point in late 2012 when, whilst recovering from surgery, my love for Instagram began to flourish. I had joined as @doraexplored in 2011 but mainly just for the fun effects and picture frames – I still miss the 1977 and Toaster filters! I began to follow more people and discovered a world of beauty and creativity that I had no previous experience of. I came across the work of some wonderful crochet accounts and decided I wanted to learn to create beautiful things too. I was stuck on the sofa for months, so figured I should make the most of the time, let’s remember this was when Netflix still sent you DVDs in the post! So I picked up a crochet hook for the first time.
My addiction was born!
The final moment was more of a series of small signs than a damascene epiphany. I was in a job I enjoyed, but had been doing it a long time. 2016 was an unsettling year from a personal perspective (not to mention the worldwide sack-of-cats level crazy of Brexit, UK PrimeMinisterial musical chairs and Trump). I could feel the need for change rising up within me like I had never experienced before. I’ve always read a lot of inspirational books, books on psychology and philosophy, self-help books, books about finding purpose and books saying Fuck-it a lot.
At some point I just knew, in my bones, that we only get one go around on this plane of existence and there is no excuse not to spend your life doing what you love. Well actually there are lots of excuses. we make them every single day, but thats all they are. The truth is that they mostly just mask our fear or failure / rejection / humiliation blah blah blah. There is an amazing Ted Talk about this here which puts it better than i ever could (and will make you laugh at the same time!).
I am not naturally a brave person, but the voice in my head telling me to break-out and make a change, kept on patiently but persistently urging me to trust the universe and somehow managed to reassure me that jumping into a void was a completely safe and sensible thing to do, regardless of how scary my monkey brain insisted it was. So in summer 2017 I left my safe corporate job and Dora Does burst into existence.
Dora Does What?
Initially I started Dora Does, and Doralosophy (my blog) to share my crochet designs, tip, tricks and tutorials. I always knew I wanted to involve my take on the world – my Doralosophy – to share my world view, my ideas, trivial and important, about life the universe and everything on top of the crochet love. But what I quickly realised was how much I enjoyed writing about subjects I have a passion for. This is why you will find posts on topics such as wellbeing, mindfulness, personal growth, experimenting and generally trying to make a better life dotted between the crochet tutorials.
Crochet makes such a good metaphor for so many life experiences that pairing the two just seemed to happen very naturally. Not to mention the enormous positive impact has had on my own life in uncountable ways.
My main life goal is to be the best me I can be, and this site is my opportunity to try and help you do the same. I want to live a sustainably happy life where my internal beliefs match my external behaviour. This is what the hipsters mean when they go on about ‘authenticity’, and it takes self-awareness, honesty and plain old hard work!
The term ‘happiness’ means something different to every one of you, but I hope you will find something here which resonates or makes you see something from a new perspective. I do not want this blog to be preachy because I don’t have most of the answers, and I definitely don’t want it to be a self-indulgent journal (I have one of those on paper!). I see it as a way of sharing lessons learned, missteps, successes, clever people’s stories and quick fixes. I want to ask questions, learn new things and encourage you, (YES, YOU!) to think about how you can improve your own life. Because you can. Hopefully I will bring some humour to the place too!
If this is not your cup of tea, that is totally fine! You are welcome to filter out the wellbeing stuff and just stay, have a real cup of tea (or coffee), and enjoy the crochet and all that lovely squishy yarn instead!
Dora Does is still a work in progress (and I’m open to suggestions) and I am looking forward to the journey it will take us on!
Here’s the disclaimer for clarity… Anything you read here should be taken as my opinion only (apart from the opinions of others which I may or may not agree with!). As Baz Luhrmann put it
“my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…”
Big Love
Dx
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9 COMMENTS
Would making the beehive beanie in worsted weight yarn instead of chunky make a drastic difference to the pattern ? I don’t have any chunky yarn at the moment , but am crazy in love with the pattern and am dying to stick it up
Ahh. I’m glad you like it!! Worsted would work but you will probably need to add a couple more increase rows to make it fit – how many depends on the weight of your yarn and hook size
Would love to see your patterns how much h yarn for the 48 bust card I want to make for my holidays please I work in ounces not yards and ozs thank you
Hi Jayne. If it’s the Everyday Hugs Cardi you are looking at it’s around 1800 yards /800g which according to my calculations (grams to oz) is about 28oz. I hope that helps! Dora x
Free Piano
Working every day by day I’m a lot more impressed by your post. Thanks for your personal efforts with expressing the following theme.
Thank you! Keep going – you’ll get there! Dx
It says free patterns I am unable to print it
Hi Connie. Which pattern are you looking at? I have a number of patterns for free on the blog. The add-free printable versions are available for sale on Ravelry, Etsy, Love crochet and Craftsy. If you go to the pattern directory and click on the picture of the pattern you like you will see the links to the pattern. If it’s a free pattern, you will see it written in the text here, or linked to a blog post if that was where it was first published. Please let me know if it’s a specific pattern you’re looking at. I hope that helps. Dx
Dora – this is such a lovely read and really exciting too to see your journey evolve. It sounds like what lies ahead of you is a bit like a crochet pattern that you are creating as you go along – one stitch (is that what I say?) at a time. x