Recently, I asked my Instagram community some questions about creativity. I was curious about knitters’ self perceptions and their relationship to their craft. See, I’d gotten a sense that some people thought knitting from a pattern and being creative were mutually exclusive.
The responses were surprising.
But let’s circle back a bit, explore why this matters in the first place, and then dig into what knitters are saying about their creativity and why they feel that way.
Why Care About Creativity in the First Place?
When I left my law practice several years ago, I was in a pretty dark place. Wrapped up in all of that was a deep, unspoken fear that I wasn’t actually good at anything, that I didn’t have much to contribute to the world, that I was just taking up space.
In the intervening years, I’ve had a lot of conversations with others who’ve felt the same way.
One of the many things that helped me turn that feeling around was actively, intentionally cultivating my creativity. I started thinking about creativity not as something that some people are born with and others aren’t, but instead as something we’re all born with. It’s just that some of us have had our creativity pressed out of us.
Life does that in a lot of ways. Misguided adults tell us when we’re children that we’re not good at making things. Busy work schedules leave us little time for rest and thought. We absorb narrow ideas about what art is supposed to look like, what an artist is supposed to look like (for more on that, see this excellent post from Julia Cameron about how creativity doesn’t have to be “high art”).
And it disconnects us from our own creative spirit.
Reconnecting with my own sense of creativity has been healing, and in my conversations with others, I’ve found it has often been part of their healing process, too.
What Knitters Say About Being Creative
My first question out the gate was simple: knitters, do you think of yourself as creative? And out of about 200 respondent, nearly 30% said no, they don’t.
I’ll be honest: I was surprised that number was quite so high. Maybe I shouldn’t have been. If I think back to how I thought about my own making a decade ago, I probably would have told you the same thing.
What really intrigued me, though, was the next question and its responses.
Clearly, knitting is doing something important for the vast majority of knitters. For those who already thought of themselves as creative, knitting generally helped them feel more creative.
But it also helped those who didn’t already think of themselves as creative. Knitting is a tool that helps unlock creativity. I confess, I got pretty excited when I saw that.
Why So Many Knitters Think They’re Not Creative
I asked a follow-up question at the end of this series of slides. I posted a little question box that asked, “If you don’t think of yourself as creative, why not?”
Every knitter who responded said that the reason they aren’t creative is that they’re just following a pattern.
I reached out to a lot of these respondents to ask some follow up questions. We had some great conversations! I got a few interesting analogies that compared using a knitting pattern to reading a book or following a cooking recipe. Others explained that they felt following a pattern meant they weren’t using any of their own input.
Reframing the Conversation
Now here’s where it gets interesting. It turns out every single one of the knitters I talked to chooses their own yarn, makes little modifications to patterns to better fit their needs, and adjusts things to account for their unique gauge.
If that’s not being creative, I don’t know what is.
But beyond that, there seems to be this sense that if you don’t come up with every part of your thing from scratch, you’re not being creative.
Now, I don’t spin or dye my own yarn. I draw inspiration from stitch dictionaries. I pore over old fashion plates and modern runway shows. Everything I do as a designer builds on stuff others have done before me. That’s the nature of the creative process. We’re all getting pieces of our work from someone else.
You don’t have to do every single part of it yourself. Ina Garten taught us all better than that, friends. Store-bought is fine. It doesn’t diminish your skill as a cook.
Using a pattern doesn’t diminish your creativity, either.
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My ex once asked me what I was doing while I was working on a sweater with an all-over intarsia pattern. I showed him how the chart worked, and he said, “oh, so it’s just like painting by numbers then.”
Yeah, except for the part where I changed the colour scheme and repositioned the motifs in my head without redrawing the chart. Grrr.
And even with painting by numbers, there’s figuring out how much paint to put on the brush, and the strategy of which areas to colour in which order, plus brush technique.
As you said, people need to appreciate that there is space for creativity… on easy mode, I guess?
Creativity exists in all sorts of unexpected places! And the more we all engage with and explore our creativity in whatever ways are available to us, the better for everyone, I think.
When I first started knitting, I never thought I was creative either but when I first made a case for my iPhone, that changed my ideas. I’ve made a few things without a pattern but what I would never become a designer. Writing it down seems more complicated!😂😂
Writing a good pattern is definitely a separate skill set from creating a good design, but it’s also something that can be learned. I love the puzzle of figuring out how to explain the thing in my head clearly enough that other people can make it, too 😊
@Lauren Rad, I’m finding the same to be true for me as well. It makes the logical side of my mind work with the creative.
Yes, definitely! I find that it exercises the same part of my brain I used to use for my legal work. I still need to think about structure, clarity, efficiency, and cohesiveness. It’s a lot of fun.
I loved this article! Thanks for giving us all the pep talk we need sometimes. 🤗
I’m glad it resonated with you! Sometimes, I need the pep talk, too 😊
Thank you for this article! People need to feel their creative sense from an early age and parents can help their children with this! It’s an important part of development that will stay with them through life, and it’s fun. I was lucky, my grandparents were creative artistic people, so I was always exposed to “Making”. I thought that’s what everyone did. Now I know how special this is.
Keep in mind, learning to cook, loving to cook is also creating!
I believe the more creative we can be, the more peaceful we can feel.
I love this! Yes, creativity shows up in all sorts of ways and places. The more we make and do and explore and grow, the more that creativity shows itself.
Just finishing a first design project, no pattern needed. Really enjoying the creative process and making it work on for me. So nice to see others feel the same.
How exciting! That first design project is always a special one. Congratulations on the milestone.