You are creative - even when following a pattern

I don't think we say this enough. I hear so many people dismiss their own creativity, every day, on the grounds that they are just following a pattern. And yet it's totally untrue.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

As a knitter (or crocheter, or crafter) you are inherently creative. It's what you do. In fact you probably do it without even thinking about it.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Yes, you might be following a pattern but your choices of colour, yarn, needles etc are all coming together to create something totally unique, something created by you. Something that wouldn't exist if it weren't for you.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

You take sticks and string, wave your hands around a lot (OK, a real lot) and actually produce something that wasn't there before.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

And if that isn't the definition of creativity then I don't know what is.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Please share this with someone else who needs to hear this today.

Pink stripes and brown mittens

I appear to have inadvertently created my favourite sweetie - Liquorice Allsorts in sock form - by adding in some candy pink stripes to these DIY self stripe socks.

In part I think I was motivated to "go pink" with these DIY self stripe socks as an antidote to an endless sea of brown mittens.

I made the mistake of checking Ravelry's hot right now page the other day only to see so many versions of brown mittens - and even a sweater version (untested, unknit - just a colour chart slapped onto an existing pattern -by a designer who has never made a peep about anything remotely political or controversial before. But I digress)

I counted 11 separate Bernie inspired patterns!

Seriously, when did knitters lose their sense of creativity? Why the rush to make a pattern (and presumably make the mitts) that everyone else is also doing?

The original mitts weren't even hand-knit. They were upcycled from a sweater. If you wanted to pay homage to the original intention and upcycle something yourself I could see the point. But indulging in a commercial activity as some sort of tribute to something that was originally about the opposite of consumerism seems very odd to me indeed. I even saw specific “Bernie inspired colourways” for heavens sake.

I know that knitting has always had it's wildly popular patterns. The ones that suddenly everyone seems to be knitting. But this is something else.

So many people rushing to capitalise on something that wasn't even hand-knit in the first place.

And yes a free pattern is still gathering social currency (if not actual currency), otherwise Caitlin Hunter wouldn't have bothered to go to all the trouble of colouring in a chart for it.

A quick glance at the Ravelry front page was enough to make me feel as though I was in a parallel universe - one where I don't really give a flying flamingo about brown mitts - or the old white man wearing them.

I'm far more excited by the historic firsts of that particular day for women, and women of colour. The amazing purples and jewel tones. The wonderful, inspirational address by Amanda Gorman. So many firsts and so many sources of joy and inspiration that knitters could have focused on instead of brown mittens.

And if you are intrigued by the thought of designing your own self-stripe socks but the thought of all those ends puts you off, you might like to take a look at the Clasped Weft Join - no fuss, no weaving in of ends, just pure self-stripe enjoyment.