Creativity with nowhere to go

Snapshots of March 2021

I keep having the same feeling I used to have as a young child. Desperate to do something creative, I would follow my mum around the house. “What can I draw?” was my constant question.

I felt a strong urge to create something, but I had no idea what. And my mum being busy with the house and siblings wasn’t in the best place to help.

Looking back, that changed somewhat once my Nana taught me to knit. For those years before I discovered ‘going out’, knitting was a really valuable creative outlet at a time when I didn’t have many other ways to express myself.

Now, after a year of living under Covid restrictions. I find myself thinking very similar thoughts. Desperate to create something, to come up with something new or exciting. I find myself wandering around the house, picking things up and putting them down. Opening the laptop to write…and then closing it again. Nothing seems to scratch the creative itch as it were.

Partly I’m suffering from a lack of meaningful downtime – as we all are. And partly I think it’s just a lack of inspiration. There are only so many times you can look at your own four walls and as someone who normally takes a lot of inspiration from the natural world, it’s been hard to have that removed.

What will happen when the lockdown is released and we can suddenly do all the things and visit all the places. Will there be a creative surge, with all those untapped ideas suddenly all fleeing the nest at once? Or will it be a slow trickle as I gradually learn how to be creative again.

Or, horror, will there be nothing left? Just a whizened shell where my creativity used to live.

I suspect that the truth will probably lie somewhere in the middle. I’m hoping that with the careful application of some fresh air and a change of scenery – and yes, bribery with cake – my creative self can be persuaded to play out again.

Partly as an antidote this and partly to persuade myself that I have actually done things during the month I started to create monthly collages of snapshots. I used to do this regularly, back in the day on Instagram but I’ve sort of got out of the habit. It was a surprising amount of fun though - and helped to reinforce that I have actually achieved things, despite living through the weird concertina time warp that is Covid.

Knitting as therapy

Do you feel as though sometimes your brain is completely full? Like a cup of coffee filled to the absolute brim and the slightest movement or the tiniest sliver of additional information will cause it to spill over? I am prone to over thinking at the best of times but recently I have been feeling this more and more.

I am a huge fan of Writing Things Down and my belief in the power of a good long list is unshakeable, but recently I stopped journalling. Everything seemed to overwhelming and and certainly during March and April all the days seemed the same - writing about them seemed rather pointless and if I’m honest, pretty depressing. Journalling seemed to encourage me to dwell on the negatives and I felt rather like a hamster on a wheel.

Recently though I’ve discovered two things - the fabulous team at the Positive Planner who have produced a bullet journal in addition to their daily gratitude journal, and also Ruth Poundwhite’s Journalling for Business course. Both have which have inspired me to get my pen back out and write things down again.

Sitting, knitting something simple (in this case a garter stitch washcloth) and writing down ideas and thoughts as they come to me, with no pressure and no feeling that I’m doing things wrong. It’s been remarkably therapeutic and I really can’t recommend it highly enough. Even if you never look at the pages again after you’ve written them - the thoughts are out of your head - and that’s the main thing. The impact on my mental health has been really striking in recent weeks - although I’m sure that’s also partly due to spending less time on social media (Facebook in particular).

In case you need a simple pattern for a washcloth to try this for yourself I have jotted mine down here. Please feel free to bookmark it for future reference if you too, have a ‘Brain Too Full’ moment.

“WASHCLOTH PATTERN: CO 2 sts,
K1, kfb, k to end. Repeat this row until you have 50sts.
k1, ssk, k to end. repeat this row until you have 2 sts.
Cast off.”

— Louise Tilbrook Designs

This is why we have WIPs - the case for project polygamy

Oftentimes we feel compelled to reduce our WIP count or to defend our many (many) unfinished objects. We make lists, we feel guilty and we lament our lack of willpower in casting on All The Things.

But today, for a chance I would like to present the defence for project polygamy.

After a long day at work I come home feeling tired, stressed and emotional. Dealing with peri-menopause, a house, kids and a job can leave even the perkiest of people feeling a bit steamrollered and I don’t mind saying that the current political shenanigans are doing absolutely nothing for my mental health right now.

In months gone by I would have, in all honesty declared it to be Wine O’Clock and had a glass or two. But now I’m no longer drinking that isn’t an option, and so I resorted to cleaning off some accumulated clutter from the kitchen table. Imagine my joy when I unearthed a small project bag and found a sock toe - all cast on and ready to knit. I think I had prepared this project back before my summer holiday to be my airplane knitting (and then left it behind in a packing oversight). Either way I was so grateful to find this simple, no-thought-required project that I nearly cried.

My eldest son brought me a cup of tea, my youngest carted off the worst of the kitchen table clutter and I was able to sit and just knit. No thinking needed. It’s a simple thing but sometimes a small sock toe and a cup of tea (plus boy hugs) are exactly what you need.