Creating opportunities

Thank you so much to all of you who left me such lovely comments on my last post.  I really appreciate your kindness.  Writing about my own creativity has made me think about why I place such an emphasis on this in our lives, I have never really considered why I felt this to be so important until now.  

I have written about creativity in our lives, about my worry that I was not offering my children, particularly Cameron, enough opportunities to cultivate creativity.  My children were much younger then and I was spending time reading other blogs and beating myself up for not doing the sorts of activities that I was seeing and reading about.  I needed confirmation that what I was doing was the right way for my family and I found this in the wonderful book The Artists Way for Parents, this author has written many books on the art of creativity not just this one aimed at parents.  It made me realise that creativity is so much more than paper, scissors and glue.

When I was a child I spent a lot of my time watching my parents make things. My father built an extension to our family home, it doubled the size of the house, he did this in the evenings and weekends, whilst holding down a full time job outside the home.  My mother used to make all our clothes, this was at a time when children's clothes were not widely available and those that were were expensive, she would also knit and draw.  I loved to watch them both, as I expect they must have done, one of my grandfathers painted, I have a few of his paintings hanging in my house, and worked with wood, I have a jewellery box he made for me.  One of my grandmothers knitted, her needles would click as she sat and talked to us, I still have a jumper she knitted me for my 18th birthday.  All that watching has been part of my journey of making, it has made me realise the possibilities, not to default to buying something made by someone else.  The act of making something is as important to me as the finished product, well most of the time.

I was lucky enough to go to schools that encouraged creative subjects, my parents chose the secondary school that I attended (my siblings and I went to different schools at this age) because of its excellent music department.  I wouldn't say that the current education system places such emphasis on these subjects, education the world over has a hierarchy of subjects with maths and languages at the top, the humanities and science in the middle and the arts at the bottom.  Even within the arts subjects there is a hierarchy with art and music at the top and dance and drama at the bottom.  Those children whose parents encourage creativity at home are not going to miss out, but what about those children whose parents either don't value this or don't have the money to provide the opportunities.

This approach to education, where arts subjects are marginalised, is creating skill shortages for many industries and occupations.  If there are no opportunities to explore and play with different materials where are our future designers going to come from?  The rather wonderfully named Professor Kneebone, a professor of surgical education, has noted a decline in the dexterity of his students, their ability to perform important surgical skills of cutting, stitching and sewing are having to be taught to his students, they are no longer able to make the assumption that they will be good with their hands. Are we going to have a dearth of original thinkers if the focus of education remains geared towards knowledge and SAT scores?

I wonder if any readers here had a favourite subject at school which was an arts subject?  I wonder if you were left feeling that you were not talented, as the subjects you were good at were not valued and you were steered away from them as you were told you would never get a job doing that?  I hope that the decision makers involved with education bring back creativity into the curriculum and value the contribution that arts subjects can make to society as a whole.

What does creativity mean to you?

A trove of creativity

I realised, as I was writing my recent peek into our day post, that in the previous one I had promised that I would share a cardigan that I had recently finished knitting.  My long blogging break has made me forget the bits and pieces of our lives that I used to share here on a regular basis.  I love to make and create things, mostly things we wear or use, and gifts for friends and family, so I thought I would share not only my cardigan but also some of the other things that have been keeping me busy over the past few weeks.

The cardigan was a labour of love.  I started it way back in the Summer last year, around the time that we booked flights for a holiday in the winter sun, I thought this would be perfect to wear on our holiday.  The cardigan was not finished by then but I did take it with me, it was too hot for knitting so I only added the odd row.  I really enjoyed knitting this cardigan despite the length of time it took, it was one that I picked up and put down in between other projects.    I chose this pattern not only for the design, which I love, I also wanted to improve my knitting skills and it certainly has done that.  I was a bit worried about knitting all that lace, as I have had many disasters trying to knit lace patterns in the past, but I needn't have worried it was so much easier than I thought it would be and I could see where I had made a mistake which I hadn't been able to in the past, all part of the learning.

I have two projects on the needles now, the first is a tunic for Alice.  This pattern goes up to age 10, Alice's current age but she is so tall I was sceptical that it would be long enough, it isn't, I need to add at least 10cm to the length. That is quite a bit of extra knitting, when I got to the end of the first ball of wall and measured my knitting I realised that I had miscalculated the amount of yarn I would need, luckily I was able to buy an extra two balls from the same dye lot, the last two which was a great relief!

The other project on the needles is a cardigan for my nephew, I love this pattern it will be the fourth one of these I have knitted.  This a great knit for when we are watching something together as a family, which we often do , I can knit it in the dark/poor light.  This is knitting up so much quicker than the tunic as it is a much smaller size and it is all stocking stitch.

Over my years of knitting I have amassed quite a collection of needles.  I am not a fan of sewing up seams so I choose patterns that are knit in the round, these patterns often make use of double pointed needles or dpns.  Six years ago I made a case to keep them in but I continued to add to my collection and out grew this needle roll some time ago.  I have been meaning to make a bigger one for a long time, every time I visited my local sewing shop I would be reminded that I had once again forgotten to work out the measurements.  On a recent visit they had an offer on some end of roll pieces of fabric so I bought a piece hoping that I could make it work, lucky for me it did.  I hand embroidered the numbers on before I sewed it up, now I shouldn't need to use my needle gauge to find the needles for a project, provided I put them back in the right place of course!

We have been making little gnomes this year as each season has come along, they sit on our seasonal table. Earlier this year some dear friends of ours moved away to another country and I wanted to make them something that was small enough to be posted and would be enjoyed by the whole family.  So I made them a full set, one for each season, I hope that when they place each gnome on their seasonal table they will be reminded of all the lovely time we spent together, a  little piece of us in their new home.

What have you been making or creating recently?

*************************

Lace Cardigan Pattern here
Tunic Pattern here
Cardigan pattern here
Needle Roll Tutorial here
Peg Doll inspiration here

Flowers

I have been wanting to make some small thank you presents for a while now.  I have been hampered in this by too many distractions which I have now said no to, and a lack of ideas of what to make.  I wanted/needed them to be something I could make fairly quickly, with bits and pieces I had in the house and they had to be small enough to send through the post without breaking the bank.  A while ago I pinned a tutorial which I realised would be perfect as I had some brooch backs in the house! So not wanting to pin something that I would never make I practiced what I preached.

In the end these weren't made that quickly partly because I have so little time for any crafts or creating at the moment and partly because they are quite fiddly.  This could be because I made these with six petals whereas the original suggests five but I thought the pattern of petals with the materials I was using looked better with six, the next one I make I will try five.

I have punched holes in some card and painted on the word Thank you and there you have it a card with a wee present attached.  Now I just need to get them in the post.............

Joining in with Nicole

Creativity

I have almost finished reading a book which I bought primarily for inspiration, it has provided it but not in the way I thought it would.  I often read on blogs wonderful crafty type activities that are going on, none of which have ever been tried here.  At first it made me feel inadequate that we were not creative in our house and I was in some way depriving my children.

In the past I have rarely sat with the children and engaged in some activity that could be described as craft.  This is mostly due to the fact that I had hit a wall with my eldest, he hates anything which is tactile such as painting, glue, playdough, clay and the like.  He loves to draw and does so most days but when he was little I struggled with what else to offer and do with him.  My youngest on the other hand loves to do anything which involves paint, glue, glitter, stickers, clay, paper, pens you name it she will give it a try.

I have been pondering our weekly rhythm recently trying to work out what to include, I really wanted to include a specific time for craft, that is not to say that we will only do it at that time in any given week but that I will set up activities on that morning and see what happens.  I have also been pondering what to do in that time as my children had very different needs and wants.  I know that I could borrow books from the library or browse the Internet and find a plethora of activities to offer my youngest but what to offer my eldest and was I failing him if I didn't offer him as much?

So as part of my research I have been reading about activities we could do and hoped that The Artist's Way for Parents would give me some ideas but it is not that kind of book.  What it has given me is a strong sense that there are more ways to cultivate creativity in your children than providing some paper and glue.  That of course is part of it, but it is so much more and that more is already a big part of our lives.  We listen to a wide variety of music both recorded and live, we have a good rhythm to our lives, we spend a large amount of time outside each week, we live in an uncluttered house where everything has its place, we read lots of books together and alone, these are all things that this book suggests that you could put into place to assist with cultivating creativity.  The author suggests that you allow your children to try everything, that you provide the tools to do this and they will find the things that they are good at and want to do more of.   So now I need to decide what it is I provide for them to try, I don't want to end up with a house full of stuff that only gets used once or spend money on classes that they don't want to attend it is about finding the balance.

I am feeling more positive about it now.  I am no longer coveting the lovely things on other blogs that my children are not making.  We need to do what is right for us, for each of us as individuals and whatever that is I hope to find out!

Autumn

I have been making bits and pieces for our seasonal table over the last week or so.  I realised at the beginning of September when we changed the books in the basket, taking out the summer ones and replacing with autumn, that we had nothing to decorate our tree with.  I have knitted some leaves in autumn inspired colours once again using this pattern.  I might add to these leaves with some felt ones which I thought the children could help with.

We made some little acorn peg people with some friends at a crafting session at their house, we have shared them here where you can also see that the tree is still summery!

We have recently collected a few pieces whilst out on walks to keep them together I thought I would make some bowls to put them in.  I have knitted a bowl which now needs felting and we have made one using fabric and glue, fabric mâché.  To make one of these you need to find a bowl to use as a form and cover it with cling film.  The material needs to be cut into thin strips and the glue, we used PVA, is watered down slightly.  Coat the material in the glue and lay over the bowl covered in cling.  You will to start the strips the right side down for the inside of the bowl, once you have covered the bowl place the strips right side up for the outside of the bowl then leave it to dry.  We made ours last week and went away for the weekend hoping it would be dry when we came back it was on the outside so we separated it from the bowl we were using and found it was a little damp inside still we have had to reglue it a little as it had pulled apart a little.  The material I used was quite thick, it was leftover from the curtains I made in the living room where our seasonal table is, I thought it would be fun if they matched, so it has taken longer to dry.  Once it is fully dry I will trim off the edges to neaten it up.  We got the idea from a book we have borrowed from the library.

The knitted bowl is a really quick knit which I made whilst the children were having their bath, once I had finished I put the completed 'bowl' on top of the children's clothes that needed sorting. When I came to take the knitting downstairs I discovered I was a needle short and hunted around for it to no avail, it still hasn't turned up!

I have several other ideas of things we could make to add to our table including mushrooms and fungi if we have time we will make some this year if not then it can wait until next.  This is our first year having a seasonal table so we are taking it slowly building up items to put on it.