Limits and Creativity
One of my favorite things about knitting is the diversity of fibers we are so lucky to experience! This week I worked a little bit with rustic organic wool, a little bit with airy and light mohair, a little bit with smooth cotton. My hands and eyes are always so happy to switch between yarns, it gives me the biggest creativity boost - every time I pick up a new skein from my yarn basket I get this rush of excitement imagining all the potential projects that could come out of it!
I also love that each yarn has its own "personality" and its own limits. I remember reading somewhere a phrase - "never try to turn yarn into something it is not", and that is so true! Whenever I am disappointed in the yarn/stitch combination experiment, I always remember that phrase and start all over again, trying to decipher yarn's language and looking for a perfect fiber-stitch marriage.
A couple of weeks ago I was reading a book by a very experienced designer, who works in a different, no-fiber related industry. But one of his insights really got me thinking about the creative process in fiber crafts as well. In the capital called "The Virtue of Limitations", it says: "More than anything else a designer needs limitations... There’s no creativity without limitations. The best design specimens arose as a result of painfully strict requirements.... good design only exists within limitations."
For some reason I really loved this thought. I used to be scared of the word "creativity" - so inexplicable, so uncertain and vague. Maybe that's why I am so drawn to completely different yarns out there and don't really have the preference. I love the fact that each fiber has its own limits and restrictions. I notice that if I don't determine some kind of limits for myself, in anything I do, I get lost, don't work efficiently enough and, ironically, creative unlimited freedom is the worst thing for my creative productivity :) ; but if I, or someone else, build a "frame" for the project, where there are restrictions and certain limits, my mind starts working frantically! Does it make any sense to you? I would love to hear how you look at the limits in your fiber crafts! Are they helpful or, on the contrary, you need to have a complete creative freedom?
Have a wonderful day! I hope to see you at Yarn Along!
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