To Create or Not to Create...and The Joy it Brings!

I love to create. This is one of the reasons why, after a productive career as a registered emergency room nurse, I opted to become a writer.

Creating anything is incredibly fulfilling for me. Whether acting, cooking, baking, writing, or doing crafts, I feel best when I’m doing something that brings about some form of newness.

Knitting and crocheting are two such things that fulfill my creative aspect.

I’ve been crafting with yarn since I was about knee high to a grasshopper. In my younger years, during the winter months, Mom would pull out her yarn and begin working on a project. Her biggest ones were afghans for family members; I have several blankets that she made me in my linens closet. She would work for what seemed like weeks on ripple patterns, and would create beautiful works of art. Longing to be as creative as she was, I begged her to teach me how to work needles like she did.

I remember that my first projects were ridiculously sloppy, but for an eight year old, I guess that wasn’t half bad. As I became more adept, I asked Mom to teach me to knit. Since she wasn’t as keen on knitting as she was on crocheting, she taught me how to cast on, as well as instructed me on the ability to knit and purl. During my teen years, I continued to crochet here and there, but knitting fell by the wayside for me until about fifteen years ago. I became increasingly interested in sewing, and when I met my husband, we began a tradition of creating gifts for each other, during the holidays and for other special events. He, the woodworker, would create beautiful furniture. I, with the savvy of needle and thread, would create clothing, bedding, pillows, and the like. It’s a tradition that continues, to this day.

About fifteen years ago, I decided to pick up my needles again, and made my daughter a small blanket. These days, it works great as a shawl, but back then, I wanted something that would wrap over her four year old legs during blustery days when she would play with her stuffed animals on the sofa in her room. I covered the pillows on her sofa, I created a small valance, and I began working on motifs and other items to keep my fingers and mind busy. I found crocheting and knitting to be an excellent meditation, as well as an excellent way to release excess energy.

When I became involved in community theater, rehearsals took up a lot of my time. During down time, and before I was called upon the stage, I would rehearse my lines, but found that I had too much time on my hands. The yarn and needles came back out, and I found new ways to keep myself occupied. During that time, most cast members found themselves the proud owners of new scarves. If you look me up on Twitter, you’ll find my tag line to be, “Hit me up if you want a scarf”.

My daughter asked me, a few years back, if I could create an “infinity” scarf for her. My attempt was paltry and lacking, and it sat in the back of her drawer for months. An attempt to knit a hat became a jumbled mess, and I decided that the only thing that I could truly create were scarves.

Well, that was until I found the “granny square blanket in a day” pattern.

Using an incredibly large crochet hook and three strands of yarn at once, I found that I could create a very large granny square, and it was indeed finished in one day. That was the year that everyone received an afghan for Christmas, and they are the most beloved of my creations. I worked on one for my niece’s first son, and I began to create more and more.

AC Moore and Michael’s became stores that I frequented in the winter months. Soon, I had amassed four large plastic totes of yarn, which became the basis for what I had hoped would be a small business.

Everywhere that I went, the yarn and needles came with me. People asked for scarves or blankets, and I willingly complied. I took the summer months off, because overheating is anathema to people with MS. But I began to miss my knitting, and by the end of October, out came the yarn, needles, and patterns. My fingers scurried over stitches, and before I knew it, I had yet another scarf on my hands.

A friend, who had also inherited copious amounts of yarn, offered them to me, in the hopes that I could use them. I did in fact put them to great use; a project awaits finishing that has used scraps and other skeins that she had given to me. I have also used said amounts of yarn to teach my own daughter how to knit and crochet; in doing so, creation has come full circle.

This year, my niece had her second child, so I began to work feverishly on granny squares and small knitted squares to piece together for a blanket. As I labored, I noticed that my mind went to a place of “no-mind”; no longer was I counting stitches, no longer did I feel anxious to see the finished project. It just was a labor of love, and I realized this year that I was actually meditating and feeling calmer as I knit.

I ran into a woman in an office recently who was working on a baby blanket, and I asked her the pattern. She showed me, with delight, the pattern, and my brain immediately scanned the style. I committed it to memory, and I began to work even harder on the blanket for my niece. A few weeks later, I ran into a woman who was working on an infinity scarf. Since the moment was ripe for creating something handmade for my daughter for Christmas, I asked how to get that perfect twisted look. She showed me on a scarf that she was knitting, and I immediately understood how to create what had challenged me in the past. I worked long and hard at it, and when she opened it on Christmas morning, my daughter thought I had actually purchased the scarf. I was pretty pleased with myself.

One night, as I was working on the squares for my niece’s baby blanket, I began to form a crocheted square. I picked up all of the scraps, and before long, I had a pretty large lap quilt. My daughter admired it and told me that she would love to have something that looked like this. I smiled to myself, for it was my plan to make her another blanket, larger than the last, which she might take with her when she begins a family of her own. When I set it out this morning to see how it looked, I was pretty impressed with how beautiful it looked. And the funny thing was, as I was crocheting it, I was feeling more and more peaceful with the work of it, and less anxious about completing it.

Many knitters and crocheters claim that they go into a “zone” when creating. It’s truth – when we create, we are tapping into a part of ourselves that usually is ignored. Stresses in life, such as family, work, and things to do, fall away as we joyfully and mindlessly bring about a new creation. Being creative takes us out of the past and future and puts us squarely into the present. This is why people who bake and cook as a hobby find such joy in it; they are creating, which is an intrinsic part of our make-up. We were meant to create, and not just in procreative ways. When we sit down at a computer and write a story, or we put two pieces of wood together to form a piece of furniture, we are going into “the zone”. We relax into a place where we are at one with the Creator in all of us. It brings us delight to see a well baked pie or a fabulous dinner that we worked on for hours. Even cleaning our home, creating it into some semblance of order out of chaos, brings about great joy.

I share this with all of you, in order to get you out of your rat race. I invite you to create something fabulous, something wonderful, that is distinctly you. Whether you write a few pages, or you color a page in your child’s favorite coloring book, it’s creation. Whether you sing a silly song or dance around like Snoopy, when you tap into the creative aspect of yourself, you are getting in touch with the true you. Don’t tell yourself that you aren’t creative, because we all are. Find something that you are really good at – even skipping stones on the waves is a form of creation. Go out there and do it. Believe me, you’ll be glad that you did.