Exploring Creativity

If you homeschool, please stick with me on this post..it is not just knitting related :)

I recently listened to a really inspiring knitting podcast by Kelley Petkun. In the podcast, Kelley talks about compiling an inspiration book. An inspiration book! That is just my thing!
My 'knitterly' goals are Lace & Fair Isle, so I began to compile my own inspiration book.
To give you an idea, so far I have included:

Lace & Fair Isle charts found on-line
Photographs from nature
magazine clippings
scraps of wrapping paper & ribbon
anything that speaks to me of colour & texture & beauty.

For example, the following photo has really inspired me to want to knit a pair of striped socks in shades of orange & grey:



The main point for me to remember, when collecting things for my book is the following:
This is my book, designated just for me to keep all the things that I find to be inspiring..

Simple!

As I have been putting together my Inspiration book, I came across this wonderful post all about keeping a Knitting Notebook.
Now, I already keep a knitting journal, in which I make notes about patterns, items I would like to knit & I also keep photos of projects I have completed, modeled by the owner of the garment,plus notes on the prayers that I prayed for the recipients, as I knit those items.
Something about this format really resonated with me, though. The graph paper, the simplicity, just the whole little package. I dug out some mountboard we had & three book rings. My graph paper I downloaded here. I tore out the pages from my old knitting journal & added them to the new notebook & I love it! I feel much more free with it - free to make mistakes, free to be imperfect. Perfectionism kills creativity dead faster than anything else I know!

Are any homeschoolers still with me? I'm nearly there ;)

This week I picked up Inspired to Knit by Michele Rose Orne

This is a fabulous book! This is worth hunting down in the library, even if you do not knit, just for the authors handling of the creative process.
She has 'workshops' tucked in throughout the knitting patterns that are so inspiring & I plan to follow them with the girls.
We began today with the first workshop: Finding inspiration.
Michele begins:
"Every design begins with a spark of inspiration. For me, inspiration can come from just about anywhere. You too can find inspiration in your everyday surroundings. All you have to do is train your eye to look closely at the world around you & to think in terms of individual design elements. You'll soon find ideas everywhere you look."

This workshop deals with sparking creativity & the putting together of a 'mood board'

Michele says:
'For this workshop, you'll create your own mood board. It has nothing to do with knitting in particular, but playing with a handful of things to reveal a common theme is a fun & easy way to excercise your creativity'

And so we come around to homeschooling...I intend to follow the workshops in this book with my girls. I intend to use the excerices to help me create a knitted item. What my girls will create - who knows!

We began this morning- browsing through past issues of Country Living. we ripped out images that we liked & I was surprised at how the girls grasped the idea that we were looking for colours, textures, any beautiful images that appealed to us. Our ripped pages are stored away in our own folders...we will be collecting nature finds & going through my collections of fabrics, ribbons & buttons, before making up our own mood boards.
I am very excited about this project...who knows what we can create?

Here is a great interview on Lori's blog with Amanda Soule about her own mood board. Be inspired!