Playing and Enjoying Mindless Creativity...

I booked off today.  After teaching for 2 days and getting a call to substitute teach for tomorrow and Friday, I decided last night that I needed a day to catch up on laundry, cooking, sketching and the piles on my desk.  A few weeks ago, we bought 10 lbs. of beets and tucked them in our cold storage area down in the basement.  Nick and I love beets, but 10 lbs. is a LOT of beets, especially since both of my girls are rather iffy about them.  There were also bits and pieces of other veggies in the fridge to use up, so once the girls got home and started in on homework, I decided to make a huge pot of veggie soup and process the beets.

My cookbooks all explained how much easier beets were to peel once they’d been cooked or steamed.  “The peels will just slide off!” they promised. Remembering earlier attempts to make borscht a few years ago where my hands were stained pink for weeks from peeling piles of beets, I was ready to try another technique.

Along the way, as I stood at my sink rubbing the peel off cooked beets and staring into a huge pot of blood red water, I started getting crazy, creative ideas, especially when Erin wandered by and said “Cool! Didn’t they used to dye things red with beets?”

Reaching up into the cupboard, I found a rather old dishcloth I’d knitted about 6 months ago.  (I knit a LOT of these on car trips!)

I decided to throw it into the pot to soak as I scrubbed the peels off the beets.

When I was almost done with the beets, I decided to peek at the cloth.  What a colour change!

Dumping all that colour down the sink was “Creepy Cool” according to the girls because it looked like blood!  Can you tell they are SO ready for Hallowe’en?

Of course, without a setting agent, the dye didn’t really stay long in the dishcloth.  I decided to toss it out with the scraps rather than put it in the wash and risk turning socks or underwear pink.

With all the beets processed into freezer bags or made into beet salad, it was time to relax for a while and enjoy someone else’s Creativity.

I used to fill in doodle posters like these all the time as a kid.  I bought one a few years ago and rediscovered it today while tidying my office.  There is something incredibly soothing about colouring in a few shapes at a time and watching the colours play with each other as the design begins to come to life.  I still have a LOT of white space to fill, but it was FUN... and that’s what this adventure has been all about... finding more ways to add fun and creativity to each day.

INHALE:  The Amish take delight in treating every task as important and worthy of doing to the best of your ability.  By playing and being a bit off the wall, the job of peeling and chopping up 10 lbs of beets became less tedious and more of an adventure.  I don’t think I will ever find a way to make chores like dusting feel Creative (though I’ve been known to doodle things in the dust when it gets really thick!) but for today, the challenge of looking for Creativity worked, then I got to take great delight in enjoying someone ELSE’s creation. All I had to do was colour in the shapes!

EXHALE:  When was the last time you bought a colouring book, doodle poster or printed out a mandala to colour?  Try to find one that makes your fingers itch to play with a new box of crayons or package of markers and keep it handy so that the next time you are talking on the phone, helping a child with homework, relaxing before bed or even watching television, you can colour in the next page or section of your project and have something Creative to show for your time instead of wondering where the hours went.

Battling with Boa... or Knowing When KNOT to Continue...

I have to laugh now and make this into a horrible pun.  Last night at midnight, there was nothing funny about wool wrangling. The yarn known as BOA to be exact.  It’s not wool and never will be. Think of it as a long string of pretty colours that looks ever so much like eyelashes.

After showing off my half completed scarf that absolutely dazzled non-knitters, the time came to change to the next 2 balls of yarn and complete the scarf.  The only problem was that the second ball of Boa did not lie placidly and cooperatively in my knitting bag. It did not blend beautifully and play nice with the other yarn... it turn into an evil tangle.

“Fine!” I thought to myself.  After a day of worrying about a friend and dealing with the oxymoron of Church politics, I was sure that Creativity was telling me to turn this into a wonderful blog entry about patience and persistence....  that when life got tangled, you were supposed to just take your time and try to sort things out.

So when my yarn began to do THIS around 9 pm and The Amazing Race came on, I wasn’t too nervous, I just began to try to sort through the tangle.

By 10 :15, I was making a bit of progress after the yarn decided to do THIS, but my  husband gave up and headed to bed.  The house grew still after I turned the TV off to sit alone with my thoughts.  I love the sound of a quiet house when my family is sleeping upstairs.  It reminds me of MANY nights I spent working from 9 pm to 1 am when the kids were young on designing and graphics because that was the only time I could work on the computer uninterrupted.

I did think a lot about life and how things can snarl up or get complicated to quickly.  I thought about how sometimes everything goes so smoothly and other times it become this incredible, impassible tangle that we begin to dread dealing with.  I had all kinds of lovely meditations planned as I sat there trying to unknot my yarn that kept snarling into clumps like THIS.

The problem with me is that I tend to get a wee bit.... hmm... STUBBORN, FIXATED and OBSESSIVE are probably the kindest words that I can think of.  You see, I’d basically decided that this would make such a wonderful blog entry as soon as I had a nice, neat, tangle-free ball of boa to show you.

The yarn had other plans... devious plans that increased in their complexity as the clock drew closer to midnight...

(OK... most of you would have gone to bed or played Farmville by now, but I did share that I can be a wee bit stubborn, right?)

Finally, as the clock struck midnight, I used some very colourful words and decided to salvage what I could of my yarn mess.

Tiny boa balls....

Tying them into one ball, knowing I can hide the knots in the scarf or keep them to the side and darn in the ends as I get to them, I took one last picture and headed off to bed just before 12:30 am.

What did I learn?  Next time, be quicker to pick up the scissors... or if Boa is on sale for less than a dollar, buy a third ball just in case one becomes uncooperative.  Let the cat have the one that refuses to play nice!

INHALE:  So often, we fall into the trap of wanting everything to go a certain way.  We get an idea in our mind of how something should unfold and leap merrily out into that adventure, even when Life, timing, circumstances or the Universe try to gently tell us that maybe we aren’t thinking things through.  Learn when to follow a vision and when you should adapt your great plan to get to bed at a reasonable hour!

EXHALE:  Inspired by my yarn disaster, this exhale is FUN.  Open your sketchbook or take out a blank page of paper. You might want to put a paper underneath to keep everything safe! Closing your eyes, scribble all over that paper in big, swirly, loopy tangles.  When you think you’ve made plenty of lines, open your eyes and check to see if you stayed on the paper.  Take out some of your favourite colours (or some of the ones you’ve been challenging yourself with) and color in any of the shapes in the tangle that catch your fancy.  You can try to see if you find any shapes in your scribbles or just enjoy colouring at random.  Think of me and the yarn as you color.

Watching Creativity Blossom...

Oddly enough, today’s adventure in Creativity wasn’t really about me.  For the first time in three weeks, I had the luxury of walking up without an alarm clock or a full schedule.  There was no company coming for a holiday meal, no needlework classes to teach and my only commitment today was to make sure that Bethany got home from the sleep-over and over to another party at supper time. I felt almost giddy at the freedom, despite the grey, cold rain outside.

Erin is in the midst of volleyball season and her first high school midterms are approaching rapidly.  Her music teacher assigned a huge project due this coming week as a group project and Erin found out Thursday that her partner had to leave for Ontario to attend a family funeral.  Yesterday, she was handed a few sheets of information and the burden of assembling it was left on her shoulders.

There’s something amazing about being a parent when your kids suddenly show you that they’ve actually listened to you and learned from you over the years.  Instead of just typing up the usual report or putting together a Power Point presentation, Erin decided to play with some of the fluorescent card stock I have in the office.  Since their musical assignment was 1960 - 1964, Erin is assembling the information on various 60s coloured sheets which she will then punch holes in and lace together to create a type of accordion book display.  She did one of these in Grade 4 for a project on beavers and remembered how much fun it had been to plan and assemble.

Instead of freaking out, getting angry or avoiding the task, she chose to dive in and have some fun with the task.

Creativity wins out over complaining any day.  How cool is it to learn from your kids?

INHALE:  There are tasks in our life that we find difficult or may not enjoy.  There are also things we need to do that will be a lot of work.  Yet, every task also offers the chance to be creative and have some fun with it if we just look at things from a slightly different angle.  Taking that moment to think “outside the box” is what produces such creative results... projects, tasks or presentations that will jump out from the others because they take an unexpected approach.  Creativity is also fun and when you are having fun with something, even if it is a lot of work, it shows in the final results.

EXHALE:  Is there anything that you’ve been putting off?  Avoiding because it  seems like too big a project?  Is there a task you need to do where you’ve been tempted to do the bare minimum or find the quickest way to get it done instead of a creative one?  Think about whether or not you could approach this challenge from another angle that would make getting the job done more interesting or more enjoyable.  If you don’t have a big job to tackle, start with something smaller. We bought a set of new glasses today since our tall tumblers were down to 4 glasses from a mishmash of different sets.  Though I was tempted to hang on to my favourite one, it made more sense to get rid of the others and have a set of 12 that matched.

Freaking Non-Knitters Out...

Yesterday’s Inhale and Exhale wouldn’t post properly, so I will try to add them in a post edit. There are days when it won’t let me make the icons as small as usual as well, so I am learning to go with the flow and tame my inner perfectionist.

I also posted about the two scarves that I’ve been working on since acquiring new wool in Toronto.  If I hadn’t been teaching classes there and staying up so late at night, but the weather is getting cold since my return home as well, so the urge to knit new things for my neck is just too strong to ignore.

When I worked on this one in the staff room at lunch yesterday, I had several people come over to feel the combination of the two yarns put together.  I also had a few teachers ask me how many things I knit in a year.  This might be because I’ve already knit 3 baby blankets for half of the staff that is pregnant and they’ve also seen me working on my socks. I don’t think I’ve ever kept track of the number of projects I knit in a year.

I also took out the scarf during Guided Study period.  This is a half an hour period for enrichment, extra help or catching up on homework that changes every 5 or 6 weeks as the marks are handed in by teachers and students who are struggling or excelling are identified.  I’d planned to read a bit since every student who doesn’t have work to do is encouraged to bring a book, but I realized that I couldn’t keep an eye on the entire class that way. Hence the knitting.  I knit by feel.  I’ve always been able to handle basic knitting stitches (anything short of cables and patterns with lots of counting) without looking since University when I would knit and study or knit and watch TV.  This has come in handy when I’ve had to divide movies into which ones I need to watch (knit) and which ones I can listen to while glancing up now and then (stitch).  It also keeps me from being a nagging passenger on long car trips and I can knit in the dark if I have to talk to Nick to keep him awake at the end of a long journey.  It is also really good for freaking high school kids out.

I began to knit while the kids were working on their projects.  Every now, one of the teenagers would glance up and find me watching them while my hands knit.  Whispers began, nudges as I continued to glance around the room surveying them.  Finally, one brave girl put up her hand and spoke. “Excuse me, miss, are you doing that without looking down at it?”  I just grinned and nodded.

Who says knitting is boring!

Even when you are fairly well practiced at a skill, you can also continue to learn and be inspired.  While I was up in Toronto, I found this wool for Bethany that brings a  hint of orange into the blue, white and pink mix.  The soft colours will be perfect for her and they also tied in nicely with my “use more of the colour you like the least” challenge.  By now, I am actually growing a little fond of orange.

While I was in Toronto, Jocelyne was knitting a cool scarf pattern before one of the classes.  When I commented on the pattern, she showed me how it was a  short pattern that you repeated on EVERY row until you either ran out of wool or got sick of knitting the scarf.   You can find it on Yarn Harlot’s website here .  This is what mine is starting to look like:

Go ahead... practice being Creative in public and see what happens!

INHALE:  Being Creative in new ways or learning a new variation of a skill we already posses can bring a deep enjoyment into our lives along with an excitement that keeps us hooked.  When things become routine and predictable, they can also become boring.  I don’t ever want what I create to bore me. If it does, then it’s time to find something new to try.

EXHALE:  Which hobby, craft or skill do you feel most confident in?  It may be one that you have practiced for a long time or one in which you developed a sense of mastery quickly.  In order to keep this well-practiced skill from growing stale, try one of the following.  Try starting something that you have never attempted before (a new style of pattern, a new stitch, a different technique).  Visit a craft store, website or guild meeting where you could learn from someone else who practices this skill and get inspired.  Look through books and dare to try something you think might be too hard for you.  When we push ourselves, we can grow.  Or, find something new that absolutely delights you, as I did with this scarf pattern and savour the new experience.

Another Experiment with Orange...

After a very FULL day of substitute teaching, I needed a bit of fun tonight, so Bethany and I got out the Fimo and Sculpey .  I decided to play a bit with the bright orange colour and made this tiny pumpkin bead.

Next, I tried to take some of the blues that I loved and work in a strip of orange, just like I did with the friendship bracelet at the beginning of this exploration.

Once I had my strips, I braided and rolled them into a ball.

Next I pressed them into a firm ball to marbleize it a bit.

I took chunks off and rolled them into bead shapes with their hints of orange like lightning through the blue...

Then set everything out on some foil to bake.

Erin was so intrigued by the process that she made some beads of her own in her school colours.  Creativity really is contagious!

Tomorrow, I’’ll show off the two scarves that had the staff room at Erin’s high school asking how many projects I knit a year.  One pattern, created by Yarn Harlot , is incredibly addictive and was taught to me this weekend by one of the stitchers in a class. Yes, Jocelyn, this new addiction is YOUR fault!!

INHALE: Even after a demanding day, taking the time to be Creative instead of just  sitting passively to watch television can help recharge something deep inside each one of us.  When Life gets hectic, we are sometimes tempted to cut out indulgences, but those are often the things that help us feel more rested and grounded.  I actually went to bed feeling far less tired than when I began to make the beads.

EXHALE:  If you don’t feel like buying some clay to explore bead making, find another small craft that you could do to help you relax the next time you have a hectic day.  Tuck it somewhere in your kitchen cupboard or keep it close at hand so that you don’t have to go hunting when you need it. Don’t feel guilty about taking time for yourself when you do your craft... you may just discover other members of your family sitting down to join you!

Back Home Again...

Does anyone else have trouble coming back from a trip and getting back into a routine?  I think the most creative thing that I did today was dream.  I went back to bed on a grey rainy day as soon as I got the girls onto their school bus to catch up on some of the hours of sleep that I missed at the CreativFestival this weekend.

The day after the festival is usually a quiet one if I can help it, but today wasn’t all that quiet.  Nick came home sick from work today. He and Erin seem to be coming down with a nasty cold that I am hoping Bethany and I can avoid catching!  My main computer was also acting a bit wonky, so I had to run a check on it.  I am sure that I am not alone in finding the transition back to reality a little abrupt by bedtime tonight! There must have been tired but happy stitchers, quilters, beaders and even exhibitors all trying to get back into the routine of their daily lives today.

The thing about a creative weekend is that you bring a bit of that magic along with you, in memories, inspiration and projects to work on until your next escape.  I am learning how important  and satisfying that daily search for creativity can be, even if it does seem buried under the laundry I had to do and the supplies I needed to get out of the suitcases and back into my office!

INHALE:  We sometimes think that Creative projects have to be big and glorious, intricate and innovative.  Little ways to add something creative you our daily lives can also be just as magical, especially if they are quick, easy and unexpected.  Don’t always try to take on something hugely creative when something small will do just as well.

EXHALE: In the next few days, find tiny ways of being more Creative for someone ELSE in your life.  Write a note on a napkin for your child’s lunch box, slip a note with a silly joke  or nice compliment into  your spouse’s briefcase or wallet so that they find when they least expect it or pin up a crazy Internet cartoon in the staff bathroom where you work.  Giving other people a smile or brightening their day is not only Creative, it makes others feel better about themselves and this world.

Surrounded by Creativity...

It’s been hard to blog, even though I had to add Internet access to the room in order to get Teresa’s files up here safely and ask her the occasional question as she gets over the nasty flu that kept her from coming to the show in Toronto.  While everyone REALLY misses her, they are a wee bit glad that she kept her germs at her house!

I’d forgotten what a huge city Toronto is compared to Moncton.  I’d also forgotten just how small the CN tower makes me feel!

This festival is the most INCREDIBLE experience because you are literally surrounded by Creativity for the whole day!  I’ve seen the most amazing beaded, knitted and quilted outfits that I’ve been longing to go up and touch, half drying or half completed class projects being carried carefully by their creators as they head to their next adventure and enough craft supplies to send me into fits of “I need to have that!”  I’ve been good actually... I’ve also been teaching most of the time!  The only purchase that I did justify yesterday between classes and my lecture was this yarn.  It’s been REALLY cold here in Toronto and the taxi showed up just early enough in Moncton that I forgot to grab one of my scarves to bring with me. Yeah... that sounds like a convincing excuse...

Despite having to juggle things, change things and adapt, all of my presentations have gone well so far.  I’ve spent time with amazing, creative people and also had fun just playing.  Yesterday was the joint “Tiny Dragon” class where Teresa and I both designed little dragons over one to “torture” them with. 

One creative stitcher even brought along some of my Gemstone Dragons that she’d stitched OVER ONE  backstitched with BLENDING FILAMENT!

They looked amazing and I felt so honoured that someone loved those dragons enough to work on them that small.

I did a lecture called The Perfection Trap that reminded stitchers not to point out all their mistakes to others or strive for impossible standards and then went on to teach my Hoarding Your Creativity class.  What fun we had!! I’d made a bunch of Inspiration tags before leaving home with the ShrinkyDinks film (I just LOVED this stuff as a kid!). If you haven’t played with it recently, go find some at a craft store and tuck it away for a day when you want to play.

That was really what made the last class go by so quickly.  I was inspiring them and sharing why it was important for Creative people to have a book or box in which to hoard things they find that spark their creativity from quotes to scraps, images to ideas and photos to textures.  Everyone got so caught up in playing on that deep level that children know instinctively that the time just flew by. Before we knew it, we were cleaning up and I was heading back to the hotel to snip more floss and chase beads around on the carpet. That’s another entry.

INHALE:  We sometimes forget how important it is to surround ourselves with other creative people.  They may not all create the same things that you do, the same types of objects or crafts that you like, but when you are with other creative people, it recharges you in a special way because you don’t feel as alone.  We cannot create in a vacuum.

EXHALE: Whatever craft you love most or whatever creativity you have just discovered, find out if there is a gathering, a special day, a class or a retreat that you could attend in the next few months so that you could take a large block of time to spend not only doing something creative but also surround yourself with other creative people.  I know that even though this festival can be tiring, it is also way more INSPIRING!!

Surrounded by Creativity...

It’s been hard to blog, even though I had to add Internet access to the room in order to get Teresa’s files up here safely and ask her the occasional question as she gets over the nasty flu that kept her from coming to the show in Toronto.  While everyone REALLY misses her, they are a wee bit glad that she kept her germs at her house!

I’d forgotten what a huge city Toronto is compared to Moncton.  I’d also forgotten just how small the CN tower makes me feel!

This festival is the most INCREDIBLE experience because you are literally surrounded by Creativity for the whole day!  I’ve seen the most amazing beaded, knitted and quilted outfits that I’ve been longing to go up and touch, half drying or half completed class projects being carried carefully by their creators as they head to their next adventure and enough craft supplies to send me into fits of “I need to have that!”  I’ve been good actually... I’ve also been teaching most of the time!  The only purchase that I did justify yesterday between classes and my lecture was this yarn.  It’s been REALLY cold here in Toronto and the taxi showed up just early enough in Moncton that I forgot to grab one of my scarves to bring with me. Yeah... that sounds like a convincing excuse...

Despite having to juggle things, change things and adapt, all of my presentations have gone well so far.  I’ve spent time with amazing, creative people and also had fun just playing.  Yesterday was the joint “Tiny Dragon” class where Teresa and I both designed little dragons over one to “torture” them with. 

One creative stitcher even brought along some of my Gemstone Dragons  that she’d stitched OVER ONE  backstitched with BLENDING FILAMENT!

They looked amazing and I felt so honoured that someone loved those dragons enough to work on them that small.

I did a lecture called The Perfection Trap that reminded stitchers not to point out all their mistakes to others or strive for impossible standards and then went on to teach my Hoarding Your Creativity class.  What fun we had!! I’d made a bunch of Inspiration tags before leaving home with the ShrinkyDinks film. If you haven’t played with it recently, go find some at a craft store and tuck it away for a day when you want to play.

That was really what made the last class go by so quickly.  I was inspiring them and sharing why it was important for Creative people to have a book or box in which to hoard things they find that spark their creativity from quotes to scraps, images to ideas and photos to textures.  Everyone got so caught up in playing on that deep level that children know instinctively that the time just flew by. Before we knew it, we were cleaning up and I was heading back to the hotel to snip more floss and chase beads around on the carpet. That’s another entry.

INHALE:  We sometimes forget how important it is to surround ourselves with other creative people.  They may not all create the same things that you do, the same types of objects or crafts that you like, but when you are with other creative people, it recharges you in a special way because you don’t feel as alone.  We cannot create in a vacuum.

EXHALE: Whatever craft you love most or whatever creativity you have just discovered, find out if there is a gathering, a special day, a class or a retreat that you could attend in the next few months so that you could take a large block of time to spend not only doing something creative but also surround yourself with other creative people.  I know that even though this festival can be tiring, it is also way more INSPIRING!!