Exploring my Creativity

Over the last few weeks I have been researching and reading up on running a small business and marketing, all the ins and outs of it.  I already have a store on www.etsy.com but I haven’t really been able to market it properly or sell a great deal of what I make.  What do I make?  Jewellery.  With silver wire and gemstone beads.  I currently have  a schedule which I plan on keeping to (hopefully...!) and part of my list of things to do is a blog.  Of course, I have this ‘Creativity Blog’ which I will use to post up the Jewellery which I make, but this will happen later.

Before I go ‘full steam ahead’ with my Jewellery, I plan not only to read up on everything I can find which is essential to run a small business, but in the meantime, I plan to blog about what I am creating in the meantime, and about me exploring my own creativity.  The aim of this is not only to make lots of things I can give away as gifts, sell to friends and family, online or at craft shows (the latter of which I have yet to do!), but I want to find out what I can do, what I am natural at, what I am terrible at, what I hate doing, and what I love doing.  I have no idea how long this process may take, but at the moment, the Jewellery business will happen after my exploration of Creativity.

So, let me begin by talking about my current crafting obsession – knitting and crochet!  I learnt to knit before crocheting and I can say I can do both.  But some things do elude me – I have tried crocheting a hat several times and I just cannot get the tension right for the rim!  I either end up with floppy, flat rims and a hat that just kind of sits on the head and easily flops off, or I go to the other extreme and end up with a beret sort of hat with a rim which is simply impossible to fit on anybody’s head.  I have, however, knitted a hat which was successful, although I haven’t knitted one since – this is something I will be pursuing at some point!

In the meantime, as you can see on my blog AGES ago, I knitted a few scarves, and although I have successfully crocheted a couple of flower brooches as gifts, I am mostly knitting – lots of Christmas presents!  But first let me show you my first crochet scarf.  This is a simple straightforward pattern combining three rows of 203 double crochet stitches, and a border of shells all the way around the edge.  I got this pattern from “The Happy Hooker” (Stitch ‘n Bitch Crochet) which is a book I cannot recommend highly enough if you want to learn how to crochet – because I learnt from this book!

In the book it looks a bit larger, wider spacing between stitches, but then again I always come out with something different from patterns because I tend to buy the wool and think about the pattern later!  I thought this scarf looked very pretty in pink and it has a slightly floral feel to it thanks to the shell border and the mottled pink colour.  A spring/summer or summer/autumn scarf I think.