Knitvana

Bernadette Murthy in her wonderful book “Zen and the Art of Knitting” dedicated a whole chapter – Ripening the Intellect – to creative aspects of knitting. She describes how knitting is used in Waldorf schools to prepare first graders for writing and math and fifth graders for learning about mathematical progressions.

Knitting helps to develop fine motor skills, which are crucial for intellectual development. In particularly the speech center in the brain is very close to finger center, thus speech is very closely associated to knitting. Knitting also helps to improve concentration and problem solving abilities.  

Creative Act

Sara Susanka in her new book "Not So Big Life” explains how creative act happens for architects and artists. “Their role is to collect all the inspiration and all the facts they need to execute the creative act and then simply get out of the way and let the art happen through them. It sounds mysterious, and in a way it is, but when it occurs, it's the most natural thing in the world. This is the real key to a Not So Big Life”. The creativity in crafting your life remodeling comes when you make all the preparations and then let go. This is how you improve the quality of what you have. You can't manage what you want into existence, but you can be the instrument of its creation by getting all the tools in place and then letting things unfold as they will. This kind of creativity is something we are all capable of, but in order for it to happen we have to be completely engaged in what we are doing, with no planning, thinking, or worrying about the exact form of what we are making.

It is possible to live much of your life in this state of creative flow. With the tools to start weaving this quality into the very fabric of daily existence, whether you are at work or at home, whether you are in pain or filled with joy, you'll find that the meaningfulness you've been looking for shows up of its own accord.

Creativity and Positive Emotions

When describing rhythm in his book "CrazyBusy" Dr. Hallowell explains that rhythm helps to move trivial tasks from one part of the brain – the frontal lobs – to the back of the brain, the cerebellum, which is the automatic pilot of the brain. The frontal lobs create positive emotions when they are used. When people are engaged in an activity that they do well it makes them feel good. But if the frontal lobs are doing all the work, people perform on a mediocre level and get frustrated because the frontal lobs don’t like to do mediocre work. That’s why it is very important to get creative!

There are many ways that you can think creatively with the use of knitting and start feeling more positive emotions than ever before.