Ideas, the creative process, and a new crochet stitch[?]

Sometimes, when my health is swinging in the upward direction, I get a little project-crazy. I’ve had these bursts of creative brain juice since I was young and crayons/walls were my primary medium, but it’s different with CFS.

It reminds me of a classic Mitch Hedberg joke:

It’s as if the fatigue and brain fog are the foot stepping on the hose (the hose being my…brain?) and when that foot lets up, ALL OF THE IDEAS come flooding out.

I can’t possibly get them all down on paper, and very, very few of them end up in some 3-dimensional form. I guess that’s true for everyone, though. There’s only so much time and energy we have, no matter how big or small our energy envelope is.

And it’s a good thing that we can’t bring all of our ideas to fruition. I’ve had some pretty crummy ideas, and I’m glad I didn’t spend 8 hours crocheting them into existence.

The creative process isn’t usually a one-off thing – there’s some culling, rethinking, and experimenting that happens. If that cycle sounds familiar, I’m not surprised – scientists do it, and it’s also gained some attention in the business world.

I often see beautiful crochet patterns and think, “How did someone come up with that? How many times did they have to make it to get it right? Did they sketch it out first? Calculate stitch counts and gauge?”

My own process is often a bit more helter-skelter than that. I do have a little notebook where I write down some of my ideas or record alterations to patterns I’m working on. I also have a penchant for starting projects and frogging them 1/3 of the way through, after realizing the idea itself should have been rejected during Phase 1 (like those shorts).

And that, coincidentally, is how I come up with a new crochet stitch. At least, I think it’s new. I was looking for a novel stitch with a fine texture, organic appearance, and good stretchiness without big gaping holes. I tried about 6 different experimental stitch combos, ripping them all back and starting over again.

Finally, I created this one.

I’ve scoured the internet and haven’t come up with this exact stitch anywhere. It looks a bit like wattle stitch, lemon peel stitch, or grit stitch, but it’s not. I’m hesitant to write the pattern up and give it a name, because I’d like to get some confirmation that it doesn’t already exist.

Have I really created something new? I’m not sure. If you’re a crocheter and think you’ve seen it before, let me know. The downside to being a “creative” person these days is that it seems like everything’s been done before.

Even if it turns out that I haven’t invented a new stitch, I’m happy with the way this went and I’ll be glad to use it in future projects.

And I can always go back to the drawing board notebook.