Creativity for the Uncreative

People tell me that I'm creative. But, the fact is, I don't think I've ever made anything up from scratch in my life. In the 1950's, a man named W. Edwards Deming went to Japan to teach U. S. manufacturing techniques to Japanese automobile manufacturers. The Japanese took this basic structure and ran with it, and we all know how that went, don't we? Well, I do the same thing--I decide what I want to make, I find a pattern that closely matches the form of my end-product (any pattern, even a not-so-good one, because it's a "look" I'm going for, rather than perfection, and some basic guidelines on how to achieve that shape), and then I go from there.

Take the armor: I made this armor for my son when he was about six years old. (As you can see, it still fit him when he had to dress up for medieval faire at school last year.) The benefit of hand-making something like this is that it has held up to six years of usage by three boys and, really, the helm took an evening and the gauntlets another. I started off with a basic pattern for an acorn cap (no longer online, as far as I can tell, but I'll keep looking), and then, using an open dc pattern that resembled chain links, extended it down his face and neck. I started working back and forth at the section with the face opening, and, then, when it was the right size, chained across, joined, and continued working in the round until it was long enough. The gauntlets were a mitten pattern--I made them fingerless, and then attached to the wrist end and worked my chainlink pattern until they suited me. I got fancy and edged the helm in gold crochet thread (he was King Richard from Robin Hood in the orginal rendition of this costume).

Don't ask for specifics--it was a stream-of-consciousness thing! And, really, that's the point--even an advanced beginner can do things like this when you have a basic foundation to work from. If it doesn't look right, you pull it out and redo that part (which is what I like about crocheting--knitting is still very scary to me in that respect!).