Last week’s creativity lesson was about the value of limitations. There was a lot to it, but basically it was about how having structure and limits around what you are going to do can be valuable in a number of ways. Among other benefits, it helps you focus and also forces you to play with the possibilities within those boundaries.

One of the possible exercises was coming up with stitch patterns with a 4 x 4 repeat. That is not a lot of space! Within that 4 x 4 repeat, your stitch pattern can be texture, colorwork, lace, cables – whatever. But it can’t go outside of that stitch count for the repeat. And it is amazing what a variety of different patterns people came up with within that structure!

I have had cables on the brain lately, so I messed around with small repeat cables, all of which can be done without cable needles. I am working on knitting them all up, which is an interesting experiment in itself.

As I am knitting, I’m wishing I had a little more room to play with the repeats, because I’d like to see what having a little more space between some of the elements would do.

And I probably will try that out, but as a separate exercise. This particular lesson is about working within limits, so I am sticking with them!