In the 21st century, society needs people who think creatively because as they step into life’s problems they are more able to find creative ways of dealing with them.

That’s a paraphrase of the Life at 9 life journey series on television last night, which was about creativity. It seems creativity is a predictor of success in every domain of life because it is problem-solving, divergent thinking of possible solutions when presented with a difficult issue.

As we grow up, we are often obliged to subvert our creativity, to conform and follow rules and the experts in this program suggested that our current education system’s emphasis on performance and getting the ‘right answer’ is squashing creative development. 

Creativity is about taking risks, thinking out-of-the-box, being able to tolerate uncertainty – and it can be enhanced through practice. This was all music to my ears because Sew it Again is about empowering myself and others by creatively upcycling existing clothing to reduce the textile waste which is all around us.

At the What’s Cooking in the Gardens workshop at Redcliffe, Haley had fun using her creativity to jazz up an old t-shirt (after face-painting and other creative workshops). First she cut off the hem, and then made snips about 1cm apart along the bottom which were then each knotted. She wanted to make a flower with the hem off-cut, so I showed her how to run a gathering thread along the cut edge and pull it into a flower shape, which was attached with a felt-heart (cut from an old wool coat) and a vintage button. She then made a pocket feature, and cut some more slits in the shoulders.

I only discovered my creativity when playing with paints and textiles when my children were little – and remember writing an article on the importance of play. Interesting!