52 Weeks
of Creativity
by Fig & Filament x Snickerdoodle Knits
Inspiring unique pattern designs shaped by your perception of the world.
Finding yourself stuck in creative ruts, where you can’t seem to generate any new ideas?
Feeling bored with your design ideas?
Discovering that you keep using the same design ideas over and over again?
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52 Weeks of Creativity will get your creativity flowing again!
Creative design prompts for knit and crochet pattern designers, delivered weekly for a year.
By the end, you'll have 52* new design ideas.
*Sometimes, when the creativity starts flowing, it's hard to get it to stop. I'll often end with 3-5 design ideas from one of the design prompts. What's cool about that is then you can choose which are your absolute favorites to turn into patterns! Not every design idea needs to be a pattern.
Inside 52 Weeks of Creativity, you will receive a new design prompt each week for a year (or, if you’d rather, 52 weeks).
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But these aren’t your typical design prompts.
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You won’t receive any prompts that tell you what to design, or even what kinds of shapes or techniques to use in your design.
Instead, the design prompts give you inspiration from things, places, people, concepts, and emotions that are familiar to you.
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You won’t immediately have a design idea.
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Instead, you’ll be led on a creative thought journey, guided by your brain’s response to the prompt, which often seems entirely unrelated to knit and crochet pattern designing.
The design prompts inside 52 Weeks of Creativity will:
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expand your creativity
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encourage a different flow for your idea process
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allow for an endless number of ideas from the prompts
Your design ideas, and your process, will be unique to you and how you perceive the world around you.
Although 52 Weeks of Creativity is a brand-new program, this concept isn't new.
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Jessica also uses this creative process in the Design Circle’s week-long Creativity Burst Challenge, and participants in the challenge give it a 5-star rating with raving reviews.
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So. Much. Fun. AND I've got several legit ideas I will be using! I didn't quite get the chance to do all of them but I have the ones I didn't get to saved to work through later. Can't wait for the next one!!
Trish
I’ve worked my way through a few series of creativity prompts with Jessica now, both in the Design Circle and as part of 52 Weeks of Creativity. I love the intentionality of setting aside a small block of time for design on whatever day I approach them. The prompts are great too, but a little guidance while establishing the mindset that it’s worth making time for yourself to just sit and be creative - with no deadlines, goals or pressure - is irreplaceable.
Beth (yes, that's my co-host!)
I participated in Creativity Burst for the 1st time. It was very interesting, fun, and unusual for me, and definitely different from my routine of creating design ideas. After a week of prompts, I got 5 solid ideas that I plan to convert to patterns. If you have never done it before, it's worth the try to look at the creative process from a different angle.
Natalia
I had so much fun thinking outside of my typical 'box.' I found it really interesting to pay attention to my thought process, and then identify ideas that fit me/my brand - and ideas that don't fit my brand. The problem is I now have a few design ideas I really love... and I already have all my pattern spots filled for the next 2 years. I might have to do some rearranging...
Jessica (yes, that's me!)
We (Beth and Jessica) loved the Creativity Burst Challenge so much that we wanted to make the prompts available to more people and in a more consistent format...
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and that is how 52 Weeks of Creativity was born!
Oh hi there!
I'm Jessica, the knitting pattern designer behind Snickerdoodle Knits and facilitator of the Design Circle. I design knitting patterns and mentor budding pattern designers.
My college degree is in Architectural Engineering; and I worked in architecture, construction management, and interior design before discovering my passion for designing patterns and mentoring pattern designers. I love DK weight yarn and create designs that share the relatable stories of living.
And this is my co-host, Beth.
Beth is the crochet designer, tech editor, architectural designer, and mama behind Fig & Filament. She firmly believes that the creative brain is a muscle that can be targeted and developed like any other as she’s spent the last decade doing just that, both personally and professionally. She appreciates the details of a well designed artifact, whether that's a building, a work of yarn, or still a figment of imagination.
From engineering to architecture to pattern designing, we have a combined 10 years of formal design training and 8 years of design experience.
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And we invite you to join us for 52 Weeks of Creativity.
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What Will You Receive?
One email every week for the next 52 weeks (well, and we might've slipped in 4 extras with bonus content about pattern designing).
In each email you will receive:
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The weekly creative design prompt
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A reminder of how to use the prompt
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A link to view the ideas that we created in response to the prompt
Additional Details On What's Inside
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WHAT TO EXPECT
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The 52 Weeks of Creativity design prompts are not the kind of prompts you’d typically expect to see in a call for submissions. Instead, the prompts are open-ended and may seem completely unrelated to pattern designing. We've done that intentionally. While a magazine wants their submissions to come together as a cohesive whole, we want your design ideas to be completely unique to you and your experiences.
The design prompts will give you inspiration from things, places, people, concepts, and emotions you probably don't use as a source of inspiration.
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THE FORMAT
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You will receive one email per week for 52 weeks. The email sender will alternate between Beth (Fig & Filament) and me (Jessica / Snickerdoodle Knits).
The design prompts are typically formatted as one statement, photo, or video. They intentionally don’t start with “Create a design that…” because we want you to travel on an idea journey that leads you to your design(s); we don’t want the design idea to be the first step.
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HOW TO USE THE PROMPTS
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I encourage you to think about the prompt for a while. Get out a piece of paper and write down all of the ideas, thoughts, emotions, and associations that come to mind. Ask questions about the prompt to make you think deeper. Create stories, or record events from your experience, related to the prompt. Then, and only then, start to think about what this means in terms of making. How can you translate these ideas into shapes, textures, and fabrics?
As a general goal, I recommend spending 15 minutes on brainstorming around the topic and then 15 minutes on thinking about the interpretation as a design. You don't need to do any math, figure out sizing, or even solve the "how" of the construction. The goal is not to have a finished design; the goal is to have a design idea through a process that exercised your creativity.
Remember there is no right or wrong answer.
Whatever you come up with is uniquely, perfectly, you.
Listen to your voice.
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ACCESS OUR IDEAS
While the Creativity Bursts inside the Design Circle are held with a group of designers who are able to share their creative process and design ideas for each prompt, 52 Weeks of Creativity is an individual activity that you perform on your own time.
But we found it fascinating to see how other designers interpreted each design prompts.
So we responded to each of the prompts for 52 Weeks of Creativity and have shared our process and ideas with you via a link at the bottom of each email!
Do not open this link until you’ve completed your response for the prompt!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Q: Is it $27 for the full 52 weeks?
A: Yep, just (1) one-time payment of $27! No strings attached. No monthly payments.
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Q: What if I'm new to designing?
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A: That is completely fine! You don't need to know anything about how to make the idea work in order to have ideas. And 52 Weeks of Creativity is all about the ideas! It's even possible that some makers would join just to exercise their creativity and without any intention of creating any designs (although they might fall in love with their ideas so much that they change their mind...).
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Q: What if I can't complete one design idea per week?
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A: No worries. There's no rush and no competition. However, I recommend spending just 20-30 minutes on a prompt, so you can probably find time in most weeks! And if not, you'll have the email in your inbox to refer to when you do have time. I do recommend creating a folder in your email just for 52 Weeks of Creativity. That'll make it super easy to refer back to, whether you complete the prompts of not?
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Q: Who is 52 Weeks of Creativity for?
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A: 52 Weeks of Creativity is for the knit or crochet pattern design who is interested in creating designs from a place of creativity that is unique to themselves. It's for the designer who wants to have fun, is willing to let go of expectations of what the idea process should look like
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Q: Who is the Design Circle not for?
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A: 52 Weeks of Creativity is not for designers that are uninterested in exploring new and creative ideas for the pattern designs.
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Q: What happens after I sign up? When will I have access to prompts?
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A: As soon as you sign up, the tech wizards on the interwebs start working away to deliver your first email to you as quickly as possible. First, you will receive an email confirmation for you payment. Shortly thereafter you will receive the introduction email with allllll the welcome goodies, including your first prompt! After that, you'll receive an email from us every 7 days, each with that week's prompt.
While you should receive your introduction email within a couple of minutes, we do recommend giving it up to 20 minutes. If you're still not finding an email from me, check your spam and promotions folders, and if it's not there, send me an email at jessica@snickerdoodleknits.com
Note: If you unsubscribe from Snickerdoodle Knits (aka Jessica) or Fig & Filament (aka Beth) emails at any point during your 52 weeks of emails, you will be unsubscribed from their 52 Weeks of Creativity emails. If you need to change your email preferences, please email us to let us know and we’ll handle it manually so that you continue to receive your 52 Weeks of Creativity emails.
Have a question? Submit it using the form below, and I will get back to you as quickly as possible.
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