Yesterday I spent the afternoon tracing the cap design onto the fabric. Then I framed it on the slate frame. Neither activity required a great deal of artistic creativity but both required skills. It's often the development of specific skills that allows us to succeed in the pursuit of our creative endeavor.

We'd all like to think that being creative is some kind of wonderful, free experience. But in actual fact, being creative requires skills and the ability to use the tools and materials of your art or craft. And not just use them, but use them effectively.Tracing the design wasn't very interesting. In fact, I spent the time talking to my daughters via Skype while I traced the design onto the fabric. I needed a steady hand, good eye, adequate light, and patience. I'm lucky, I have a steady eye and a good eye. Some don't and must practice to develop them.Mounting the fabric onto the slate frame required knowledge of how to do it and a small degree of skill. I needed to know how to attach the fabric to the webbing and how to lace the sides of the fabric to the frame. I needed some strength to do the lacing and tightening of the frame. These techniques aren't difficult and once you know how to do it and have done it a few times, it's not difficult to do again and again.Like anything we create with our hands, there are skills required. It doesn't happen as if by magic. Certain techniques must either be learned or discovered and then developed. Learning the skill is faster - you don't have to work it out yourself and then practice the technique over and over again to find out the best, most efficient way of doing it. Having someone show you is a much faster route to a higher skill level. Not all of us have the opportunity to learn from someone. We must read about it, watch videos online or make intelligent guesses as to how the best way is to achieve the results we're after.I love working out something for myself. If I had unlimited time and resources, that's what I'd do every time. It's the engineer's daughter in me. But I don't have either commodity in an unlimited amount - especially resources. I need to know the best way to achieve the results I want using the least amount of resources and time.

Anyone who wants to create something new from raw materials needs the skills to do so. We need to know how to do every step of the process if what we want to create comes from ourselves. In the case of embroidery, that means, drawing, tracing, framing, choosing stitches and threads, stitching, blocking, and finally framing or creating an object with the finished embroidery. Most of us do only a small portion of these steps. We haven't the time or - more often - the inclination - to do every single step of the process. That's understandable when it's a hobby for most of us and our time is limited by the "real world" of work, family, and other obligations.

There are two exhibitions on in London right now that look at these questions. Power of Making at the V&A and The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British Museum. Both exhibitions celebrate the traditional methods of creating things and the innovative methods we discover when we push the creative boundaries.

The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

What if we had to do it all: beginning to end? Who would teach us? Where would we go to learn? Are there enough people around who have the skills to pass on to others? Who will remember how to make things in the future? Will everything be manufactured or will there still be things that are hand made? Is it important for human beings to create something from the inception of the idea to the final realization of the product? Is the human element necessary?I am passionate about the the education our children receive. No one seems to be teaching them to make things. No one teaches them that they have, inside them, the ability to create. They aren't taught ways to express their humanity, their creativity. It's so much easier for their parents to buy things, not teach them to make things. Is this good? Will it allow the creative impulse to atrophy?Comments welcome.