A Little Inspiration

Amidst the Christmas knitting mayhem, an impish thought has been whispering at the back of my mind.

With all the gift-giving, many knitters will (hopefully) be familiar with the lovely compliments that often follow as friends and family - not quite managing to hide their shock that their new scarf doesn't really look all that bad and could probably be worn in public with a minimum of embarrassment - start telling you to sell you handknitted goodies at markets or online.

It's a nice thought and I can see where they're coming from, but most non-knitters fail to appreciate a) just how expensive a nice yarn often is and b) just how long it takes to knit something. Which is why bespoke knitting items are usually so expensive (I think the winner is probably still that Pidgin scarf that was going for about $250 somewhere) and why many of the beautiful things on Etsy are made in yarn as thick as your arm.

But. I remember how much I loved my evening course a couple of years ago where I had to design a knitwear collection. Collecting colour schemes, shapes, patterns and pictures for my 'mood board' and then working out how to translate those into a coherent group of items was difficult but utterly absorbing and a lot of fun. I never made any of the finished designs (they were intended for commercial production, rather than being handmade) and I'd love to try designing something that I can follow through.

So, with these things mulling in my mind for some time, I'm going to make a start. It'll be a long and leisurely process I expect, but then there's no rush. First things first, we need a little inspiration. A quick trawl of the net pulled up these:

I love both the colour of this and the frosty snowflake shapes. Perfect for the bright wintery day we've had.

And is it me or are these ghostly trees looking a little cable-like?

I love old-fashioned wallpaper for the colours, shapes and motifs they use but my modem keeps crashing so I can't show the wonderful images - take a peek at Cole & Son (wallpaper chaps to the Queen, no less).

For something more fashion related, the wonderful Sartorialist (see the link on the left) is perhaps the ultimate archive of who's wearing what on the trendy streets of New York, Milan and Paris.

Hmmm. Time for a little sketching methinks...