Sometimes, when people find out that I design knitting patterns, I get asked things like:
‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ or ‘Is it hard to keep thinking of new ideas?’
But to be honest these are questions that I never really consider until they are asked. Inspiration is really all around you, but it doesn’t have to be specific. Sometimes a design has particular inspiration and sometimes it is much more nebulous and difficult to pin down.
I’m not really sure what the secret is to keeping inspired, or even if there is a secret. But from personal experience I can tell you this much:
- Inspiration is almost impossible under pressure. I think it requires daydreaming and that is something that you can’t do when you are stressed.
- I find it helps to keep thinking about designs while doing other mundane tasks. Somehow a routine task frees up your creative thoughts. Or maybe I’m just weird (probably the latter).
- Be patient and wait for the right idea to come along.
- Be curious. If something interests you, go and investigate it. It doesn’t have to be knitting related.
- When you have an idea, even just a germ of an idea, write it down or sketch it, even if it is very half-formed. Often when you look over your rough sketches with fresh eyes the bits you were undecided about start to become clearer. Or perhaps the half idea will merge with another half idea and become something even better. But if you don’t write it down you might not find out!
- Take in your surroundings, even if it is somewhere familiar, and try to look beyond the obvious features and notice something that you haven’t before. If you’re walking through a city, look up at the architecture above the shop fronts – often you will be surprised at how much diversity there is in the styles of buildings, particularly if it is a city with quite a bit of history and older buildings. If something fascinates you, don’t try to work out how it will inspire a design, just take a picture of it or draw a quick sketch of it if you can and look over your photos later.
- Don’t just look at pattern, look at colour as well. Look for interesting or unusual combinations of colours. Try to find the colour that you wouldn’t have put in the scheme yourself, but somehow just makes the whole thing pop!
- Inspiration is not a science. There is no magic formula.
The thing that I am perhaps most inspired by is nature, especially plants. Look at the fabulous colours in this Clematis!
Copyright Charlotte Walford 2013
Or this one (I love the different shades of red/pink in the flowers – the newest flowers are the most vivid colour):
Copyright Charlotte Walford 2013
And the bobbing heads of these large daisies amuse me throughout the day as they follow the sun around the garden!
Copyright Charlotte Walford 2013
Finally, I couldn’t resist showing you this hedgehog (at the top of the picture) that had snuck out to eat some scraps – they move much quicker than you would expect!
Copyright Charlotte Walford 2013
What inspires you?
Lottie xx
P.S. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time and trouble to like or comment on my last post, it has been great to hear your views. I’ll try to write another post summing up experiences and tips for gift knitting soon, so if you have anything you’d like to add I’d love it if you’d leave a comment with your views! 😃
Lottieknits 