What Inspires Your Knitting

What inspires your knitting? Is it a scarf in a shop or something someone else is wearing? Do you look longingly at books and patterns and dream of making the items you see there? Or is it the need to cloth those you love?

There are many ways to be inspired and looking carefully at the world around you is one way to become inspired. The colors in postcards, paintings or objects are helpful in picking colors for multi-colored knitting. Sit at a window you look out everyday and really look and see if something out there makes you smile, maybe that can inspire you.

Sometimes you can be inspired by people too. Imagining someone you love in a handmade, by you, sweater might be the motivation you need to learn to make a sweater. You may see someone wearing a sweater you think would be fun to make or wear, so off to the store or browse through your stash. People knit for charity, because the thought of putting some time into a garment specially made for someone who really needs it makes the knitting worthwhile. And the power of a handmade gift cannot be over estimated.

I recently attended a class about exploring your creativity by Ann MacCauley and she talked about her creative process. She starts with the yarn, she sits and casts on and tries different pattern stitches to see what works best with the yarn. Some of the pattern stitches "talk to her" and the patterns fit a sweater or a scarf best. Other designers look at stitch pattern books first and see what inspires them. Still others look at artworks and are moved to make a sweater design. In my life I have met knitters who buy a skein of yarn and swatch the yarn with patterns, hang the swatch to see if the swatch stretches or holds it shapes. Living with the swatch helps them envision what it would look like as something complete. Sometimes a favorite item of clothing just needs something to go with it like an accessory. That accessory can be a scarf, a flirty hat, or some fingerless gloves to round it out.

Get out a stitch pattern dictionary, or dig through your stash and see if there is a yarn there begging to be knit. If you are one of the knitters who do not like to swatch or consider it time wasted, make the swatches into a blanket or placemat so that nothing is wasted.

Consider going to an event like Stitches and see all of the knitters around you and be inspired by them.