6 posts tagged “inspiration”
Decided it was such a lovely morning that I must go for a beach walk before sitting at the computer all day. So pleased I did, the earth movers (lots of work building groynes this winter) were putting the sand back where it belongs and the tracks were great - Mark-making (M3) on a grand scale.
Reducing things to blocks or stripes makes them easier to translate into knit. The blocks can be colour, texture or pattern.
R: looks like blocks of textured sts divided by plain St St with textured st stripes top & bottom
Texture shows best next to a smooth surface, it's the contrast that shows it up
R: a ready made cushion design! Top bit looks like chenille Rev St St, middle Stocking St bands with Garter ridges & Honeycomb Slip St, then tweedy St St at the bottom
R: the centre section could be laddered knit, a column of buttonhole type openings, a double cable or knit / purl stitch patterning
L: stacked painted wooden planks, waiting to become beach huts. Or could become a stripy knit design?
R: the plank ends could inspire you to knit long Picot edging fringes but make them in random varying lengths
I was so busy talking to a student just now that I didn't realise I had burnt our supper and ruined my favourite copper pan ..... Yes, I know, why had we taken the battery out of the smoke alarm two days ago.... Still, it's an ill wind & all that, just look at the brilliant patterns. Forget the packing, I must look for the dull metallic grey lurex yarn and start knitting random holes.
Top & left: Ancient Celtic metalware (armour) in the British Museum.
Bottom right: silver tea service designed by Archibald Knox in the early 20th Century.
Can you see the similarity in the sinuous curves?
Don't the Celtic designs look like the style we know as Art Nouveau?
Knox was a junior assistant to the designer Christopher Dresser (see an earlier posting). He was from the Isle of Man where Celtic stone crosses dot the landscape ~ so the curvy, decorative designs will have influenced his style.
Interesting that we are inspired by designers who were themselves influenced by earlier designers....
This page from my sketchook shows a variation on the Chevron theme. My inspiration was geology and I later added zebras as they linked well visually with their 'organic' stripes.
Using regular black & white stripes would have been too regular & angular, so I tied together short lengths of yarns in different weights & textures and knitted a basic chevron pattern with the made-up yarn ball.
I was pleased with the result as it gave me the same feeling as the original images without exactly replicating them.
These images remind me of MISSONI knitting (if you don't know Missoni, look them up, it's a hugely influential Italian knitwear company)
They are in fact close up photos of the back of a curtain fabric sample book! Pinked edges make the zig-zags.
This could be a good starting point for developing designs knitted in zig-zag Chevron patterns ~ playing around with colour combinations and proportions.
You will find Chevrons in Module 3
Another beautiful morning, on the beach at 7.30am. I thought I'd take a few more pictures to give you an idea of how designers see a walk. You wouldn't believe I live quite close to a town from these!
Right is a woodland chine walk to a stretch of beach. This chine is criss crossed with paths & access steps & several suspension bridges, there is a lovely Tropical Garden overlooking the sea at the end of it.
Great example of Complementary colours (Module 2) where the blue enhances & heightens the vividness of the orange leaves.
This wooded path to the beach is heavenly, you can't see the sea properly in this pic (below right) but it's sparkling through the trees.
This web was wonderful, it looks like a 60 denier stocking stretched over the gorse. Found out it's a caterpiller overwintering web, not a spider.
Lots of funghi everywhere. I like the layering & frilled edgings of these.
.
I LOVE the colours of this Smoke Bush.
It's a fabulous time of year for design inspiration! Especially for colour schemes.
Right: An analogous colour scheme (Module 2)
Sorry to anyone who can only see a few of the 400+ images, this is a private blog for my City & Guilds Hand Knit distance learning students. Loraine McClean
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
