Another busy week of work in all it’s many and varied forms.

I had a work commitment over the weekend which meant I spent Monday and Tuesday catching up. However, catch up I did and yesterday I planned out some new studio samples. As ever they are top secret but I’m really pleased with the progress I’m making on them.

At the start of each new project, I love the challenge of working with fresh inspiration or revisiting an old friend and finding something new within it. I’ll sketch, stick, collect, tear, colour and distort my source material until it starts to look like something that may begin to inform stitch structure. Then I start to plan stitch patterns and find points of repetition.

So far so good. Then I begin to knit ….

At this point, I become hyper-critical of my work and spend almost as much time ripping back as I do knitting. It becomes a tango of returning to source materials and tweaking the fabric. This may be using a different yarn or adjusting the stitches. At this point I just have to trust the process and my own experience and know that I will work it out because when I do …

There is something quite magical about sitting there with a piece of fabric that you’ve have created utterly.  Casting the stitches on and watching it grow beneath your fingers. I know it’s working when I start chanting “One more row” to myself. The mantra of the compulsive knitter. At that point I know I’m hooked and the sample will work.

Then it’s just a case of sorting out the sleeves …

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