I think that I just may have developed one of the worlds least efficient work methods. Some very clever designers are able to conceptualize a design in their minds, do a bit of swatching, write out a pattern and then have a sample knitter knit it up for them. In very rare cases I think that I might be able to pull that off, but more often then not I design a piece by knitting the entire thing myself... twice! So often I have an idea in my head and then as I'm working on it things change. By having the knit in my hands and working the stitches myself I start off in one direction and then the knit kind of takes me where it wants to go. For me, this system definitely works since every time the design that I end up with is much better than the one that I started off trying to accomplish.
The fact that I knit my own designs is not what makes me an inefficient designer, the fact that I knit most of them twice is! That photo above shows a section of a sweater in progress. The sweater is now complete, ends woven in, blocked and in fact I'm wearing it as I type and I'm super happy to say that I LOVE how it turned out. The thing is, I've explored a few new techniques in this piece and the whole time I was working on it I questioned wether it would work out or not. As I was working on it I knew right away that there were a few things that I wish I had done differently, but because in the back of my mind I worried that this whole piece was going to get scratched anyway I didn't bother changing them and instead worked my way through the entire garment keeping notes about what I should have done differently.
Don't get me wrong, this prototype is pretty rad, the little things that I want to change aren't deal breakers and probably won't even be that noticeable in the end. But they will make the pattern better so it's worth it.
So now I'm sporting my prototype and tonight I'll dream up an alternate colour scheme to knit my final version in. The one that will be just perfect! I'm excited to share it with you all, but I've obviously got a few tweaks to make before it's ready for prime time.
Speaking of making a few tweaks, I am in the final stages of a pretty major website overhaul! The website and blog will all be getting a brand new look and will look better, work better and overall just BE BETTER! That's the hope at least. I'm just giving you all a heads up that I plan on getting pretty serious about it this weekend and into early next week, so if anything looks weird or different in the next couple of days, bear with me!