The Foundations of Designing Knitwear

After a bit of a hiatus, it's nice to come back with a lot of ideas and news to share with you guys.

I've begun to design a bit of a knitwear collection, I'm thinking of designing about 10 items all up, but it's hard to tell at the moment. I've been doing a LOT of mindmapping and brainstorming about what I want out of the stuff that I'm designing, because I would like people to get some use out of the patterns, while also sticking to what I like to knit, and what I like to wear.

Here is a photo of the workstation at the moment, with about a quarter of the swatches and tests that I've been doing over the past month or so:

I've really been getting into textured designing at the moment, because I like the yarn to be able to just pop out and be the star attraction. I've tried to make an effort and use 100% Australian wool/yarn, and I think that looking into the more textured designs are definitely paying off.

I really want the stuff that I am working on to scream colour. And lots of it. The last thing that people need on a drizzly, miserable grey winter day is to put on some dull clothing, what they need is a good dash of colour.  So, I've been trying to graph out a few stranded designs, whatever comes to mind really. I don't want to say that my sweaters are going to be anything garish, but I would love to dabble in a bit of the oversized colourwork from the 80's or so, but that is still in the pipeline at the moment.

All in all, though, it is a really exciting process, especially when you've got a pattern all written up and ready to go. I can't wait to start getting a few of the designs onto and off of the needles to show you guys here!

x peace folks