Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Friday Morning Knitting Club Finale

Today was the Finale ceremony for the FMKers.  The whole class sat on the floor in a group.  I called each FMKer up to the front and presented them with their bracelet, a project bag which included needles, pattern and yarn, and a certificate. In addition, there were 2 children that tried their hand at knitting, but decided it wasn't quite their "thing", and I gave each of them a bracelet as well.

As each child received their goodies, the whole class would applaud for that person. What a wonderful group of children this has been!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Bringing a Design into Focus

If you ask 10 different designers how a design comes to life, you would probably get 10 different answers. Each designer may also have more than one answer for that question.

Recently, I was working on proposals and an image popped into my mind. I grabbed my sketchbook, but the design didn't translate well to a sketch; yet it remained firmly attached to my mind's eye.

Next, I reached for hook and yarns and rushed headlong into the swatch. I experimented with different methods, and swatch #3 finally yielded what I was looking for stitch-wise.

But something was wrong. It was more of a feeling. The swatch didn't quite match the image stuck in my head. I kept staring at it, but no enlightenment came, just that niggling feeling that something was "off".

I put it aside and worked on other projects. The design waited patiently, never leaving me.

Then one night as I lay down to sleep, I had it! I knew what was wrong! My mind started running through ideas for correcting that pesky problem. The next day, the swatching started all over. This time, I nailed the "look" on the 2nd swatch.

Sometimes, designs don't come to me in full focus, like this one did, and there is more reliance with being true to the "feeling" that the idea is giving off. Only as I work on swatches does it come into focus, gradually, like a picture being developed in a dark room.

No matter how it comes, the satisfaction I get from bringing something from nothing gives me a buzz and keeps me designing!