There are times when I have design ideas coming out of my ears (almost!) and other times when I struggle with what I want to design next. Last weekend I was stuck between those two places. I currently have two sock ideas, a sweater idea, a shawl idea and a jewellery idea, all percolating in my head and I couldn't decide which one I was most excited about to put first on my to-do list.
However, I also had a niggling thought that I wanted four stray balls of DK out of my stash. I don't like throwing away entire balls of yarn. If it's something I know I really won't use I might give it to charity, or I'll use it up making charity squares, but these were balls of yarn that I wanted to use myself. I just couldn't think what to do with them. There's a limit to what you can make with a single 50g ball of DK, even if it is soft squishy merino in a pretty colour!
I think the fates must have been on my side, though, because browsing online I saw three unrelated threads on Ravelry that, put together, became the perfect idea for those stray stash yarns.
The first one was a Stashdown Challenge to try to use your entire stash over the next 18 months. If I needed one last push to use up those four DK orphans, this was it.
The second one was a call for pattern submissions for homeware items. I have never designed a homeware item. It's not something that's even crossed my mind, probably because they aren't something I tend to knit for myself.
The third one was a Design Challenge to design a pillow incorporating a cabled texture.
Finally all the pieces fell into place. I had been browsing through a stitch dictionary looking for a background for (yet another) sock pattern, and kept coming back to a braided cable stitch pattern. Too complicated for socks, so not what I was looking for, but the stitch itself really appeals to me. And then into my mind popped a picture of the pillow I would design using the DK yarn, including the cabled stitch pattern, which I might submit to the pattern call. (Or I might just decide to release the pattern myself. Or not!)
However, I also had a niggling thought that I wanted four stray balls of DK out of my stash. I don't like throwing away entire balls of yarn. If it's something I know I really won't use I might give it to charity, or I'll use it up making charity squares, but these were balls of yarn that I wanted to use myself. I just couldn't think what to do with them. There's a limit to what you can make with a single 50g ball of DK, even if it is soft squishy merino in a pretty colour!
I think the fates must have been on my side, though, because browsing online I saw three unrelated threads on Ravelry that, put together, became the perfect idea for those stray stash yarns.
The first one was a Stashdown Challenge to try to use your entire stash over the next 18 months. If I needed one last push to use up those four DK orphans, this was it.
The second one was a call for pattern submissions for homeware items. I have never designed a homeware item. It's not something that's even crossed my mind, probably because they aren't something I tend to knit for myself.
The third one was a Design Challenge to design a pillow incorporating a cabled texture.
Finally all the pieces fell into place. I had been browsing through a stitch dictionary looking for a background for (yet another) sock pattern, and kept coming back to a braided cable stitch pattern. Too complicated for socks, so not what I was looking for, but the stitch itself really appeals to me. And then into my mind popped a picture of the pillow I would design using the DK yarn, including the cabled stitch pattern, which I might submit to the pattern call. (Or I might just decide to release the pattern myself. Or not!)
After working on my last design, which used lace weight, this yarn is knitting up at lightning speed! And it's looking just how I imagined it. I did need to do a bit of quick-and-dirty maths on the fly, just to make sure that I would have enough yarn to make the pillow the right size to fit a standard size insert. After all, there's no point in designing a cushion cover to fit a cushion that you can't get, nor did I really want to have to buy more yarn since the first inspiration for this design was the idea of getting this yarn out of my stash!
Three more inches of work and then there's just the sewing up to do. And then comes the hardest part for me - trying to decide whether or not to submit it to the yarn company pattern call.
Three more inches of work and then there's just the sewing up to do. And then comes the hardest part for me - trying to decide whether or not to submit it to the yarn company pattern call.
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