Inspiration

Where do you get inspiration for your designs?  Mine comes from all sorts of sources.  Ideas often bounce around in my head for ages before they turn into a knitted object.

I usually visit my public library at least once a week.  Each time I stop by the new book section and see if there are any new knitting books on the shelf.  Usually, like today, the popular new knitting books are checked all out and there's nothing of interest on the shelf.  Well, actually, today there weren't any knitting books in the new section - all checked out!  Knitting's popular in Corvallis :^)

A couple weeks ago I checked out the knitting shelf and stumbled on an amazing book, although it's not about knitting.  British Textiles is 500 pages of amazing photos of textiles from the Victoria and Albert museum.  It's $50, but I might still need my own copy. These are all woven fabrics, not knits, but there is so much inspiration in there.

A lace panel, maybe?

Lace, or cables?

I can see a square lace shawl based on these motifs

Colorwork?  Cables?  Both?

Some combination of colorwork and texture.

Lace? or colorwork?  or a combo of the two?

Definitely cables

Definitely colorwork

I can see this in textured colorwork

These might get interpreted as mosaic patterns

Colorwork  - stranded or mosaic?

Cables in two or more colors?

This book could give me endless ideas.  I've only shown you a small sample.  Never mind the inspiration, it's fun to just turn the pages and admire all the beautiful fabrics.