Fiddle Knits Designs | Beautifully detailed patterns for the hand knitter and crocheter
Created by Erica Jackofsky
Design Inspiration. . .
Citing a single source for inspiration is tricky business, after all it's usually a combination of events, places, people, memories, sounds, colors, etc. A few of my designs were directly inspired by someone in my life. An example of this is the Wise Nora Beret, which was created specifically with my sister Annalee in mind. This design proved to really hit home on my sister's style as she refused to give it back to me after the photo shoot. For another very obvious example of her inspiring my design process we can look at the "Annalee Hat," which appeared in Yarn Forward Magazine, Issue #25. If you glance through my notebook you'd find the original sketch and pattern description (scribbled down on the way to a gig) on a page with the heading "Annalee: A Summer Lace Beret." This design was cooked up as a birthday gift (since she was wearing the Wise Nora beret to all our gigs I figured another hat was pretty much a necessity.) It has since become part of her standard gig attire and she's started asking for it in other colors. Perhaps we can make a personal hat design into a birthday tradition.
My boyfriend, Chris, is also a huge creative inspiration for me. (Watch the design collection page in late 2010 for Musical Minds, a collection of unisex hats which he inspired me to create.) We often spend our nights wrapped comfortably in creativity with him working on music tracks and me designing and knitting. The Interlude hat is one example of a design that emerged this way.
Other designs were spurred on by performances or musical travels, such as the Sourwood Mountain Gloves. This particular design came after several weeks on the road in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. The Frosty Morning Gloves were created after the band had played a series of outdoor gigs. (Fingerless gloves become an essential for any musician playing outdoors in the Fall and Spring.) And then there is the Darling Honey hat, which took shape on a 7+ hour car ride to Williamsburg, Virginia. I could go on and list many more designs that came to be during long hours of travel to and from gigs.
Very often I let the yarn itself be my inspiration. Or, to get tangled in details, the yarn inspires the thought of something else, that inspires the design. (Like I said before, it's not exactly a clear cut process.) Very rarely will I purchase yarn with a pattern idea already in mind. Instead I like to buy yarns that inspire me. Often a design begins with me sitting crosslegged on the floor with a pile of yarns in front of me. After the first "ah ha!" moment the stitch dictionaries start to come out. Then it's swatch, and rip, and swatch, and rip...
Citing a single source for inspiration is tricky business, after all it's usually a combination of events, places, people, memories, sounds, colors, etc. A few of my designs were directly inspired by someone in my life. An example of this is the Wise Nora Beret, which was created specifically with my sister Annalee in mind. This design proved to really hit home on my sister's style as she refused to give it back to me after the photo shoot. For another very obvious example of her inspiring my design process we can look at the "Annalee Hat," which appeared in Yarn Forward Magazine, Issue #25. If you glance through my notebook you'd find the original sketch and pattern description (scribbled down on the way to a gig) on a page with the heading "Annalee: A Summer Lace Beret." This design was cooked up as a birthday gift (since she was wearing the Wise Nora beret to all our gigs I figured another hat was pretty much a necessity.) It has since become part of her standard gig attire and she's started asking for it in other colors. Perhaps we can make a personal hat design into a birthday tradition.My boyfriend, Chris, is also a huge creative inspiration for me. (Watch the design collection page in late 2010 for Musical Minds, a collection of unisex hats which he inspired me to create.) We often spend our nights wrapped comfortably in creativity with him working on music tracks and me designing and knitting. The Interlude hat is one example of a design that emerged this way. Other designs were spurred on by performances or musical travels, such as the Sourwood Mountain Gloves. This particular design came after several weeks on the road in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. The Frosty Morning Gloves were created after the band had played a series of outdoor gigs. (Fingerless gloves become an essential for any musician playing outdoors in the Fall and Spring.) And then there is the Darling Honey hat, which took shape on a 7+ hour car ride to Williamsburg, Virginia. I could go on and list many more designs that came to be during long hours of travel to and from gigs.
Very often I let the yarn itself be my inspiration. Or, to get tangled in details, the yarn inspires the thought of something else, that inspires the design. (Like I said before, it's not exactly a clear cut process.) Very rarely will I purchase yarn with a pattern idea already in mind. Instead I like to buy yarns that inspire me. Often a design begins with me sitting crosslegged on the floor with a pile of yarns in front of me. After the first "ah ha!" moment the stitch dictionaries start to come out. Then it's swatch, and rip, and swatch, and rip...