Design Inspiration

I can’t always remember the exact moment I get inspired for a new design, but for one of my new designs, I know exactly when it happened.

Last year, I traveled to two gems in the National Park system: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Denali National Park. Well, I didn’t actually get into Volcanoes National Park because our small group was there in May for my food biochemistry course, and that is precisely when the volcano was erupting, lava was flowing, and neighborhoods were being destroyed. Luckily, we were far from danger, but our group was impacted by some of Pele’s activities. It definitely made for an interesting and memorable trip.

In August, my husband and I traveled to Alaska and got to spend some time RV-ing in Denali National Park. It was incredible. We camped at the Teklanika Campground and we spend some time hiking around the river bed. At that moment, I was inspired to make a cabled pattern that reminded me of the braided rivers and the flowing lava. I began to take pictures of the rocks and colors to remind me of what I saw so I could translate that into a wrap/sweater and pattern when I got home.

I had other projects in various stages of completion that I had to work on first, so these new designs were delayed a bit. When I finally got to work on this design in January, I was planning to use a less symmetric cabling pattern more like the random intertwining of the rivers of water and flowing lava. However, when I began to plan out the pattern, I determined that it was going to be extremely challenging to knit and nightmarish to chart out for the pattern. Additionally, even though I might admire the randomness of it, in the end, I didn’t think it would be quite as visually appealing as a cabled-pattern with more symmetry. The symmetric cabled pattern was definitely easier to write. So, I opted for a more symmetric cable pattern that is reminiscent of the twists and turns of both the flowing lava and the water in the braided river beds, but is still satisfyingly symmetric.

Now it is August and I’m just putting the finishing touches on the editing and formatting of the pattern. I’ve knit two sample pieces (one is for sale at Bazyli Wearable Art Studio in Door County, Wisconsin and one will be for sale at the Der Bauernhof Farms Trunk Sale in November). Both of these were knit in natural fawn royal baby alpaca from Der Bauernhof Farms. They are just divinely soft and warm. The yarn kits and pattern will be available beginning at Stitches Midwest in August and then through my Ravelry page after that. I have yet to knit the piece for myself in my chosen flowing lava colors (black, silver, and red) because I just ran out of time. But it is still on my to-do list. It seems like the to-do list only ever gets longer, but I’m still optimistic every time I add something to that list. That is why I have an entire closet and six dresser drawers full of yarn, waiting to get moved up in priority on that list.