Sunday, January 1, 2012

Eye Candy

Inspiration for the things I make comes from many sources. I need lots of eye candy to keep my brain moving in new and unexpected directions. Because I’m on a small island with not a lot of places to get eye candy, I often turn to the internet or to books and magazines. 
Soft Peach Convertible From Cowl to Scarf with Color Inspiration

I use the internet mostly by looking at pictures of other people’s work and fashion photos. I can bookmark pages for inspiration but because I find so many, the bookmarks have quickly gotten overwhelming. Plus, they often go away. Because I don’t have a color printer, printing them isn’t an option unless I’m just looking to the shape or idea of something instead of the color for inspiration.


Steampunk Neckwarmer with Color and Style Inspiration
 I also buy or borrow books for inspiration. I copy pages out of borrowed books, but again, without the color, I can only use them for shapes etc. Books that I’ve bought, I put little sticky notes on inspirational pages or fold down the corners. But, it is kind of a pain to go through a bunch of books trying to find that one picture I know I saw somewhere.

Rose Scarves with Several Inspiration Pages and Yarn Used

By far, though, magazines are my favorite place to go. They are easily portable from the beach to the couch. They are cheaper than books and I don’t feel bad about ripping out the pages. I then file them into categories such as sweaters, color inspiration, or freeform crochet ideas. When I need some inspiration, I start pulling out the files and going through them. I take the page and match yarn colors to it. Then, I keep the inspiration page nearby as I work on the item. I’ve started taking photos of the item with the inspiration page because I want a record of what I used and how the final item turned out. I find it interesting to observe my own creative process. Brains are such amazing things! The creative process can take you to such unexpected placesa page torn from a magazine and a pile of yarn transformed in an evening to a soft scarf that becomes eye candy itself.


4 comments:

  1. I was very interested to read your post about what inspires you to freeform crochet. I'm new to freeform and have not even started yet so I enjoyed your post :)

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  2. Thank you. Freeform crochet is my favorite type of crochet to make. I hope you end up enjoying it as much as I do. It's not for everyone though. Some people like the structure of a pattern.

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  3. For someone who knows next to nothing about color theory, this is a great way for me to get inspiration the colors to use in my freeform crochet pieces. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Thanks, Patrice. I know a little about color theory but rarely pay attention to it. I just know what colors I like together when I see them.

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