Great Ways to Stay Inspired in 2015, from Knitter’s Review

Clara Parkes has been a fixture in the knitting world for 14 years, giving the rest of us tons of great information about yarn, tools and the knitting life.

She said in a recent post that it’s easy to keep her job fun and inspired, and that there are five main things she does to keep the creative spark.

I’ll let her give you all the details, but this is a great collection of things to read, listen to and try.

I’m now in my eighth year of writing about knitting, and I know there’s so much more to learn and do and write about — and always will be more — than I can ever possibly cover. That’s overwhelming, but it can also be a lot of fun to dive in and explore whatever’s interesting me at the time.

I really want to get into podcasts this year because I know there’s some great conversations happening around them (and Clara offers links to a few in her post).

I’d love to hear what you do for inspiration, for your knitting or other creations.

[Photo via Knitter’s Review.]

Next Pattern:

I am normally a fan of pretty basic sweaters for myself. It’s fun to have a little detail that makes it interesting, but as much as I have a ton of colorful sweater patterns in my Ravelry library, the vast majority of the time I go for plain stockinette stitch, maybe with stripes or color changes brought about by trying to bust my stash.

But adding a little bit of something special to a project makes it that much more interesting to knit and to wear, and it doesn’t have to be an allover pattern to increase the wow factor.

Take the Nola pattern by yamagara for example. This simple bulky cardigan would be a great piece just worked in a single color of stockinette stitch. But those bold flowers on the sleeves elevate it into something you’ll reach for all winter long when you need a pick me up and a reminder that flowers will be back again.

I love the neutral colors shown in the model but it would be amazing with bright pink or yellow flowers, too. Or whatever color you like!

The pattern uses intarsia on those oversized sleeves to make the flower pattern, but there’s also an option in the pattern to do it completely in duplicate stitch if you’d rather (though this would be a great learning pattern if you’ve never done intarsia before). The body is worked from the top down with raglan shaping and the button bands are worked as you knit the body for minimal finishing.

The sweater comes in nine sizes, with a finished bust measurement ranging from 39 to 69 inches, or 99 to 175.5 cm. It’s meant to be worn with 6 to 10 inches/15 to 25 cm of positive ease. The pattern shows the sweater cropped but you can also make it longer if you like.

This would be a great garment to allow you to get a little more wear out of your summer dresses; just throw leggings on underneath and the sweater on top for a day full of cozy comfort.

You can find this pattern on Ravelry. It is available in English and Spanish.

[Photo: yamagara]

Next Pattern:

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