Brilliant design course with Debbie Abrahams yesterday, held at Get Knitted's shop in Bristol. We were asked to take an inspiration with us and I took this Midwinter saucer, designed in the 1960s. I've been wanting to do something with this as a piece of knitting for ages and this seemed a golden opportunity. Debbie showed us how to sketch out some ideas and then develop these into a knitted swatch so that we could begin to work out the tension and then do the calculations for a whole project. The pattern was too complicated to copy exactly and in any event I'm not a great fan of Intarsia knitting, which is what an attempt at the starry flowers would require. Debbie suggested browsing her pattern books to find a suitable Fair Isle design. Amazingly the stash she had brought with her for us to use included some Rowan Handknit Cotton in exactly the right shades of turquoise and pink, plus some grey and black. I picked up some cream from the shop downstairs and got to work on my swatch. I'm really pleased with the end result and am now working on the actual project, a small purse/spectacle case.
