What prompts you to start a knitting project? Were you inspired by a piece of clothing or accessory you’ve seen? Do you happen to have a yarn you fell in love with? Do you have a friend or loved one you want to knit for? I have had all those and other triggers.
Knitting provides many of us with both an outlet for creativity and therapeutic effects. I tend to choose simple patters and stitches that I can make small changes as I knit along. My projects often involve combining elements of ideas I picked up from great resources like Purl Soho, Knitty, DROPS Design, or many others. Then I tend to customize them by adding features, like a longer back side, a hood, thumb holes, etc., as you see in lace sleeve diagonal top, hooded tunic, and blue alpaca cardigan coat. I also often salvage failed project (accordion stitch cowl, trumpet sleeve shrug).
I also value flexibility a great deal and love top-down construction (raglan, yoke) with provisional neckline. That way, if I change minds mid-stream or depending on the amount of yarn left to work with, I can adjust the shape of neck line (crew, turtle, hooded) as well as length of outfits.
As for yarns, because we are holding and handling them for quite a while, how they feel in your hands can be often as important as patterns. In choosing yarns, I gravitate toward fibers that feel good on my skin (which are highly personal), like alpaca or cashmere. Because they tend to be highly priced, I often search for close-out or deep discount items, and that means the same color yarn may not be available for an entire project. That problem sometimes prompts me to alter patterns (3/4-sleeve vs. full length, etc.) or mix colors in various ways. which can be fun as well as frustrating because sometimes color combinations that seem great in your head do not work well in real life!
I learned to knit in Japan decades ago, took a long break, started picking it up 2 years ago, and could not have been able to complete any project without helpful resources like VeryPink in addition to Garn Studio/DROPS Design, Knitty, and Purl Soho mentioned above. The knitting community is full of helpful hearts.
Hope my trials & errors can give you some inspirations and tips for your knitting projects.
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