Tuesday 4 July 2017

Adventures in Designing

Hi everyone! 

Gosh, life gets busy for a few weeks then you turn around and it's July!? I am so not ready for it to be less than 6 months to Christmas!

It's been announced on Facebook and Instagram, but I don't think it's happened on here yet: Crochet Between Worlds have joined the Stylecraft Blogstars!! It's so exciting to be working with our favourite yarn brand, and to be on the same team as our crochet idols like Lucy from Attic24, Jane Crowfoot, Kathryn from Crafternoon Treats, Zelna Olivier... pretty mindblowing for us two little amateur crocheters. 




You can read our blurb on the Stylecraft website here: https://stylecraft-yarns.co.uk/blog/Anne-and-Michelle/

Ever since we got the gig, my brain has been buzzing even more with design ideas. One of the perks is that Stylecraft is happy to send us yarn for designing with, and I had not realised how much yarn budgeting was hampering my creative brain. 

But, being up at 3am because I had an idea for a design that wouldn't let me sleep anymore was not really assisting my health or my energy during the day to actually do things. It got so crazy that I had to do something to get ideas out of my head but not forgotten. I have a folder on my computer, but that's less convenient for jotting down thoughts or a quick sketch of an idea.

Meet my design journal! Like many people I am a total sucker for pretty stationery, and this Leuchtturm A5 diary is SO pretty. It has a hard cover so I can whip it out and scribble anytime, anywhere, and an elastic to hold it shut when I go overboard sticking photos and printed layouts in it :P


I'm eventually going to decorate the rest of the cover with pretty crochet pictures, but my photo printer is at the doctor's at the moment. 

Inside is also really cool - the pages are numbered, and there's an index at the front! I'm enjoying just opening a random page to jot down an idea, then adding a title to the index! I am finding the blank space more thrilling than daunting - so much more room to put more ideas!


The pages are perfect for designing - rather than being lined or blank, each page has a grid of dots. This keeps my handwriting (mostly) straight but also makes it easy to sketch shapes of ideas evenly. 



I'm just putting the final touches on this origami bag design, then it'll be published for free here!! 

Do you have a recording system for designing? How do you keep track of ideas?

Next time: Adventures in Sock Knitting!

Hugs,
Michelle

6 comments :

  1. Congratulations! That is very exciting news and well deserved too. And who doesn't love new blank books �� I'm sure this one will be bursting with incredible ideas.

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  2. Your journal is perfect for all the reasons you listed. I suspect the elastic will be extremely important! I want a book just like that now - I haven't come across a book with the dots before. Absolutely perfect for purpose.
    I agree with you about computers being not so convenient when inspiration strikes. I do keep ideas in a notebook/bookmarking program just to save paper (I do a lot of scribbling and then crossing out or adding more notes and it can get messy!). I have also been given a beautiful covered design journal - A5 makes it easy to carry but I need more room per page; the pages are blank but made of cartridge paper so each page is thick. I would prefer thinner pages so there are more pages per book since I don't use paints or heavy inks in my design sketches (yet). Did you book come with page numbers printed or did you add them? An index or other organisational system is so important for retrieving ideas quickly.
    I am looking forward to seeing your creative output increase now that you have all the tools at your disposal. Have fun!

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    1. It came with page numbers! It's the Leuchtturm1915 journal, and I got it from notemaker.com.au (a very dangerous website...) Now I just need twice as much time and 10 times the energy to actually make all these ideas!

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  3. What great news Michelle. I have two notebooks I use for ideas, one very pretty one where I scribble ideas when inpiration strikes and another one for writing out actual patterns as I create them. I find my budget constrains what I make too so one notebook has much more in it than the other. Hx

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