As a designer, you find inspiration in almost everything.

You look at a movie and you see something that attracts your look.

Sometimes, a shape or a texture of a building makes you dream to create an unique look of a garment.

You see a field in blossom and you feel in love with the beauty of the colors and of the flowers.

The secret is that, when you have plenty, you have to save it, to store it somewhere.

Whenever the inspiration comes, sketch it, write it somewhere. Don’t be afraid to use colors and add yarn and fibers.

Also, it’s a good idea to invest in a design notebook. Look on the internet and you will find some.

Another process in the designing world is to work with drape. As a designer you have to work with drape for aesthetics and utility.

Drape is how a fabric or garment hang or falls.

To control it, you need to work with tension, stitch patterns and fibers.

In order to control the drape and to learn more about this process, you will have to do a lot of swatches and then you have to “dress” them.

What means to “dress” a tension swatch?

First, you have to create that swatch. Even if you Crochet or Knit it, it must be at least 15 by 15 cm.

Then, you have to wash and dry it like the etiquette tells you.

The 3rd step is to block the swatch, just like you would block the final garment.

The last step is to hang the swatch (after it got dried). You hang the swatch like following:

– run a knitting needle through the top and bottom of the swatch

– clip the top to a hanger

– clip the rest of the ball of yarn to the bottom and leave it like that for a day.

These three processes approximates the weight that the finished garment will have.

I have an exercise for you do to.

You will have to create four swatches.

You will have to use the same stitch, the same needle or hook and, as much as possible, the same weight of yarn.

Please use for one pure cotton, for another one 100% acrylic, for the third 100% your preferred wool and for the fourth, a yarn of your choice.

You will have to “dress” all your swatches.

At the end, note in your notebook, what did you notice about the finished swatches? Which one has grown the most and which one the least? Which one draped the most beautiful?

Thank you for reading this and see you soon.

Bye 👋