What Inspires Your Work?

As I wander the World Wide Web looking at the interesting work of all of the different glass artists out there I wonder what inspires them and motivates their work. For myself it can be a mood or color or sometimes the prodding of a special order or upcoming show. A deadline is very motivating and gets the creative juices flowing. Where do you get your inspiration?

For the last glass show I participated in my motivation and inspiration was the glass I had fallen madly in love with. Some of you may know it…Double Helix Aurae and Kronos and Gaia. So beautiful! When properly worked in the flame it gets the loveliest metallic sheen to it. The jewelry I made with those beads were a hit and I couldn’t be happier. The beads shown below are made with Triton. I think I love this glass the best…or is it Aurae I love more? It’s all wonderful!

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I’m curious about what inspires your work. Is it the sunset you saw the other evening? How about the smell of some flowers you encountered on a walk in the park? Let me know. For the first five inspirational comments I’ll send you a set of the very glass beads that have been firing up my creative juices for the past couple of months. Send me your address to my email at [email protected] and I’ll get them right out to you. Have a great day! Be inspired!

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Stitch dictionaries are a fun way to learn new-to-you knitting stitch patterns or to take a deep dive into a particular technique. Debbie Tomkies offers 100 cable stitch designs and thoughts on how to incorporate them into projects in her Cable Knitting Stitch Dictionary.

Each stitch pattern is shown in a large swatch photo and with written and charted instructions. Any special stitches are included on the page. The stitches are rated on a difficulty scale of 1 to 3, and the pattern notes also indicate how many extra stitches you should add to a project if you’re going to work this cable (since cables pull the fabric closer together you need to compensate for that) as well as how many stitches and rows are in the repeat if you want to design a project yourself.

The cables are arranged into sections: classic cables, combinations, all-over panels, creative cables, motifs and panels and cabled edges and borders.

It’s fun to flip through the designs to think about projects you can add a single cable or two to or make with an allover cabled design. Or you could make swatches of different cables and sew them together into a pillow cover or a throw.

At the back of the book there’s a section on general cable knitting techniques, reading charts, working swatches and avoiding errors (though it mentions working the wrong number of rows between cable turns, it doesn’t share how to count rows between cables to avoid this mistake).

It also talks about how to design your own cables, combine cables in a project, choose the right yarn and needles and determine how many more stitches you need to cast on when working cables instead of stockinette stitch. There’s also a glossary of symbols and abbreviations you may find in cable knitting and other patterns.

The book provides a good overview of things you can do with cables, as well as some fun things you might not have tried like infinity cables and horizontal cables. It’s a great book for a designer who likes to work with cables or a knitter who wants to play with different stitches in their projects.

About the book: 176 pages, paperback, 100 stitch patterns. Published 2024 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $26.99.

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