My Designs- Organize and Develop

I am having a good sort out and trying to organize my work for easy reference so as I can develop some earlier ideas into projects for today.
Over the years I have recorded my concepts,workings out and pattern writing in various A4 ring binder folders and notebooks of different shapes and sizes. Some have their original tension square attached to pages of notes, others have scribbles saying such things as- refer to design ref22 or "see photo" "see sketch etc.

In the last couple of years I am more in favour of project notebooks of A5 size as these are handy to have alongside me whilst knitting or weaving so as I can make notes as I work. These are very basic working notes with the title,date, measurements, details of knitting needles used or warp gauge for weaving etc and with the yarn samples/labels stapled to the page. They are backed up by photographs.



The joy of a digital camera is not only to use it to gather inspiration in photos for my designs but to use it as a tool to record my work for reference. I have literally hundreds of pictures on file, many of the same item taken from different angles. I need close up detail of stitch or pattern,colourway ref. Pictures and life style shots for customer viewing on line or for my brochure and group shots if it is in a range for example hand warmers, socks and hats. It is great to have all these!

Nowadays I write up the design on my computer and then it is ready for use and/or publication.
These notes are from one of my old folders. They are the workings for a sweater. Inspiration taken from a child's drawing of sailing boats a chart was created using- ref to photos "Cowes week regatta" - these were pre digital so are a couple of Kodak prints!

I knitted the sweater in double knit yarn, the abstract design depicting a flotilla of sail was knitted in the intarsia style.

This is one of the designs I have chosen to revamp. I want to take the intarsia chart work and play around with the layout to produce a pattern to knit into other simple items such as bags and cushions. The enjoyment of this design is experimenting with different colourways but still keeping the nautical theme.

I can see this organization and development task is going to take me quite some time as I keep finding little gems of ideas!