Mindy's Stole, Part 1

OK, so here's where I'm at with designing Mindy's Christmas Stole. I tend to design faster if I've got some kind of direction or theme, rather than just wandering aimlessly around and trying to put some thing together, so I've been thinking about the color (Peppermint Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud) and it reminds me of cherry blossoms. I Googled "Cherry Blossoms" and as luck would have it, 2007 is the 95th year of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC. In 1912 Tokyo gave 3000 Cherry Trees to Washington, DC in a gesture of friendship. (I have to admit here that while I haven't looked it up yet, I'm a bit curious how 3000 cherry trees got here from Tokyo back in 1912. I mean they weren't sent FedEx Overnight.) If you've never seen cherry blossoms, its really amazing. They completely cover the trees with white or pale pink blooms. The flowers are so fragile that when the wind blows, they come off the trees and break apart, covering everything in delicate petals. Its wonderful to watch.

Now that I have an idea, I can start designing. I pulled out my Barbara G. Walker's (these are the greatest stitch dictionaries ever, if you only get one set, this is the one to get) and started looking. I will probably end up designing the stitch myself since I'm not really finding what I'm looking for in traditional lace patterns, but these are still very helpful because I can see what stitches work in what ways. I started playing around with charting a cherry blossom petal design, charted it six different ways and started knitting a swatch with some Alpaca Cloud leftover from Leda's Dream. Less than halfway through the swatch, I've decided that the petals are knitting up too big. At this point, I'm thinking of representing the clouds of petals using negative space, instead of actually depicting them as petals. I'm also playing with the idea of incorporating a traditional lace design that will somehow morph into the cherry blossoms. I'm definitely leaning towards an asymmetrical design, possibly with some Japanese influenced motifs. At this point in designing however, there's no telling what will make it into the final design and what won't.