What inspires you? What makes you think "this bread pudding recipe is good, but if I add some fresh mango, it will be even better"? What gives you the idea to mix buttercups into your bouquet of roses? What makes you decide to add magenta ribbing to a chocolate brown pullover? Or add picot edging to a neckline? Or curve your hemline in an unusual way?

I don't go looking for inspiration, because it doesn't like to be found that way. It likes to sneak up on you: a fleeting glimpse out the window of a moving bus; a snippet of conversation in a crowd.

Or it will wait quietly for you to notice it, as nonchalant as an autumn leaf on the sidewalk, or the understated elegance of the woman who's been sitting in front of you in the theatre for an hour. 

Sometimes you don't notice it at the time, but it shows up in a photograph you took weeks ago.

Sometimes it strikes like lightening out of the blue, and sometimes it takes such a long time to become clear to you that you when you look back, you can't really say when you didn't have the inspiration and when you did. 

I'm working on a new project: a summery hemp cardigan inspired by the colours of autumn leaves, the funky retro-modern design of a box I found on the sidewalk, and the lines that I found in a photograph I didn't even know I took. I started it a few times, because the yarn and my inspiration were at odds with each other for a while, but that is all straightened out now and we're moving along nicely. I look forward to sharing the pattern when it's finished.