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Creative people are frequently asked where they get their ideas from. The question is sometimes difficult to answer and two authors I know of invented these amusing responses, ‘From the Ideas Shop in the High Street’ and ‘From ideas.com’. Which just shows how impossible it can be to describe the source of the creative whatsit.

On the other hand knitwear designers often say that they find ‘inspiration’ in the real world – from nature, to objects in museums and art galleries, antique markets, vintage clothing and old knitting patterns and so on. So where do I get my ideas from? A short answer would be, from just working on designs. Which doesn’t help much and requires some explanation.

Take The Red Nose Gang for example. I didn’t wake up one morning and cry ‘Eureka!, today I am going to invent a Gang of Clowns and there will be eighteen characters and …’

Instead, I just began with the vague intention of producing several different clowns, red nose, white faced etc. An ‘idea’ which anyone could have thought of. I don’t start out with drawings or any fixed concept of the final design. I just follow where the knitting and my thought processes take me, to find out what can be discovered.

The knitting itself is a slow process which involves numerous trial and error mock-ups. I ask myself ‘What if ?’. What if I do this or that what will happen? And I try out this and that, constantly revising the patterns. I can’t describe how I make decisions as I go along but I always know when the end-result is just right.

At the same time there is another amazing side-effect to this process, because new and unrelated suggestions always pop into my head as the work progresses. One thing is certain, I will never run out of designs. I have an enormous number on file just waiting for the ‘what if ?’ development.
Mr Fortywinks

So back to the Clowns. I started with a red nose character and decided he would be quite big. I began with the shoes and then progressed to the legs, body and head. Colours are usually chosen at random in the early stages and I used four-row red and white stripes for the legs and body to get a clownish effect. Time passed and I arrived at the facial features, the point at which the character 'comes to life'.

When the red nose was added, that ‘magic something’ occurred. The red and white stripes suddenly shouted ‘pyjamas!’ And there was Mr Fortywinks introducing himself and asking for a knitted alarm clock, hot water bottle and lots more, thank you very much! The first member of The Red Nose Gang had stepped into the spotlight and taken a bow. What I had been working on was an exciting new concept in its own right, nothing to do with circus and everything to do with knitted entertainment.

So what can I say when people ask where I got The Red Nose Gang idea from? That the eighteen members were created due to an entirely random choice of red and white stripes? I will never know if this is true. I do know for certain that when I pick up the needles and yarn and ask, ‘What if?’ it always works and I’m just grateful that it does!