Beginners, What inspires you when you knit?

From artists to designers you can find plenty of ways to make your art special, unique, and inspiring. For the average knitting to the beginners, you will find that your inspiring options are limited. Even just making or creating basic knit and purl patterns, you will find that there isn't much you can make without learning new stitched or techniques.

I taught myself how to knit and tried so hard to teach myself how to purl. I believe it was one specific video that I came across that finally had the instructions on how purl that finally taught me how to purl. Otherwise, I would not have many options even today. My world opened up to me when I figured out how to purl. The list of patterns I could knit became even larger.

So, back to my question: Beginners (those who can only knit and/or purl), what inspired you when you knit? In this context, let's look at what you CAN do and what you WANT to do, because if you can and don't want to do something, you really don't need to learn how to do it, right?

The other side of the coin says that you may come across things that you may come across patterns that you CANNOT do and but you really WANT to do. Those you cant do may be easy to ignore; after all, if you are on a roll will whipping out projects left and right, learning something new will most definitely low you down. It may take you quite a long time to get up to speed with a whole new stitch or technique.

Becoming a designer was a really exiting chapter in my life. I would be no means say that I am a perfect or expert knitter. There are plenty of little things that I could still learn from someone who just have just begun how to knit. I am far from advanced, but I used the skills I have to embark on the job of a designer.

It took me a while to figure out how to design small things like coasters and bookmarks. Simple right? But I have had fun with this creativity. All I had to do was alter the numbers on the stitches already created.

Example of a Stitch and how I turned it into a coaster step by step

Check out these links to database of different stitches that you can make today!
Lion Brand
look at my pinterest board (can i link this to my pinterest board?) for more locations

After I learned how to create items using by the stitches from books or online, I began looking into how to make dishcloths. I stared out with pretty basic designs and eventually wound up creating designs of what, where, etc. For example, I have one dishcloth made with hearts.

There were plenty of difficulties when I started learning how to design washcloths and dishcloths. I got side tracked a lot by new patterns I wanted to make. I don't know that I'm any better today. lol. I still have about 10-15 WIPs.

Check out this basic washcloth/dishcloth I designed to understand what I am describing. I have now moved up the scale to creating afghans. The difference now is the design itself. I can't just easily create 1 to see how it will turn out. It typically takes me 3 days to a week to create one afghan so I like to make sure I have it right before I run off and spend all that time to make a huge afghan. I often make baby blankets to check out the design and before I spend hours making a king sized bedspread or afghan.