Designer Donna Druchunas scours the globe for inspiration for her designs. Her most recent book, Ethnic Knitting Exploration, she uses inspiration from Lithuania, Iceland and Ireland for her wonderful creations. Donna has agreed to share her creative process behind her book. Thanks for sharing with us Donna!

Andrea, thanks for hosting me on my blog book tour for Ethnic Knitting Exploration!

Ethnic Knitting Exploration is the second book in a series about traditional sweater design and knitting techniques from around the world. The first book, Ethnic Knitting Discovery, covered drop shoulder and modified drop shoulder sweaters -- very simple in construction with very little fitting. In the new book, I cover raglans, yoke sweaters, and saddle shoulders -- all providing more refined shaping and fit around the neck and shoulder area.

The idea for this book actually came from Deb Robson, my editor at Nomad Press. Nomad is the publisher for Priscilla Gibson Roberts's classic book, Knitting In The Old Way. This book is the ultimate tome on ethnic and traditional sweater design and techniques. It is encyclopedic in scope, and it requires a lot of knowledge on the part of the knitter. We wanted to create a lighter approach to the topic, something that would give newer knitters a better chance at being able to absorb the information. We also wanted the books to take a young, funky approach. While it's difficult to approach Knitting In The Old Way without years of knitting knowledge already accumulated, Ethnic Knitting Discovery and Exploration are written for knitters who may have only made one or two projects so far, and for knitters who may not have even tackled a sweater yet.

Originally this was going to be one book, but there's so much information to cover, that we decided to split it in three so each book could be relatively small, offering a taste of techniques, stitch patterns, and sweater shapes from different parts of the world. So we split the idea into three books that are being released over a period of several years. (Ethnic Knitting Adventure will feature fitted garments. It's partly written and will probably come out in about 2 years, giving people plenty of time to explore the first two books before moving on.)

To make the whole idea of designing your own sweater more approachable, I included several tools to keep things easy and light.

First, each chapter begins with a practice project. It may be small, such as a pair of fingerless gloves, or large, such as a poncho, but it's much easier than a whole sweater and it gives you practice with certain elements of the design process so you can be confident in your own skills by the time you start a sweater.

Second, each project gives you three ways to work:
1) A visual plan provides a schematic for the project where you fill in your own measurements and stitch counts. The schematic comes with brief instructions to guide you through the steps of completing the project.
2) A worksheet helps you calculate all the numbers you will need for your project. You can fill it all out in advance or figure out each number as you need it.
3) Step-by-step instructions elaborate on the brief text that accompanies the schematic, and also ties in with the worksheet so you can calculate everything with your own gauge and size in mind. This is perfect for first time designers who want a little more detailed help in going through the process, and it's a great tool for busy knitters who might otherwise lose their place in a project if they have to set it aside for a while to attend to life's interruptions.

Finally, for each project, I've included a drawing of the item using the pattern stitches that I chose for a sample design. The book includes enough detail that knitters can duplicate this design in their own size and color scheme. But there are also extra charts, so you can create a unique design of your own as well.

All of this is based on the way that I design sweaters for myself. Instead of doing research on how other people go about the design process, when I started working on these books, I just sat down and started designing sweaters for myself. I kept track of all the steps I took, and that became the basic outline for the book. I added some more details for people who work in other ways (I work mainly from the visual plan), and I expanded on the text because readers would not know what information I had in the dark corners of my mind.

I really enjoyed writing the introduction to each chapter, and doing research on knitting in so many different countries. I would love to write more about knitting around the world, and I have plans for several future projects that will let me do just that. They're long term projects that will require travel because I want to research places where there is little or no information on knitting available in the English language. For this series, I made a deal with my editor that I would not be able to travel to all of the countries I wrote about, and that all of my research would come from Knitting In the Old Way. That didn't happen. Although I only got to travel to Lithuania, I spent a lot of time reading articles and books about each of the countries I wrote about, especially all of the existing research about knitting in those areas. Research is really my favorite part of the writing process, and I'm not very good at holding back. I usually do much more research than is required for the scope of my books and articles.

I hope that these books will encourage those who might have previously felt that designing was out of their reach to give it a shot. Sometimes it's even easier than following a pattern!

Release your inner designer. It's easier than you think.

Thanks again for having me as a guest on your blog.
Donna Druchunas