Botanical Knits

I recently finished working with Alana Dakos on her newest book, "Botanical Knits." The patterns are inspired from plants, trees, leaves, etc. I love the designs (as always when looking at Alana's stuff) and once again wish I had the physical dexterity to knit. 

Working with Alana (see also "Coastal Knits" and "Annie and the Swiss Cheese Scarf") is really great because there is a lot of room for exploration. For example, she gave me several photos of her knits...

...along with images that inspired her to create the patterns. Then essentially said, "here is what I created, now you create something." So I did.

If you have the book you could play a fun "Where's Waldo" trying to find where some of the illustrations ended up. The interesting thing for me is to see what made it into the book (of course not all do) and where. 

Alana also asked me to design the title. Always a fun challenge. She wanted something natural, rustic, with tall letters, almost like they are growing. So here are some examples I came up with.

But ultimately this style was the winner (see above cover).

Another interesting request was for the resource page. She knitted little leaves out of the fabric she used for the knits in the book, and used those as reference for where she got the yarn. Photos of the knitted leaves were eventually placed onto an illustration of a tree branch. You can get an idea for it from the color studies. You will have to buy the book to see how it all really comes together.  :)

Thumbnails.

Color Studies.

Final Illustration.

 That's it! Thanks for reading.