Friday 23 July 2010

The Knitter MAGAZINE are doing a hat competition for Mencap........

The Knitter pink template_hero

Knitting competition


As part of their celebrity hat campaign, they are asking thier
readers to design a hat for their favourite celebrity. 
They could be past or present, a film star, your favourite soap
character or a sports personality... the choice is yours!

What
you can win


  • The winner and two runners-up will
    receive goody bags crammed with knitting prizes.

  • The winning hat
    designs will feature in a future issue of The Knitter.


The
closing date is 31 August, so please
make sure your entry reaches us by then. Please post your hat and
pattern to:

The Knitter/ Mencap competition
Future Publishing

30 Monmouth Street
Bath
BA1 2BW

Remember to include
your name, full address, email address and a contact number.

You
will be able to collect your entry from The Knitter's stand at The
Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace, London, from 7
to 10 October 2010
.  Any unclaimed entries will be sold in aid
of Mencap.



Tuesday 20 July 2010

I haz been travelling again ;) - florence and pitti Filatti

Oooops I haven't blogged for ages, sorry peeps, I have been having too much fun, but I shall tell you all about it here :)

Well, I have been to Florence to Pitti Filatti, 

Its a yarn trade show where various spinning mills show their wares, except its not really hand knitting a such its more for commercial machine knitting, but still it has all the trends like colours:


Pitti 2010 004 

They displayed the colour trends as a carpet, cool or what huh????

They also display fabric/texture and shape trends to come, really interesting!!


Pitti 2010 069
This was all about a mix of colours and textures from all over the world, LOTS of intarsia :)

And of course the best part of Florence is the shops, gorgeous designer shops who have all the winter knitwear, it inspired me to knit quite alot of things with the samples I got from a few of the stands, I just need to translate them into my yarns now. I will take photos soon to show you, I am obsessed with grey and slate at the moment so everything I knit has to be grey, weird I know but I love it.


Pitti 2010 051 

Anyway, so I knitted lots, drew lots and started on the collections for scrumptious ranges for 2011, its kind of exciting to have to think so far ahead because it means things won't be rushed, very exciting.

I did find new yarns HOWEVER they are not suitable for hand dyeing, possibly for the commercial range if we expand it, I also noticed the number of stands were reduced alot of companies had gone bankrupt which was worrying, and frustrating because the stands I wanted to see weren't there, but never mind.

I do have a stunning new pattern designed my Judy furlong in my lace weight, but I need to finish putting the pattern altogether first so its ready for sale. But I'll preview it this week.

xxx