What's New In March

I am a little late with this one. I should have posted about this last month. Truth is I didn't realise how big a deal this was until recently. It's a huge event in the yarn world and this is only it's third year. Three days of classes from famous designers and teachers as well as a market with all your favourite yarns and designers. I am extremely envious of anyone who is going. It's actually very similar to the one I went to in Stirling at the start of my blog. It was called Knit Camp and I did a class in fair isle with Liz Lovick and another class with Jared Flood (one of my favourite designers).  There were a lot of problems in the organisation (where teachers had problems getting into the country) and they didn't do another one. The Edinburgh Yarn Festival has had no such problems and so many more classes that I would have had trouble restricting myself. Next year people! Next year! I have signed myself up to their mailing list so that I won't miss it again. This year, I will be working. If any of you who are going want to share your experiences here please do and I will try not to turn green with envy.

Brioche is a thing and I don't mean the bread. I mean the knitting stitch and I love it. I have loaded several patterns from ravelry and I have a plan to knit some of them. Brioche was initially made popular by designer Nancy Marchant. You can see her beautiful designs on website Brioche Stitch. It involves knitting with two contrasting yarns and you create this beautiful raised pattern. This has since grown and Stephen West of WestKnits has run with it. American born designer has lots of beautiful patterns based on this stitch. I have a few and ordered his most recent collection Bundled in Brioche. It's been fun getting updates when a new pattern has been loaded on to it. The above image is actually from another collection that I also have in my library. This is by Knit Graffiti a designer I came across thanks to Instagram. The good thing about these designs is that they look fantastic with a variegated yarn and a contrasting solid colour.

 Wool and the Gang is a company I came across via Instagram (Instagram has a lot to answer to). It was started by textile designers who were fed up with factory reproductions in fashion. They wanted to help encourage individuality in fashion and this is how it came about. You should go to their About page and read more on it. It makes for an interesting read. It appealed to me because of the images of chunky knits and their pop up stores in London over the Christmas period. I haven't purchased any of their yarn but heard only good things about it. Would be interested though to hear if any of you have knitted with their yarn.

Lastly I leave you with one for those who love crochet and colour. This person isn't selling anything. She doesn't appear to have a blog or facebook page or even and etsy page. Instead she shares beautiful images of her work. I have long been an admirer of her beautiful work and her colour choices. It isn't often that I don't ooh and ahh over her images. She's another person that I found thanks to Instagram.

Apart from that last one you can find all of the above list in one of my pages. Either Craft Blogs, Craft tutorials (brioche) or Craft Shopping. In fact I have created a section for events on the blogs page just for the yarn festival and yarndale.