Yesterday and today combined heehee due to the delightful job (and extra pay incentives for it being a bank holiday!!) anyway...I did a small photo shoot with my amazing model sister with the pieces more focal than previous ones to use in my pattern sheets - i'm creating for people to create their own interpretation and bounce ideas off others, so as to make a small community of clothes lovers!! Heres a sample from the shoot...

Todays Easter Sunday (no eggs for me though... darn old age)...i've been working on ribbing a knitted belt, so today I was finishing it off... tying in the ends and checking that it fitted on me (and the models!!), I'm also working on creating a new blog page that visualises different people showing how they personally would wear and interpret the different pieces in my collection and how they would customise them along with hopefully a comment type box that visitors can write in...i'll post on here when its completed!! Heres a couple of pictures on my ribbing...

No knitting today!!...everyones got to have a day off work!!...so yesterday was Good Friday and in Horwich we have a (slightly weird) tradition of everyone walking up to the top of Rivington Pike and touching all four sides of the tower (most exercise I get all year!!) so all our friends got together (some special ones were let off due to sick/work!!) and set off for the epic walk...it managed to take us a good couple of hours before the next tradition of everyone meeting in the much appreciated pub!! so anyway heres a couple of scenic pictures on the way up!!

Chocolate eggs and bunnys eh?? And lots of work of course!! Just ploughing on with knitting through my checklist (yes I actually have a checklist of knitted pieces I need doing!!) I'll try and remember to post some progress pictures up here later but in the meantime i've found the best fancy dress hat ever for you to look at!!(And wear Lotty at a party!)...

I love the designer Amy Twigger Holroyd and her knitwear label Keep and Share... her design philosophy "we offer unconventional - yet infinitely wearable - knitwear for both men and women. Each piece is designed to satisfy over time, and is lovingly knitted in the UK" really inspires me and I love the ethos of cherishing a much loved item that does not follow conventional trends. Her website is lovely with a simple layout really letting the photographs speak for themselves. She has recently branched out and has an amazing plan to launch "riot and return" a childrenswear label which you subscribe to for the growth of your child and 'rent' clothes until your child grows out of them... they can then be mended or adjusted or swapped...

Today and yesterday i've been looking into developing my labels and tags for different pieces of clothing... by including different words and phrases on them I hope to personalise them and relate them to different seasons and clothing choices so as to give the wearer ideas and inspiration to keep them looking fashionable without having to buy a whole new outfit. Here are a few templates i have done so far...

Catching up on some knitting today... found a really cute old childrens' knitting book in a charity shop in Horwich today which has great illustrations! concentrating on adding small sections of colour to create a more personalised look to the individual pieces and make them look more unusual! I've also been experimenting with felting and made a lovely looped belt and continued to experiment with volumes of layers with the looped knitting...

Today is about experimenting. With all the knitting samples I have done cluttering up my room i've gone on an organising spree and got them all labeled and pressed nicely (tidy is not something I do well!!) and have been using my imagination to transform the pieces into unusual garments on my old mannequin - with some surprising results... some of the pieces i wasn't entirely happy with turned out to look quite nice once hung on the silhouette! here are a few of the results...

Today i've been thinking of ways to present my collection, using tags and labeling to display how my product is made, the fibres it is made from and options of how to wear it. I remembered back to when i was little and used to love making 'choosers' (like an origami thing where you pick a colour then a number then it says something underneath...??!!) and loved the idea of the wearer choosing how they wear it on a particular day. Here's a few pictures of my process... and also a bit of sample knitting i've been doing on the side...