It's October, it's unseasonably warm, and we haven't had Halloween or Bonfire Night yet, but it's never too early to start your knitting for Christmas!

Our December issue is on sale now, with lots of Winter knits to get you in the mood to curl up by your fireplace (or radiator) and get out the chunky yarn.

This gorgeous pompom sweater, by one of our new designers, will get you feeling wintery warm instantly.



Want to be warm but still stylish? Channel Chanel in this sexy little Sublime number.



Exclusively designed for us by the lovely Louisa Harding, this Frost hat and Skater scarf will make a lovely gift set, if you can bear to part with it.





With lots more fantastic winter knits, plus our amazing free Essential Gift Guide, we have everything you need to kick start Christmas.

If you haven't come across the lovely Katie from Hoxton Handmade's new podcast Electric Sheep you should definitely check it out. Smart, funny, whimsical, topical, she writes essays, is a roving reporter (now that she has her swanky new microphone recorder) and we met her at the Fifteen knitting kit launch.

You can hear Katie talking to Emma, myself and Lauren (Deadly Knitshade) of S&B London here!

http://www.hoxtonhandmade.com/

Ooooh, we're famous!

You might have heard by now that Fifteen, the Jamie Oliver initiated restaurant that trains young apprentice chefs, is launching a limited edition knitting kit in time for Christmas, the yarn coming from the wool of the Elwy Valley lamb used in the restaurant.

Well, Emma and I got exclusively invited up for the official launch of the kit at Fifteen's flagship restaurant on Wednesday, for an evening of fun, food and knitting, held in conjunction with Stitch and Bitch London.

The place was kitted (knitted?) out beautifully with each place set with a small skein of the wool, a set of lovely Subabul wooden knitting needles sourced and provided by The Little Knitting Company (Ruth gave us a pair to take away and they're lovely, as is her gorgeous tiny baby Will, who she brought with her) and some starter patterns.



Can you guess where Emma and I sat?

There was some great food; fennel cooked in chilli, baked figs with blue cheese, crusty salt and rosemary bread and the most delicious (and rich!) chocolate brownies. We may have gone up for seconds...

Then followed an evening of getting to know other knitters, trying out the yarn, chatting about how the idea of the kit came about and occasionally filling our wine glasses.



Say cheeeeeeese

We ended up with the lovely and inspiring Lauren, one of the original Stitchettes, on our table who suggested we all knitted a square and put it together to create a piece of knit grafitti and tag Fifteen, as you can see here!



Lauren in action. I wonder how long it will stay up here?

Sigh, the things we do in the name of work, I tell you it's a tough life...



Katy

Hi everyone,

Wow the K&S show at Ally Pally was busy this year! I was only up for the Saturday and it was like information overload everywhere I turned.

It was great to see Nicky Epstein again, and her lovely husband. Nicky is always good for a laugh and was telling me about some upcoming books she’s got in production for the coming year.

It was the first time I’ve ever met Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton, who was really nice and interesting, and Erika Knight, who is wickedly funny and incredibly creative.

We saw Rowan’s presentation of new yarns and patterns for SS/10 and throughout the rest of the show picked up all sorts of interesting yarn and goodies to show you in the mag. And the Student Textile Awards this year were the best I’ve ever seen.

We were also incredibly sad to hear about the untimely death of Melody Griffiths, knitting author, editor and designer, who sadly passed away early last week.

We’ll bring you a show write up in the Winter issue, on sale 26 November, with plenty of pics of us schmoozing, and since I was armed with my own camera, anything colourful that caught my eye.

Did you go to the show? Did you see us? Tell us what you thought!

Katy

Hi everyone,



Due to the authors’ own schedules there has been some rescheduling for signings and demonstrations on the Knitting stand G14 at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in a couple of weeks. Not many changes so don’t worry! And on a plus note, we’ve also added Sue Parker, author of Felted Bags to the line-up for Saturday!

New updated and non-changing schedule



Thurs:

10.30am – 11.30am Nicky Epstein

12pm – 1pm Debbie Bliss

2pm – 3pm Nicky Epstein



Fri:

10.30am – 11.30am Nicky Epstein

12pm – 1pm Debbie Bliss

2pm – 3pm Nicky Epstein

3pm – 4pm Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton



Sat:



10.30am – 11.30am Nicky Epstein

11am – 12pm Sue Parker

12pm – 1pm Debbie Bliss

2pm – 3pm Nicky Epstein

3pm – 4pm Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton



Sun:

10.30am – 12pm Nicky Epstein



Hope to see you all there!