Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4

As a big fan of Radio 4's Woman's Hour, I was excited to hear The Times' Hannah Rochell on the show, chatting to Jane Garvey about knitwear for Wool Week yesterday morning.  Even more exciting, however, was when she uttered my name when asked about current knitwear designers doing 'things we haven't seen before'.  Needless to say, I am very proud.

Yesterday's episode is on BBC iPlayer and you can listen to it here

New crush: Celia B

I love it when I meet people randomly.  I complimented someone on their necklace the other day and that person turned out to be Celia, a lovely Spanish girl who makes accessories, bright dresses and hand-knitted & crocheted clothes and other pieces for her own label, Celia B.  I am now the proud owner of one of the aforementioned necklaces and if you know me, you will see me wearing it for the rest of the (rainy) summer. I absolutely love it. They're available to buy here.

Celia has gone from designing accessories for Zara to working in China for a knitwear company part-time and running her label the rest of the time.  She recently hosted her very own solo pop-up store in Shanghai, where she currently lives.  Everything she does is bright, sunny and fun. She is currently working on a website, launching here soon, but in the meantime you can keep up to date with her (and her creations) on her blog.
[All images by Celia B]

Antony Gormley vs the yarn bombers

My auntie Kath sent this link through to me this afternoon - I absolutely love it because it's a culmination of two of my favourite things: Antony Gormley's iron figures and knitting!
You can read more about it on the BBC's site here, but I've taken the liberty of borrowing one of their images for your viewing pleasure:

Where it all began, part 9

More mustard knits! The Nash family (Grandma, Mum, great-Grandma & Uncle Christopher) perched on the rocks.

Where it all began, part 7

My grandmother and great-grandmother must have knitted non-stop because the supply of knitwear was apparently never ending! This flecked cardi was obviously a popular one because both my mum (below) and my grandma (bottom) were photographed wearing it.

Where it all began, part 6

This is my favourite photo of my parents. My mum is sporting yet another lovely cardi that she knitted herself (I think she said it was angora), with my beloved Dad looking very smooth in his flat cap (with an extremely small me in his arms).

Where it all began, part 5

Here's another one from the family archive. I love how everything in this photograph is so blue! This is my mum, perched on a tree stump and surrounded by swans in a very cute blue cardi which would have been knitted by one of my great-grandmothers.

Where it all began, part 4

This shot of my great-grandmother is one of my absolute favourites. This one isn't even about the knit, although I'd wager that she made that one, too. It's her brilliant pose (that fish!) and the gorgeous dress she's wearing (which my mother assures me she also made herself).

It's such a beautiful, rich image and I find it really inspiring, especially now that I've started researching and gathering ideas for my SS13 collection.

[Great-grandma Dover with uncle Christopher and great-uncle David]

Where it all began, part 3

When I was around 10 years old, my mum knitted herself a black mohair cardigan. She also made me a royal blue one but I hated wearing it because it was itchy (I was very fussy back then). But my mother's: I loved it then and I love it now. In fact I tried to steal it at the weekend but Mum decided all of a sudden that she might want to wear it again. Typical.

Anyway, there must have been something in the air during that visit, because when Mum went up to the loft to find something completely unrelated, she unearthed the pattern for it. I HAD to scan it and share it with you because it's so fabulously eighties, it is simply too good not to (see above, in all its glory). I also got a shot of me in the aforementioned cardigan that is sadly not in my possession (yet...). Needless to say, I will be making my own very soon.

Where it all began, part 2

I love these photographs of my mum and her brother Christopher in their garden. They're each sporting some pretty fabulous knits (there's that mustardy gold again!), both of which I believe were the handiwork of one or other of my great-grandmothers. But I think their Dachshund Mitzy is feeling left out and wishes she had a fetching sweater, too.

[Mum, uncle Christopher & Mitzy in their garden in Portchester]

Where it all began, part 1

Last weekend I went down to the Isle of Wight to visit my lovely mum. While I was there I stumbled across a load of old slides of my mother as a girl, with her mum & grandmother. Some of you probably know that I learned to knit with my mum and my mum's mum (hmm, this could get confusing). So the thing I loved most of all about these shots that I found, were all the (mostly) handmade knits that kept cropping up.

The Nashes clearly had a penchant for mustard/gold around that time, as there are two or three different knits in that hue that make an appearance. It then led me to think that there must be a lot of other pictures from my childhood, where my knits or my mum's had some kind of impact on me and which have possibly inspired me since. So over the next couple of weeks I'm going to try and be a bit more consistent with this blogging lark and share more of these brilliant finds. Hopefully you'll enjoy the photographs even if you haven't a clue who the people are! Here's one to get you started:

[Mum as a girl with grandma]

Latest press coverage: Knitting magazine

Towards the end of last year I was approached by freelance journalist Clare Kelly and asked to talk about my approach to writing knitting patterns. The article is in the February issue of Knitting magazine and alongside my quote is a very fetching full-page image of the Seoul sweater and Sydney bikini briefs from our SS12 collection, which has just gone on sale.

Wool week!

I got very excited when we had our first British Wool Week last year - it's not exactly the sexiest sounding thing in the world, but with so many big name designers getting involved, it really helped to elevate the status of wool from being seen as something a bit boring and utilitarian to an incredible versatile fibre that can be used to create extraordinary, beautiful clothes that will last AND keep you warm.

There are a whole host of activities and events going on next week, our second Wool Week and you can find out more by visiting the Campaign for Wool's website.

The thing I am most looking forward to is the Wool Modern exhibit showing at La Galleria on Pall Mall, throughout September. Among the big name designers exhibiting are Alexander McQueen, Christian Lacroix, Courreges, Erdem, Lanvin and Viviene Westwood as well as smaller names like Louise Gray and Craig Lawrence. To find out more about it go here - it's worth it for the amazing morphing sheep [I took the liberty of nicking the above images from their site for your viewing pleasure - I hope they don't mind....].

What do you think about when you're knitting?