Amy Butler

Yesterday I went to Liberties to meet Amy Butler. She was absolutely lovely in person and as you may know from previous posts I really love her designs.

I took one of the colour and material designers from the office with me and she appeared to enjoy herself immensely. We had a chat with Amy, a look through her books and most importantly a stroke of all the beautiful fabrics. I restrained my impulse to buy meters of all of it.

I already own Modern Midwest which I love - there are no specific project in it but for inspiration it is beautiful. I bought the newest book Little Stitches for Little Ones - I'm not a baby person but the patterns and ideas are absolutely lovely, I am sure I will be making quite a few things from this. Amy's fabrics are quite retro in style - think 70's floral but with very fresh and modern colour palettes.

While I was in Liberty I had a look at the new Kaffe Fassett yarn for Rowan - Colourscape Chunky - it reminds me of Noro Kureyon with the long colour repeats and the colour ways are typical of Kaffe, it is much softer than the Noro and lacks the bits of hay too! To be honest I was not very excited by it - it's quite bulky and there is nothing new, it's been done before. It's a shame as the sock yarn he did for Regia is really interesting. I had a quick flick through the pattern book 'The Colourscape Chunky Collection' with designs by Sarah Hatton that accompanies the yarn and was quietly underwhelmed by that too. Maybe it will grow on me.

Speaking of Noro - has anybody out there tried the silk garden sock yarn? I haven't found anywhere in the UK that stocks it yet, I have seen comments on Ravelry about the great colours but nothing about the softness, splitiness or anything else. I am using the Kureyon sock for a pair of Ziggys any I actually really like it - very woolly, but the thick and thin texture evens out when knitting it to give a surprisingly dense fabric.