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Looking for an Inspiration

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Isn’t the weather so nice in London? Hope it’s nice over where you are too
Firstly, THANK YOU SO MUCH for those who has already sponsored me via JustGiving for the 10K run held on May 31st. When I saw some of you has sponsored me I was over the moon (I still am)! It has really give me so much positive energy. Thank you

Inspired by many of you, I am now starting to bake... can you believe it?

This was a real success. Check out the inside

From this week, I started to look for a new inspiration for C&C 2010 autumn/winter collections. Again, it will have to be connected to some good cause. Currently I am thinking of something to do with the woodland or wild plants.

If I think of woodland, I think of mushroom. May be there is something that is related to mushrooms that is a good cause. I must read up on lots of issues.

When I think of woodland, I think of mushroom. May be there is something that is related to mushrooms that is a good cause. I must read up on lots of issues.

Maybe something that used to be abundant but rare to see now. Anything that you have a fond memory of. As I spent my childhood in Japan, I don’t know much about the UK or any other part world… Do you have something that you used to see often in wild plants or in woodland that you don’t see anymore?

Common horsetail used to be abundant in Japan where I grew up, but not anymore. They can be eaten I think... I wonder what they taste like.

It will be really fun to design new garments since there will be brand-new colours from Jamieson’s Shetland Heather.

Absolutely amazing new colours I will be using for this autumn from Jamieson's.

Next Friday, I will be doing a knitting tutorials on frills and introduce you to my new pattern. See you there!

Tags: Autumn / Winter 2010, inspirations, jamiesons
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 4 Comments »

Spring / Summer 2010 â€“ Knitting Design Concept 3: Deep Sea

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Hope you all had a great weekend! Mine went far too quickly and I would like it to be repeated again especially the part that our friends came over for a lovely tea.

Today I would like to talk about the theme behind the third (and the last) garment of C&C Spring 2010 designs. There are only three in this season because of the limited time I had and I wanted to make sure that every single pattern is well-thought and constructed. So all is good ;D

The concept for this garment is “deep sea”.

Blue fin tuna are over fished for sushi in Japan. Southern blue fin tuna is critically endangered and is on the IUCN red list.

♥ Deep sea is still a very unknown area but it covers the majority of the earth.

♥ What we know is that fish and other marine life grow slowly over many years because of low temperature and lack of sunlight.

♥ The open sea is like fish’ sanctuary because it is illegal to commercially fish here.

♥ … however, deep sea is increasingly targeted by commercial fisheries especially in the open seas for rare and endangered fish (e.g. blue fin tuna) and sharks’ fin (really good article by BBC Good Food blog here)

♥ This is also an unexploited area for oil and there is an increasing interest in oil mining in deep sea (I really do hope this will not happen… we must all make effort to recycle and use low petrol-based products as much as possible).

Increasing human interests whether good or bad on much unexplored deep sea... I wanted to combine modern and classic look to reflect this.

Increasing human interests whether good or bad on unknown deep sea... I wanted to combine a modern and classic look to reflect this in the knit design.

There is a shade called “oceanic” from Jamieson’s of Shetland Heather yarn (aran weight). It is one of the most beautiful colours I have ever seen and I knew I would be using this colour for my project.

You can quickly knit up this cable panels mainly because there are sections of non cable rows.

The ocean is vast, so I made the garment with striking all over cables. The choice of the cable was also tricky because you don’t want to have too many complicated cables for children’s knitwear which they soon grow out of. So I used a relatively simple cable motif pattern (with purl background and not too much cables – the max you would do is C4F or C4B so it won’t stress your fingers). With a little effort on the cable work, you could make an eye catching garment that you can pass down the generation.

Turn the vertical cable to side ways, the cable looks almost like rows of fish

Imagine you are a fish, the vertical cable panel is like moving ocean. You have to travel through it. There are mountains higher than Everest. Some creatures lights up in the dark, others have shapes that you have never seen. It’s all magical.

I think I will be able to release the patterns from Wednesday onwards. It will be so exciting! Hope you all have a great week ahead ;D see you soon!

Tags: Knitting, Ocean, Spring / Summer 2010
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 14 Comments »

Spring / Summer 2010 – Knitting Design Concept 2: Shallow Sea – Mangroves & Shore

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

I am seriously in denial that it is already Wednesday. Am I just really slow? Time seem to be flying away like the speed of light. I am working really hard to finish off the patterns, so please forgive me for slow visit.

Firstly, I am happy to announce that I am accepted for a London 10K run on 31st May by WWF. So excited about this!! I will be blogging about this later..

Amazing pattern left by the sea on the sand in Cornwall. I must go back there again.

Today I would like to talk about my second garment. It was inspired by mangroves and shore.

♥ Mangrove forest is full of biodiversity. You can find shrimp, crab, fish.

♥ It is also home for lots of mammals like migratory birds, Bengal tigers, fishing cats and dolphins.

♥ They are natural water cleaning system.

♥ Mangrove forests are cleared to make shrimp farms and used for building as mangrove wood is resistant to rotting and insects.

♥ Destruction of mangrove forest means less shrimp, crab and fish. Also affect animals who depend on mangrove for their life (e.g. fishing cats).

Mangrove is one of the most magica plant that I can think of.

I wanted my second design to be simple but interesting. Something that would be a nice and quick but fun project to work on for everyone.

♥ The main design feature of this garment is the centre cable panel in the front that reminds us of mangrove roots growing out of the sand. It is also the magical natural patterns on sandy shore after the water has washed away

Mangrove roots... may be patterns on the sandy shore?

♥ On either sides of the cable panel is a simple stockinette stitch which is the dry part of the shore. Imagine, this is where your feet get warm and where you can find delicate coastal plants.

♥ I have used un-dyed natural colour from Jamieson’s of Shetland (DK) with contrasting white to depict bright sunlight reflecting against the water.

♥ Soft natural white along the edges are also like the scattered white sea shells that eventually become sandy beach after many years.

Cable panel along the front against simple stocknette stitch.

I know this one is going to be a nice project for all.

Hope your week is going well. Now I am craving for a nice lemonade and a piece of honey cake on a sunny beach…

I wish...

Tags: cotton & cloud, Knitting, Spring / Summer 2010
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 15 Comments »

Spring / Summer 2010 – Knitting Design Concept 1: Shallow Sea

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Finally it’s Friday! Do you all have an exciting weekend plan? For me I will be finishing off all the patterning and focusing more on word processing. Domestically, I might try to make a carrot cake for the second time (I am not good at baking so I will post the pic IF it turns out nice…).

In the next few weeks I will be posting on my design concepts for the children’s knitwear patterns with sneak preview of the garments and some additional tutorials. I won’t talk about the actual structure of the garments as it will be described when I release the patterns

Today I would like to talk about my first garment. The overall theme for Spring 2010 is Ocean. The concept of this particular garment is shallow sea.

I have a fond memory of seaside holiday as a child. I wish I can show you all the nostalgic photos from my childhoo...

This is a photo I took when W and I went to Cornwall in 2008. I have a fond memory of seaside holiday as a child. I wish I can show you all the nostalgic photos from my childhoo...

♥ Shallow sea is where you can find coral reefs, kelp forest, mangrove etc.

♥ This is where whales give birth.

♥ Home for 90% of marine species because of abundant nutrients, oxygen (plants grow here) and shelters.

♥ Presence shallow sea structures (coral reefs and mangroves) protect lands from large waves and tsunami.

♥ Shallow sea also gets most polluted by human activities.

♥ Where 80% shallow reefs are severely over fished and with other factors, they are disappearing. This means even less fish no protection to land if there is a tsunami.

I am no good at swimming but I love the sea. I want

I want to incorporate some "meaning" to my patterns so that anyone (mums, grandmas, aunties etc) who knits my patterns can imagine, enjoy and create something special.

In my design I wanted to incorporate all the beautiful feature of shallow sea but at the same time, keeping the design simple so that anyone can knit my pattern. Wouldn’t it be so nice if each design had a story behind it

♥ This particular garment has frills to depict waves of the sea (may be jelly fish?).

♥ I used light but bright blue because shallow sea is where the sun light reaches (of course you can knit with other colours )

These frills look lush but also so easy to make. I have a nice tutorial on frills coming up soon

♥ Simple rows of eyelets that depict presence of oxygen, kelp forest, even dotted image of fish swimming around the sea…

♥ Shallow sea is the gateway between land and deep sea. It offers so much to human lives.

Pretty frills with eyelets for a little princess ;D

Right. I am totally wanting to swim with dolphins now. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tags: design concept, Knitting, Ocean, Shallow Sea, Spring / Summer 2010
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 20 Comments »

Knitting with Jamieson’s of Shetland Yarn

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Hope you had a great weekend! Mine was busy (photos to follow soon). But I must keep telling myself to file the tax return VERY SOON before I fly off to Japan.

Today I would like to introduce you to the world of Jamieson’s of Shetland Yarn. It is a parallel universe to the world of Cotton & Cloud.

My friend Susan told me that Jane Brocket from YarnStorm blogged about Jamieson’s of Shetland Yarn. I am a big fan of her. She is so famous and many of you would probably already know her site, but please go and visit her beautiful blog if you haven’t yet done so. I am thrilled to read that someone who is very prominent in craft and crafty life style shares my “yarn addiction” with Jamieson’s of Shetland. Their yarn is super luscious and is the real deal Shetland yarns from Shetland island – what more would you want?.

I am a knitter wherever I go. Jamieson's of yarn always catches people's eye because it is super cool.

Do I hear anyone saying that Shetland wool is scratchy? Hold on there. Shetland wool is completely different from Cashmere. Like Aplaca is different from Lamb’s wool. I have been checking up on Knitter’s Review (BTW I find this site amazingly informative – I love it!) and I thought I would like to add more to it.

Ok, I admit, Shetland wool is not as soft as merino and cashmere, but there is more to wool than just softness. I do love soft yarns too but different yarns are best used for certain designs to bring the best out of them. So here are my personal three main characteristics of Jamieson’s of Shetland yarn and what they are good for.

WARM

The Shetland sweaters will keep you warm, and that is a fact. It’s their bounciness that traps air and insulate. I was showing a sample garment knitted with the Jamieson’s to Mary and she was pleasantly impressed by the bouciness and lightness (I was using 4ply spindrift).

The heavier weight yarns (Aran, Heather and Marl) are absolutely ideal for nice chunky outerwear (i.e. Baby Cable Yoke Jacket).

Their DK and 4ply would be perfect for cardigans, vest and gloves (and of course for fair isle knitting) (new patterns being designed at the mo by me).

Cobweb (and 4ply) would make cozy yet feather light garments and shawls.

HARD WEARING

Jamieson’s of Shetland yarn LASTS. For me, swatching and repeated frogging is inevitable when you design and pattern. I must say that Jamieson’s of Shetland yarn is definitely the most resistant to multiple frogging. It does become fuzzy like others but after many (like over 8 times) frogging. I would say it’s like the King of Wool (LOL! ).

So it’s IDEAL for knitted bags and purses (i.e. Macaroon Knitted Purses). Cobweb shawls are strong and you can enjoy your outer wear for a long time. It’s the kind of yarn that you would use to knit a garment and pass on down the generation.

TEXTURE

It’s rustic, tweedy and just so artistic on it’s own. There is something very retro about it and knitting with Jamieson’s of Shetland almost feels like going to a lovely rustic patisserie with amazing colours. You cannot get this texture with softer yarns.

…

My hands are not fast enough to knit so many things with them. I have just completed the first design. I have two more ongoing at the moment. One I can start tonight and the other I will do in the plane (knitting in the sky! yay . It’s gonna be fun fun fun!

Just before I fly off, I am hoping to do a knitting book review and a giveaway. So make sure you pop over sometime in the midweek

Have a great week ahead!

Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 14 Comments »

Spring / Summer 2010 Collection Progress Update 1: Theme

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Right now, C&C is developing a set of children’s knitwear patterns which are planned to be released in March (BTW I am super excited about the designs and I know you will all love them!)

The theme of 2010 Spring / Summer “collection” is ocean.

We all love the sea (I think… whether you can or cannot swim – I do have a big phobia whenever I swim in the open sea). I would certainly like to continue to enjoy the beautiful ocean like coral reefs, lots of different fish, whales, dolphins, mangrove etc. for the rest of my life.

Anyway, in 2009, I was totally into watching a BBC documentary called South Pacific. Nerd-ishly enough, I also love checking out on Marine Stewardship Council website and try my best to buy certified sustainable fish in my local supermarket. One of my challenges is eating out. I love eating out with my friends but it’s hard to know whether the ingredients are environmentally sound – probably not. Nothing is perfect so all we need to do is to minimise the impact.

Going back to the Ocean theme for this season, until March I will be blogging about the progress of my projects (mood board (I am no good at this tho!), swatches, inspirations, techniques etc.). I think it is really nice to have a positive message in the design so that mums or someone in the family who knit my patterns for the kids can really enjoy them rather than just “knit”. After all, you would want the kids to wear the best handknit garments- but at the same time you would want to make them relatively quickly. So I have a lot hurdle to jump until March.

So, today I would like to share with you the images that inspire me to create my Spring / Summer 2010 designs. Also I have listed some Ocean related sites which are both fun and educational.

It has waves, kelp, mangrove, endangered creatures, blue sea, sand. Don't you just love the feel of the ocean even just by looking at it?

Google Earth -You can check out under-the-sea view. Super cool.

BBC Ocean Games – Loads of fun games about the ocean. I would say this is a “good” time-waster.

Marine Stewardship Council – Gives you great info about where to buy and how to cook certified sustainable fish. My favourite site.

Protect Planet Ocean – A huge website all about protecting our planet ocean. I love the fact they have all the collections of podcast, videos etc.. and I found this… This is a video by the University of New Hampshire research group who are monitoring the coastal marine ecosystem in the western Gulf of Maine.

It’s amazing that there are many people who are working so hard for the good of the earth. I must get my needles and work hard too ;D

Hope you are having a productive week

Tags: cotton and cloud, Spring / Summer 2010
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 6 Comments »

Find and Sell Your Lovely Patterns at Magpie Patterns

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Hope you are having a good week It is still freezing cold here and my cats are both rolling up into balls which is quite sweet.

Today I would like to talk about Magpie Patterns. It’s my new craze right now. It’s an online market place for lovely patterns for knitting, sewing, crochet and embroidery all in one! If you are looking for a nice crafty pattern for your next project, this is the place to go.

From a patternist point of view, this is also a brilliant place because you can sell your own patterns too.

I am a firm believer of equal opportunities. Selling patterns does not always have to be done by an accomplished designer or people with lots of contacts. I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to be noticed and valued for their creativity. That is why I like places like Magpie Pattern, (Etsy, Dawanda, Art Fire etc) where you can really express your creative talent without having to obtain MA and other things. So I thank Amy who is the owner of Magpie Patterns for creating such a cool site! I also enjoy reading her blog to check out the latest patterns in town.

It’s been nearly 2 years since I started creating and selling my own patterns for both knitting and sewing. At the time it was hard for me to find a nice online market place for craft patterns. Now things are slightly easier but I think Magpie Patterns is definitely a blog-able site.

MAGPIE PATTERNS – find and sell loveliest patterns!

TARGET AUDIENCE

It’s always good to sell your items to a target audience. It’s like an inverse proportion: the narrower the target you sell to, the wider the exposure

Beignet by Colette Patterns

NOTICE AND GET NOTICED

It is still a new site, and that is really good. Why? Because you can find really good stuff easily. If you are a designer, you can get noticed much more prominently.

Frog Prince by Nicole Vos van Avezathe

FEEL GOOD FACTOR

Magpie Patterns is such a lovely website. Image is very important for designers and you would like patterns that you worked so hard on to look the best possible. Having listed my patterns on Magpie Patterns, it really does feel good to be a part of it

Child's Earflap Hat by Leila and Ben

LOW RISK

The fee structure for Magpie Patterns works slightly differently to other major online handmade market places such as Etsy. You can sell your pattern at your wholesale price or 50% of each sale (this works well especially with PDF patterns), payable each month. This means that there is no listing fee. You get what you sell – very fair.

Daphne and Delilah by Danger Crafts

I think this could become big. If you are interested in submitting your pattern, check out this page. Happy pattern searching and patterning!

P.S. Furry Friday will be posted on Saturday (!). It’s not an interview but a some Furry topic See you on Saturday!

Tags: magpie patterns, online market place, patternist
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 12 Comments »

Happy New Year! 2010, Cotton & Cloud New Year’s Plan

Monday, January 4th, 2010

A very happy New Year to you all! Hope you all had a good one. I must say my New Year’s eve was a little quieter than usual but nevertheless I enjoyed my year-end break. I did quite a lot of knitting done

Do you all have a New Year’s resolusion for the year 2010? The world of C&C has many things planned this year!

One of our "furry staff" just wanna say hi!

JUST GIVING
The first exciting news is that C&C now has a “JustGiving” account. This means that money donated by anyone through this account will be processed directly from there. I don’t have to touch it, calculate it and process it at all!

To fund raise, I will be doing the following throughout the year:
1) Releasing FREE knitting & sewing patterns
2) Register and RUN 5-10k (hopefully) for charity

FREE Patterns:
♥ If you like it, please “retweet” the post.
♥ ♥ If you really like my work, please donate some money via C&C JustGiving page. I will be more than grateful for any amount donated by you.

RUN for Charity:
I will be announcing for the run and blog about it. If you are around and would like to run with me, let me know!

er.. yep.. I did eat this... We now have a store in London and we couldn't resisit it...I must run to burn off the cal..

GOODIES FOR YOU
There are loads of new things to come.
To start of with, I have just unpacked the sassy-est, Japanese vintage-inspired fabrics from Japan! I am itching to sew some nice girl’s dress with some of these fabrics.

Japanese fabrics 1 Japanese fabrics 3 Japanese fabrics 2 Aren’t they just sooo pretty? I am so happy with them!

PATTERNS
Yep. You will see more of them:

1) All my pattern will be released at Spring (Feb / Mar) and Autumn (Aug / Sep). I will announce the release dates in the blog as well as all the updates It will be really fun!

2) Since so many of you requested children’s knitting patterns I will be focusing on designs for kids between ages 2-8. Though don’t worry, there will be other patterns including the FREE ones for grown ups!

So below are some sneak previews of my designs which are nearly complete.

preview 3

preview 1

Currently FF is on break (need to build up a list again). I have a grrreeet free patterns to share with you so I might post it IF i finish is by then.

May this year bring you lots of happiness and good health to you all! *bug hugs*

Tags: cotton & cloud, cotton and cloud
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 14 Comments »

Technorati

Monday, November 30th, 2009

paw on keyboard

Just a quick post to let you know that I have finally signed up with Technorati after many years of blogging. I thought this post might trigger others to sign up with Technorati if you haven’t yet done so.

Technorati is a bit like google but for blogs. It brings traffic to your blog. I thought it would be a good idea to do it so that more people will find out about the world of Cotton & Cloud because it is and will be a fun and happy place!

Technorati looks at tags that authors have placed on their websites. These tags help categorise search results. Technorati rates each blog’s “authority” which is the number of unique blogs linking to the blog over the previous six months.

I am not very good with internet terminology but what I understand is that:

You have to use your “tags” specifically and appropriately.
The more people link to your blog and you post more appropriate links (or let other people post links to your blog), the higher your blog ranking will be. And this also applies to Google search engine optimisation.

Why not give it a try?

When you sign up with Technorati, you have to “claim” your blog in order to be listed in their site. It took over a week for me to receive a confirmation e-mail from them. In the confirmation e-mail, there is a code which you have to include in your new blog post. By doing this, Technorati can verify that you are the author of the blog.

Here is mine: 9PUUA3X66SEW

Not sure what will happen next but see how it goes.

Tags: technorati
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 2 Comments »

Cotton & Cloud Meets Jamieson’s from the Beautiful Shetland Islands

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

How is everyone doing? We had lots of rain over in London and I think the winter is coming soon. I certainly am ready for more knitting and have very exciting news to tell you! Tonight, I had a meeting with Jamieson’s of Shetland who will be holding a booth at the Knitting and Stitching Show in London selling their gorgeous yarn. My Macaroon Knitted Purse kits and patterns will be on sale there! How exciting is that!? So if you happen to go there, please please visit their booth and check out the kits (and hopefully buy one!).

jamiesons

The newly printed pattern for Macaroon Knitted Purse. I will be updating this on my shop ASAP! (there is no change in the contents).

The meeting went all well. They were very professional and friendly and most of all, passionate about their yarns. They described to me about stunning Shetland Islands that you can see so many stars in the sky and even see the northern lights! I can totally understand why their yarn is so amazing. Gosh, if only I were there! I think Kumo and Wata would love to live there (though they would need new fur coats).

new project

My new project. You can’t see much at the moment but this will be an amazing men’s cap.

I have been working really hard in the past year and I feel so happy that the world of Cotton & Cloud is expanding. It really is all about happiness ♥

Mary and I will be at the Show on Saturday checking the latest knitting things. We will be taking our packed lunch so if you are in London and visiting Alexandra Palace on Saturday you might see us. If you do, come and say hi! We would be so happy to meet our fellow bloggers

Just to prepare you for the weekend, there will be another Furry Friday this week. See you on Friday!

Tags: jamiesons, Knitting
Posted in Behind Cotton and Cloud | 13 Comments »