Stylecraft Visit 2017 (Part 1)

It is my absolute pleasure to be one of the Stylecraft Blogstars and to be able to work with such an iconic brand. 

My most favourite thing about the partnership is the twice-yearly get-together at the Mill, where we get to meet the team, preview new collections, try out products and learn a new skill in the workshops.

Apart from the fabulous overnight stay in a local hotel (with THE most scary morning drive to the Mill along one of the narrowest and twisty-turny hills in Yorkshire), we also have an activity organised for the Friday afternoon.

This year, it was a trip to the Hockney exhibition at Salts Mill.

What a treat - we had a wonderful tour guide, who showed us the collection and talked about Hockney's work and life.

I loved the ipad/iphone pictures above and the images below from 'The Arrival of Spring' were astonishing; the colours were bright and luminous. 

After a marvellous dinner and a jolly good night's sleep, it was off to the Mill for our meeting (including a heart-stopping encounter with a white van on that hill...).

We got to see some of the new patterns in the upcoming Autumn / Winter collections.

And obviously there was lots and lots of yarn to ooooooh and aaaaaaah over (there was much squishing and touching going on). I'll show you some of the new yarns in the second part of this blogpost very soon.


And as if that wasn't enough, we had a member of the Ring of Tatters visit us. She spoke to us about the art of tatting and gave us a demonstration, too .

Ever heard of tatting?
It's an amazing, delicate craft of making teeny, tiny knots, which can create such beauties as this:

This is my rather feeble attempt.
I don't think the Ring of Tatters will be calling me anytime soon...

And here are some of us at dinner - see how we all have a kntting or crochet project with us?

It was a wonderful weekend and I was lucky enough to come home with a rather large bag of yarn to try.

But, most importantly, as somebody whose closest friends (although amazeballs) are not the crafty sort, these meetings give me the opportunity to talk about all things yarn and blog related with my fellow blogstars and the Stylecraft team; it's like being with my tribe - with people who 'get' me.
(And I can utter the phrase 'Oooo, this DK isnt the least bit splitty' without having to explain what on earth I am talking about...)

Want to find out more about the Blogstars? Read about them all here.

Enjoy your weekend, lovely peeps,

Part two of this blog post will be out very soon.
Sarah xxx