Giveaway!

I'm giving away a copy of my last book, In The Mood, fifteen fashion-led knitting projects using Araucania yarns.  The designs are inspired by love (knit your hearts with an unslipping knot - Wm Shakespeare), food (anything is good if it's made of chocolate - Jo Brand) and music (playing live is like cooking fresh food and serving it hot - Ravi Shankar). Just leave a comment at the foot of this page before 12 midnight GMT or 7pm US Eastern time on Saturday, 19 November to go into the draw.  Winner to be announced Sunday 20th.

In The Mood was such an interesting project - Philip and I were involved in every aspect of production except the printing.  This was at first awe-inspiring, but at the same time fabulous for me to know that my vision for the designs would be seen through onto the printed page.  We had only ourselves to blame for errors, so we checked and double checked, although such is the nature of knitting patterns that I'm sure the odd one must have crept in under the radar. It was all very scary but mega-exciting and I'm glad to say that three years later I'm still proud of this book.

I loved working with Araucania yarns and had already done one book for them, Wandering Spirits, using their cotton yarn . Their lovely lofty fibres were a joy to knit with and also a feast for the eyes on the needles. When the yarns were delivered to my studio I opened the box and the vibrant yarns tumbled out and I couldn't believe my luck, it was a dream project - Ranco Multy, Ranco Solid, Limari, Copihue, Aysen, Nature Wool - all yarns to die for.

The designs came thick and fast, I had more ideas than I could use so had to edit, edit edit.  I wanted the book to have as much scope for knitters as possible, so included a variety of sweater shapes, cardigans, a couple of scarves, a hat, socks and a shawlette.  Most of the designs come in six sizes and I would have done more, but the pressure of a very tight publishing schedule prevented me from doing this.

David Hatfull of Diem Photography provided the fabulous images and our model was Emily Byron, who just by chance happened to be a direct descendant of Lord Byron.  Styling the shoot was the icing on the cake for me, - I've always loved dressing up and was in my element putting the looks together.  A wonderful day culminating in the consumption of a rather large chocolate torte donated by the renown Bettys of York.