swing tag

here is my swing tag for my rowan re-brand.

fashion shoot

photos taken by sara mills models me , emma taylor and kim sams.

photos taken down on plymouth hoe.

seasideyarns tell the tale of life above and below the waves.

A friend of mine found for me in the Western morning news of a textile artist in Devon and an army of knitters who have created a large scale knitting scene called above and below the sea in aid of the rnli. her other works have been a giant gingerbread house and a knitted Christmas tree.

Alison's creative works really brings people together and the 2000 volunteers that came together to make this came as far as hong Kong and the USA.

above and below the sea will be on show at the Appledore visual arts festival from june 3-6

dads cable jumper

i have started making a cable knit jumper for my dad and here is the first finished piece the back work has just started on the front.

illistrator designs.

For our re-launch we needed to do four or five designs in illistrator that are apprroate for our chosen brands.

my designs are the first time that i have ever designed in illistrator as well as using my perefered photoshop.

brand re-launch report

My brand for my re-launch is going to be rowan and Ryc of designer yarns who make hand knit yarns and patterns.
Rowan which started in 1980 celebrated its 30th birthday with book 44, each year two mew pattern books come out providing patterns for women children and men.
Rowan is now very established in the hand knitting world but only last year’s its older range of yarns Ryc went into administration as the yarns were too old and the colors too dull.
Ryc stand for rowan classic collection and even though There’s a market for classic wool the biggest market now is the younger knitting makes who want organic, bright modern wools not pastel shades.
For my brand re-launch I think that rowan needs to move into new areas of the knit market by making actual knit pieces out of their wool for order and ready to wear collections of knit in department stores.
Rowan needs to open itself open to the fashion market and make knit for people who can’t knit but world love to wear the designs out of the books.
Being a knitter the amount of times that friends have said that they would love to wear some of the garments out of the studio collection or the normal books and rowan needs to collaborate with the high street department stores for a small concession in maybe house of Frazer of john Lewis.
Because the price of the garments would be better suited to John Lewis or House of Frazer as the market value and spend per visit is higher than say Debenhams.
Even though people think that you would not spend much on wool and large wool jumper by rowan could cost as much as £100 pounds and over to buy all the wool.
This is an new way of shopping for knit for customers making hand knit more accessible for non hand knitters, making this a brilliant area to go into.

press release for re-brand of rowan.

news release 24th may 2010


rowans reinvention re-brand.
rowan a hand knitting company today has announced that after 30 years of only making hand knitting wool they are going to branch into commissioned and off the rail hand knit pieces of knit from each collection opening rowan up to a much wider demographic not just hand knitters.

Rowan a major company on the hand knitting scene today released the information that they will be the first hand knitting company to branch out of just hand knit wool into the world of custom knits selling already made hand knits using the rowan wool and patterns in the shops a first for the big companies.

The collaboration with house of Frazer and john Lewis will result in a small concession in flagship stores to start to see hoe well the new concept of making hand knits works.
women wanting these knits can either buy whats on the rail as ready to wear or place an order for a jumper choosing out of the specific pattern books and choosing the colour they life from the wool that can be used.

This new type of shopping will give much more choice to the women buying and after time rowan will also move into the children's wear and Menes wear, after time i think that the other major wool companies like designer yarns who make Debbie bliss, noro and Louisa Harding will quickly follow suit.

story boards and logos.

For our fashion blog marketing project we have been doing storyboards on our chosen brand to rebrand and my knit and how i would change rowan and remarket them as well as the swing tag that would go on my new projects.

my logo for my rebrand is of rowan.

and my mood board for fashion knit pieces going down the runway.

chinese socks

my mum for years demands hand knitted socks from me and loves these socks more that any shop brought socks.

when in london i fell in love with loop yarns and brought while i was there tosh sock in denim that cost me £18.00 the most i have ever spend on sock wool. these scoks were knitted on my holiday and took only two days, when i get productive i get productive, the pattern is knitted socks easy and west japanese stitch patterns.

the wool says it denim but its more an aqua blue with green and blue pieces that when knitted its more green than blue.

men rule in plymouth street style

for our fashion project we had to go round Plymouth looking for real street style, we found it but the men really won over the women.

It takes time but you do find real style but we had to chase some people and others we found coming out of a toilet.

many of the most stylish people found were men who we found in the drake shopping center as well as the most stylish woman we found outside miss selfrige.many of the most stylish people we found were middle aged women and some were mums with small babies and prams.

here are the pictures that i took that day.

to snood to not to snood

many years ago before snoods came into fashion i had a small disaster with a piece of knitting i amazingly thought that 150 metres on tarn will make a large scarf so i decided to sew it together and make a snood which turned out to be the best thing i ever did, i Love my snood and its one of the stand out favourite in my large scarf collection.