JEWELS Pre-orders Are Open!

As I'm writing this the pre-order for JEWELS have been open for a whole week, and we honestly couldn't be more overjoyed with how it has gone. It's been a mixture of happiness, pride, stress, and quite a lot of nerves because whenever you put something you love out into the world, it's both unbelievable joyous and massively gut gurgling at the same time. A heady combination! As we hit ‘live' on our website last Monday and started getting the word out on Instagram and in our newsletter we held our breath and crossed all our fingers in hopes that we had created something that you would love as much as we do. And would you know it, it seems like we did!

JEWELS is the third book in our European Nature book series which we created to share our passion for natural, local, breed-specific, European yarns, beautiful knitwear designs and the stories of the amazing makers who enable and inspire us to create magic with our own hands.

In this book, we included 12 modern knitwear designs for the colder seasons on this planet. From luscious colourwork yokes to drapey everyday sweaters, from a shawl as cosy as a hug to mittens designed to keep your hands toasty warm, all the pieces in this book are designed to be both enjoyable to knit and wearable for years to come. JEWELS wouldn't be a Making Stories publication though without the stories that inspire us to do our work: We've included profiles for every single maker involved in this book, be it designer or yarn company, as well as two fantastic articles on yarn (by Katie Green) and colour substitution (by Dianna Walla) and a conversation on colour between Melody Hoffmann, a favourite designer, and yarn dyer Paula Goosen of Moel View Yarn. If you wish to learn more about our articles you can read excerpts from each here on our website.

Seven of our patterns from JEWELS were in the ‘Hot Right Now' section of Ravelry in the first twenty four hours, three of them in the top five. Folks, that's huge, and it's all down to you and your love and ongoing support. We want to publish work that you will value and cherish for years to come while supporting this fibre industry we love so much and this gave us a good indication that we're on the right path!

That being said, I would love to take this opportunity to address something that we feel is important to talk about. There's the old saying that ‘you can't please everyone' and this is never truer than when you create work that is so subjective. There are always going to be people who don't fall in love with what you are doing, and that's ok! We will never stop wanting to hear your comments, the good and the bad because that's what being in a community is about and we want to know what's on your mind. We know that some of you were not completely taken with the direction we chose for the photography for JEWELS, that it was too dark and not what you expect or want for knitwear design. We completely value your point of view and for those who reached out directly to voice your concerns, we really appreciate you getting in touch and sharing your thoughts. That being said, we have to stay true to our vision and the vision Verena and Hanna Lisa had for JEWELS all those months ago when they sat down to decide what they wanted for this book. While we'd love it if that vision completely lined up with everyone else's we know that's unrealistic and we are so happy and proud with what we have achieved here. What I would love to emphasise though is that though we're a small team, we're an extremely eager one, and at any time if you have a question or feel you don't have enough information on a pattern because of the way it is photographed we are here to support you, super happy to help and we will never stop listening to what you have to say.

Over the past week, it's been a joy to see all of your reactions and answer your questions over on Instagram. It's been particularly nice to see all of the test knitters projects emerge that they have been patiently waiting to share since the summer. They've done a fantastic job helping us get our patterns ready for the book and I thought it would be fun to share some of their FO's with you today! I'll be honest, browsing other people's projects on Ravelry is one of my favourite ways to decide whether or not to start a new project.

Aren't they stunning! If you would like to order your own copy of JEWELS you can pre-order it in our webshop and see more FO's over on Ravelry. I want to say a huge thank you once more to you for all of your love for JEWELS and please watch this space. We have some lovely things planned for our ongoing JEWELS release and we would love to have you along for the festivities!

Until next time, woolly greetings!

Claire x