Welcome to our showroom, where pattern, colour and technical knowledge are blended into original designs for hand knitting. Our designs are not traditional. We use traditional knitting techniques in which we take pride in being experts, but what we do with those techniques is entirely our own. We use colour in our own distinctive ways, and the patterns that you will see here have all been devised in our studio. If a traditional pattern is ever used, then it will be clearly described as such.

Our design philosophy rests upon a simple truth: textiles have been a vital part of human existence from the earliest times because we have a basic requirement for warmth and comfort. One of the first priorities for a new-born baby is to be wrapped in some warm, soft textile. Could this be one of the reasons why most of us, when we see an attractive textile, feel the urge to reach out and touch? We don't seem to do this with paintings. The other powerful instinct associated with textiles is human creativity. The need to experiment with pattern, colour and texture has been expressed through textiles for millennia.

Textiles of beautiful design, made of the finest materials with consummate skill, have always been greatly prized. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the hand-made textiles of the grandest houses were often worth more than the actual property, and heirs were left comprehensive instructions on how to care for their legacies. Today, much of the skill that created them has vanished. Those of us who have learned and developed such skills are in the rare position of being able to create textiles for ourselves and those we care about. We can even leave our own textile legacy.

It is with these ideas firmly in mind that we have created our yarn range. Our aim is to provide knitters - and very soon stitchers - with beautiful designs that are worthy of their skills.

Alice & Jade Starmore