The highlights of our year at DB HQ are our biannual visits to Florence for the Pitti Filati trade fair. It is a wonderful opportunity to see the yarns that have been developed and also to meet up with our manufacturers and distributors from all over the world. In January we are looking at Spring/Summer for the following year and in July we are searching for new yarns for Autumn/Winter.

Last week there was very much a British feel at the show with tartans, checks and tweeds. My kind of style!

Knitted homeware is still making a big impact. As well as jacquard patterning there were interesting combinations of texture and fibre for a modern feel.

Stripes can be difficult to get right so I was delighted to see these beautiful colour combinations in dusky pastels.

Our lovely colleague Raul Rivera from Mitchell Yarns in Peru is always a pleasure to work with.  They make the most beautiful yarns so we are always eager to meet up and be shown their mostly alpaca and alpaca blend collections.

Raul Rivera from Mitchell Yarns

It is great to see the students work at Pitti Filati too, inspiring and exciting every year.  I particularly like this combination of salmon and tangerine, possibly because it reminds me of one of my favourite sweets, the Fruit Salad chew.

Not so keen on all the shade predictions for Autumn/Winter 17, orange only in small accent details for me and Nell has a violent reaction to bottle green as it was the colour of her school uniform! However, the coral is beautiful, the corn is a perfect yellow and I can never have too much grey in my life.  These are good pointers when I am looking at new shades to introduce into my ranges.

Nell loves fibre!