My name's Josiekitten and I'm a Stylecraft Blogstar!

Do you know what it's like to have a delicious secret that you are absolutely bursting to tell but can't?! At long last I can share the news that I have been asked to be one of Stylecraft's blogstars! You may remember that last year I took part in their blog tour and designed a cushion which used the new colours in Stylecraft Special DK yarn. Fast forward a few months and several emails, and Friday afternoon saw me heading up to Slaithwaite in Yorkshire, the mothership of Stylecraft. 

Those of us who travelled up on Friday were wined and dined to perfection by Annabelle Hill, the Sales and Marketing Director at Stylecraft and Juliet Bernard of Blue Bear, a Strategic and Social Marketing company. On Saturday we all met up at the mill. Oh my word, what a wonderful day. We sat around a table laden with bowls packed full of tempting new yarn, listening to Annabelle and Juliet outlining the Blogstar programme and finding out about some of the themes influencing the newest yarns in Stylecraft's range.  Let me tell you, there are some real treats in store for you! 

We were each given an amazing goodie bag full of all kinds of yarny delights. Of course Florence wanted a snoop when I unpacked it back at home. I think she was probably eyeing up her next blanket! 

There were colour cards for Yarn Stories, which is a beautiful range of yarn spun at the mill, a folder with all the Stylecraft yarns in it, project bags, Stylecraft key rings, chocolate, a  set of Knit Pro Karbonz interchangeable knitting needles, samples of the new yarns/colourways and a complete set of all 16 colours of their new yarn, Batik, which is 80% acrylic and 20% wool. The colours are wonderfully soft with an almost stonewashed look, and I have lots of ideas bubbling away for how to use up every last cm of my pack! Sue Pinner has already designed some crochet projects which we were all able to ooh and aah over - this one is my favourite. 

There was also a pack of tags to attach to projects - great fun! Very hard to pick a favourite but I really like the one near the bottom of this photo! 

I was very excited to learn that Stylecraft are going to be releasing a range of sock yarns in the summer - be still my beating heart! I cannot wait to see what colours they are - some self striping and others more graduated. Yum! As soon as I know more, I'll let you know.

It was wonderful to be able to meet up with a group of people just as passionate about yarn as I am - people who simply 'get it' and don't think it odd!! I've been reading some of their blogs for many years, and have discovered new ones too. If you click here, you'll be able to see who else is part of the Blogstars. Plans are already underway for our next get together. Can't wait! 

Here's a photo of all the bloggers who were there on Saturday. Se if you recognise anyone! Back row - from left to right, Sandra (Cherry Heart), Julia (Hand Knitted Things), me and Sarah (Annaboo's House); front row from left to right, Kathryn (Crafternoon Treats), Heather (The Patchwork Heart), Phil (The Twisted Thread), Lucy (Attic24) and Sue (Shropshire Scrapper Suz). Missing from the get together were Jane (Jane Knits)  Emma (Emma Varnam) and Angela (Get Knotted Yarn Craft).

It was a wonderful day and I drove back to Norfolk from Yorkshire in a bit of a yarny daze! Thank you to Annabelle, Juliet and Sophie for looking after us all so well. I really do feel incredibly lucky to have been invited to join this amazingly talented group of crocheters and knitters and would love to share a little of my good fortune with you. Stylecraft have very generously given me some vouchers for yarn to use as prizes on my blog over the coming months, so I thought it might be fun to give the first one away right now! If you'd like to be in with a chance of winning a £5 voucher for Stylecraft yarn, all you need to do is leave me a comment telling me what your favourite Stylecraft yarn is. These vouchers have to be exchanged at a 'bricks and mortar' shop in the UK and can't be redeemed online, so I'm sorry that I can't send one to you if you're living overseas. But I'll send you a Stylecraft project bag instead as a consolation prize if your name gets picked, so please tell me if you're in the UK or overseas when you comment. I'll leave the competition open until midnight on Saturday 23rd July, so there's plenty of time to enter. Then I'll use a random number generator to pick one lucky winner! Good luck! xxx