What makes it so fascinating to me, is the fact that it gives me a new insight into everyday objects. I see them with new eyes because I can see how much work goes into making them or how ingeniously some things are made.

But I haven’t seen a how it’s made about knitwear yet. Which is a bit of a shame, because it would make a good episode. So we’ve decided to make our own “how it’s made…knitwear” episode featuring a glimpse of our new collection, enjoy!

step 1: It all starts with yarns. In this case a really nice Merino wool, dyed red. The yarn is slowly unrolled by the machine and fed into its belly.

Step 2: The yarn is then fed through a series of rollers and clamps which makes sure the yarn is tensioned correctly before being knitted.

Step 3: Once it achieves the right tension the yarn then goes inside the machine where it then moves inside the yarn feeder.

Step 4: This is the knitting bed.

Step 5: The knitting bed consists of hundreds of knitting needles (the silver cylinders you see at the bottom), which move up and down depending on the pattern being knitted. The yarn feeder guides the yarn past all the needles which knits it together. Each needle knits one vertical column of loops.

Step 6: the knitted end result then slowly appears at the bottom of the machine.

Step 7: And there you have it: a nicely knitted piece of fabric ready to be ironed, cut and sewn into a full garment.

And now you know how it’s made!

Today it was our turn to decorate the shop window at the NieuweOntwerpers.nl in Rotterdam. So for us that could only mean 1 things: have fun with our collection and origami on a large scale!

Spela is busy preparing the large paper shrimp we folded, so we could hang it from the ceiling.

Finishing some last pieces amidst a landscape of knitwear, a penguin and 2 flying shrimps.

NieuweOntwerpers.nl is a store completely dedicated to new designers. Located in the center of Rotterdam, it provides designers with a great platform to present and sell their collection to the public. The shop has a really nice vibe and we are really happy we can sell our “cup of tea” collection there.

Our little cute cup of tea collection

So if you are in Rotterdam, be sure to come by and check the store out. Not just for us, come see all the other unique designers and products: Anne Wine, Cebine, Floor Hattink, Henk Koers, Jennie & Jana, Kirsty Nagel, Label Bouazizi, Label DVDV, Maartje Dijkstra, Malou Bags & Accessoires, Massuniq, Monique Brockhus, Mono Blanco, Puur Anders, Reach to Recovery Surabaya, Strong Beads, Sweet Rebels, Textring, Tjarda van Vugt en Wil Kooman.

The address: William Boothlaan 13a, 3012 VH Rotterdam Centrum, for more info: www.nieuweontwerpers.nl

To our big surprise we read this morning that Spela is the winner of the Iconique Excellence in Fashion Illustration Award 2009! That is a great way to wake up, I can tell you that. The jury had this to say:
Her entry ‘Cup of Tea’ displays a highly innovative approach to illustration, fusing together drawing skills with origami, photography and a variety of computer imaging techniques to great effect.

You can read the full article here: and the winners are…

Yes, that surely makes us blush a little. Thanks to Iconique for organizing this competition and for choosing us.

“The devil is in the details” is a phrase that keeps going round and round in my head the last couple of weeks. Every day seems to consist of chancing the smallest tiniest details in our web shop. It might be a button that is not properly aligned, or something as dumb as a spelling mistake. Each day I see something I don’t like yet, or think can be done better.

But sometimes, little ideas become big ideas, and before you know it, you end up with all sorts of little fun extra’s to your shop. The picture above is our friend Roberta, who helped us tremendously by being our model. It all started with us having the idea to show the Snow Flower Scarf in its natural habitat: snow! Not entirely coincidental it has been snowing since Friday, so what better opportunity to have a photo shoot? Thanks to Roberta’s modeling, we ended up with a perfect picture for our homepage. Then it just came naturally, like a snowball, dropped from the top of a mountain becoming an avalanche on the bottom. So the whole store was soon rebuild. Be sure to visit and let us know what you think about it!

Yes, our carrier pigeons have decided to work for free. From now on, all Mimoods products at our online store will be shipped for free to any location on the globe.

The Slovenian textile industry has been hit very hard by the recession. Big textile factories ( some of the last and the biggest production factories in Europe) have closed doors to thousands of workers, some forever.

As an answer to this state and also to the Christmas shopping fever, a new generation of Slovenian fashion designers and textile artists have joined together in a group exhibition and sale “Moda na mestu zločina”, from 9 December 2009 – 9 January 2010. Mimoods, together with other designers and artists will be selling at this exhibition. It is your chance to buy one of our unique scarves for a special price.

So for all you fans in Slovenia: come meet the designers at Metalka ( Dalmatinova 9, Ljubljana), on Wednesday December 9th at 6pm for an exhibition opening.

We updated our main website to a new look and a nice Christmas vibe. Click here to see!

We just received word that Spela Tabak is nominated for an Iconique Award in the category “illustration”! This is great news and a real honour for us! Its great to be between such other talent, and we wish everyone good luck!

Click here to see the awards website and all other nominees!