Psst…Just  wanted to remind you that…

Tomorrow make like Alice and join the hunt for the White Rabbit at the Mad Hatter  Scavenger Hunt!

Put on your most elegant hat, quaff complimentary cocktails and rub shoulders with the designers from the Milliners Guild,

as you follow the clues from one hat shop to another.

The prize: one of three exquisite  cocktail hats, in honor of Fashion’s Night Out,  September 10th, 2009.

Come to one of these three fabulous hat shops to register for the Mad Hatter’s Scavenger Hunt, and get your first clue!

Lisa Shaub Fine Millinery

The Hat Shop

Ellen Christine Millinery

For more details please visit www.millinersguild.org

Hortensia Handmade / Fall to Pieces with 15%  discount on all pre-orders

Though Summer may still be scorching, Autumn is just around the corner, and we aim to have you fully prepared with our coolest gear of the season.

We’ve got you covered with all fall’s top trends: starting with our staple knit collars, handmade in rustic textures & super soft baby alpaca, to our oversized berets hats & beanies and not to forget our newest chic stripes sweater dresses & mini cable and plaid capes!

With these lovely pieces, you’ll be feeling as fresh as the crisp autumn air!

Pre order any of these pieces online and you will get a complimentary 15% discount & free shipping.  Offer only valid for pre orders placed through the month of September.

Enter ‘falltopieces’ in the promotion code box at Checkout to receive your discount.

Stay in touch with Twitter & our weekly blog for further deals & news!

For web queries email: info@hortensiahandmade.com

Only ten days for Fashion’s Night Out Worldwide celebration!

Got my tee shirt last week at Takashimaya and added a little Hortensia Handmade touch…a flower pin to show our support. And lovely tee shirt is made in…Peru!.  Forty percent of retail proceeds from the sale of the Fashion’s Night Out T-shirt will be donated by the retailers to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center.

And in a huge effort to cheer us up and enliven our spirits that churns the economy and boosts the local industry of America’s fashion capital, New York City, shop for a cause. Because if people don’t shop, people lose their jobs.

It’s going to be fun, check out all the events planned for that night at Fashion’s Night Out website.

Hortensia Handmade will be celebration FNO along with the Milliners Guild with a Scavenger Hunt.
Go to the Milliners Guild website for more details.

Shop ’till you drop on September 10th!

While in Lima I was going through some photo albums and found two photographs that always strike me. One shows my mom wearing this sexy cable mini-dress, the other shows her wearing a beautiful poncho in Ayacucho against the most incredibly blue sky.

These images inspired the chunky cables in our Mini Cape, Magliera Sweater and Cable Knitcollar.  On the accessories you will also find several combinations of cables; specially in our Headband, News Boy hat and Nadia scarf.

I love making chunky, raw looking pieces that when touched reveal an incredible softness. I also like to transmit to the wearer all the work that goes through making one piece. Most of the times there’s no need for explanations…each piece just tells the whole story.

Color and volume is always present with us. Inspired by Peru’s textile tradition and Andean culture, the images are so rich that it’s a never ending source of inspiration. Colors like magenta or how I like to call it ”Chola” pink, indigo blue, purple and the natural hues of alpaca wool in grey, black & offwhite.

A night out with the milliners guild, the perfect occasion to wear my favorite Hortensia crochet shawl with a cute cocktail hat,  courtesy of the Hatshop.

Organized by Saint Germain, set  at the Bowery Hotel, we spent a lovely evening showing off people our hats and outfits…

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Oh La La!, it’s Bastille Day time!

We will be celebrating and chanting tonight with the New York City Philharmonic in Central Park.

Photos to come…

Hortensia is back at the Brooklyn Flea!, (Fort Greene location)

Yes, yes, yes we love alpaca wool but we started knitting some summer pieces in cotton and we LOVED IT!

Hortensia will be soon presenting a Spring collection for 2010. Ladies…that means Hortensia will be available  all year round!.

Super light weight alpaca silk scarves, hats, decorative scarves & beautiful knitted tops in peruvian eco-cotton that you won’t want to take off.

No more to say, come visit us this saturday at the Fort Greene Brooklyn Flea and score great pieces at sample sale prices!!!

http://brownstoner.com/brooklynflea/

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I just read this today on the book I bought about felt and thought it was very beautiful and wanted to share

with all our fellow knitters…

“Woven fabrics, along with knitting, crochet and lace, are the result of rules applied to string. Like music, these textiles have a mathematical beauty, an internal structure based on repetition and variation”.

Nice right?, now get inspired and finish that scarf!

You can’t miss this exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York. I picked a rainy day, and spent the whole morning checking it out. I never thought you could so many wonderful things with felt and that it was such a ancient craft.  Feltmaking dates back to the first century AD, in Northern Mongolia and spread rapidly among the Turkic-Mongolian tribes. Mostly nomads, they would use felt to build their tents, make clothes,  preserve food  & decorate.

Designers have found many other ways to use and blend felt. From furniture to clothes, this exhibit has an amazing selection of traditional and contemporary pieces that will certainly blow you away…

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Swedish knit queen Sandra Backlund’s fall ’09 collection—in collaboration with Italian knitwear company Maglificio Miles—these 3D shapes leave me speechless, how the hell she does it!! Sandra knows how to keep it cool…