Calling creative designers of all ages and backgrounds! We're bringing back our Kaleidoscope Fashion Show to our Knitting LIVE in NYC this February 11, 2023. So be sure to enter this fiber-design competition for a chance to be featured. This year's judges and coaches have come together to find garments that are the best fusion of FIBER, TEXTURE, and COLOR. Our panel of judges and coaches are: Louis Boria (@brooklynboyknits), Bretony Boheme (@bresellsseashells), Nancy Ricci (@gettingpurlywithit) and Cairo Romaguera (@cairo_designs).
Get the complete details and submit your entry by clicking here.
Puerto Rican knitwear designer, philanthropist, and motivational speaker Louis Boria has been in the fiber-arts industry for more than ten years. Since gaining fame on social media, Louis has been at the forefront of breaking down gender norms, putting out the message that art has no gender. His commitment to the community continues by bringing fiber artists together with projects including Hat Not Hate and School of Yarn and working with cancer patients by teaching them how to knit as a form of therapy. Louis’s goal for the council is to bring much-needed recognition to both POC and LGBQT fiber artists and to highlight their commitment and works in our fast-growing industry.
Bretony McGee is a crochet and knitwear fiber artist born in Detroit, Michigan and based in Brooklyn, New York. Over the years, she has done modeling for a wide range of brands and designers, from independent to international, including walking in NYFW. Currently, Bretony does all of her own modeling and helps to curate the eye catching shoots seen across social media platforms. She also writes many size inclusive original patterns based off of the avant garde designs she creates. Most recently her designs can be seen in a short musical film created at Mass Moca museum.
Nancy Ricci
After having studied economics in my home town of Amsterdam, I pursued a marketing career in corporate business only to find out that it was not my path to happiness and fulfillment.
In the year of 2001, during travels to Bali, I met a charming New Yorker. After a long distance relationship, we finally married in 2005 and traveled together throughout the USA.
Along the way, I found a surprising passion: knitting and crochet. I have been knitting and also crocheting since 2006. Enamored by the medium of yarn, I also started to design from the get go. Pattern writing was the next step.
I produced knitwear designs for cashmere company Jade Sapphire, my work has been published in the Knit Purl Magazine, Malabrigo Book #8, Vogue Knitting Magazine and I also self-publish my designs.
I have been working and teaching knitting in yarn shops for the past 12 years. From 2011-2021, I was part of the Knitty City team based in NYC where I was part of their Marketing and Social Media Team.
Nowadays, I host KALs on Instagram and produce video tutorials on IGTV.
Cairo Romaguera is a Brazilian-American crochet and knitwear designer living in New York City. He has been crafting with yarn for nearly 20 years, since the day his mother gave him a teach-yourself-to-crochet kit and said “Stop telling me you’re bored…here’s something to do!” Cairo has engaged in the fiber community with various efforts including teaching children to knit at “Yarnementary”, taking a stance against bullying with Lion Brand’s “Hat Not Hate” campaign, and then launching his debut designs with Knit Crate and Lady Dye Yarns before teaching one of Vogue Knitting’s first Spanish courses. When not tangled in a ball of yarn, Cairo enjoys learning new languages, sipping on a mango bubble tea and eating dumplings at one of his favorite spots in the concrete jungle that is NYC.