DESIGNER-maker Amy Twigger is a working example of the fruits of Herefordshire Council's Creative Industries initiative.

Drawn to Herefordshire from her home in Huddersfield, she was aware of the county's reputation for craft.

In September 2004 she was awarded an artist-in-residence position at the Royal National College for the Blind, where she has spent the year working creatively with the students while building up her new business, Keep and Share.

An exhibition of her work, which she describes as alternative luxury knitwear, goes on show at the college today.

Designs range from scarves and slippers to shrugs and wraps, all created from textured and patterned knits in off-beat colour combinations.

A lifelong knitter, Amy was taught by her grandmother when she was little.

"I've always been a 3-D kind of person," she said.

"I've always loved design and can only draw as part of the design process".

Her sandwich year while studying for a BA in fashion design with technology at Manchester University, was spent with a knitwear design business supplying the high street.

Her MA in European fashion at Winchester School of Art increased her technical skills.

"I realised I enjoyed the whole process," she said.

"Designing is integrated with figuring out how to make something."

Describing her collection as "unconventional but wearable", it is important for Amy that her designs feel good to wear. Colour is important too.

She says that how she puts something together, "how I join pieces so that a garment behaves as one", makes her work unique.

Visitors to the exhibition, Amy's first in Hereford, will have the opportunity to see and buy the current collection and will also be treated to a sneak preview of the forthcoming autumn winter range.

You can check Amy's collection at www.keepandshare.co.uk, the label's website, which also carries information on stockists.

Her exhibition will be open today (Thursday) and Friday between 10am and 8pm in Room QB2, Queen's Building, RNC, College Road, Hereford.

Amy's residency will draw to a close in July, following which she plans to establish a studio at Lugwardine Court, which she will open to the public as part of Herefordshire Art Week in September.