I picked up the Safe Space cross stitch from the framers today! We go to P G Framing in Mold and Paul did a fabulous job as always. I had to request a perspex front because it’s going to be hung in a school and glass isn’t allowed. Taking pictures of things behind a shiny surface is always tricky, so you have a faint reflection of me in the pic too!
On Thursday (that’s the 19th, in two days), the new issue (185) of The Knitter comes out. If everything has gone to plan there should be a pattern in there from me and… an interview! I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m beyond excited. Do let me know if you get a copy!
Do you remember those brownies I hadn’t had time to make last week? They got made on Wednesday and lasted until yesterday! Very squidgy in the middle and particularly delicious with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice-cream. Pictured is the whole bake before cutting and a small corner cut off as soon as it was cool enough (essential for quality control).
Am Byth MKAL began on Friday and I get so excited seeing people share their progress on social media. Part One is fairly quick – I had to put anything that could tell knitters what they were making into Part Two, but it looks cool none the less! It’s also amazing when people say they’ve learnt a new cast-on, a new increase, done some cool baby cables and they’re loving it even though they have no idea what it will be! (Thanks @RobandThread!). Of course, now there’s a fairly long wait until Part Two is released – a whole extra ten days from now!
Here’s a little bit (but not all by any means) of Am Byth Part One, next to the image I designed as the pattern placeholder – can you see a connection? I’ll share my completed Part One next week.
Llandudno Promenade got blocked today. Because of the crocking (excess dye that had transferred to the cream yarn) I didn’t take my usual approach and leave it to soak for 15 minutes (or longer – I have a tendency to forget things if they’re in a different room!). Instead, I immersed it in hand warm water and gave it a good squeeze – to encourage the excess dye molecules into the water – and then repeated this twice more, the last time in colder water and holding the cream sections under the running water. It seems to have done the trick as the blocking photo looks to be less blue in the sections that shouldn’t be blue than the pre-blocking photo did!
Trying to minimise the amount of floor space taken up with blocking (this shawl wasn’t a suitable candidate to try the hap stretcher out on because of the straight edges), I ended up blocking it right side down. It’s not an aggressive block at all – just a case of getting the right angles sides straight and easing out the hypotenuse. Here are the before and after blocking pics:
A series of Knitting for Beginners classes has been booked at Caffi Isa on Monday afternoons (1-3pm), on Feb 6th, 13th and 27th. (Not the 20th as that’s half-term). I did a post about them on Instagram and Facebook on Saturday. If you know anyone who would like to learn to knit, is in Flintshire or Cheshire and is able to come to an afternoon class, please point them in my direction!
I’m also hoping to arrange a series of the same classes on an evening (in Mold) as I know afternoons don’t work for a lot of people.
That’s all from me for today. Have a good week, wrap up warm (Oh, I didn’t even mention the snow!), and do stuff that makes you happy. K x