We went to Llandudno on Sunday. Our main mission was to photograph Llandudno Promenade. on the pier and also on the promenade. Sue even lay down on the slipway to photograph the shawl flying as I threw it in the air above her. We hadn’t banked on it being *quite* so windy and cold, but we had a lot of fun. We also managed to get lunch at The Cottage Loaf which warmed us up a treat afterwards!
The shaw pattern is now with my tech editor and it should be having a relaunch in the second half of February.
Part Two of Am Byth MKAL was released on Friday and the photo below shows you Part One and a little bit more. I even did a little video to help folk with the 1-5 increase that is used during Part Two. If you are joining in with the MKAL and want some help with that, head to my Free Video Tutorials pages.
Two typos were discovered in the Special Stitches section (not the pattern itself, just the explanation of two of the cables) of Am Byth MKAL Part Two. It’s really annoying when these slip through, but it’s been corrected and the new version has been sent out to all those who signed up for email updates. If you missed it, the instructions affected are 2/2 RPC and 2/1 RPC which had the knits and purls the wrong way round (doh!). They should read as follows:
- 2/2 RPC Sl 2 sts to CN and hold at back, k2, p2 from CN
- 2/1 RPC Sl 1 st to CN and hold at back, k2, p1 from CN
Do keep sharing progress if you are knitting along with us using the hashtags #AmBythMKAL and #Yomkal.
Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple of hours at Caffi isa, having a cup of tea (which turned into two!) and working on one of my current projects. The time spent away from other distractions was clearly helpful as last night I cast the shawl off and I blocked it this morning! This is Petulia, the third of my shawl designs for RiverKnits. As you can see it’s two colour brioche knitting and it has THE best shape – it’s just SO funky. The lighter coloured yarn is Chimera and the darker yarn is Nene 4-ply – both of which are fabulous yarns to work with.
I’m working on the chart now – brioche charts are always fun – and I’m thinking of including the sketch I used to work from as well as the chart and the written pattern. It’s a little bit like the idea of Stitchmaps, but simplified even more to give just the details of the movement of lines on the right side/light coloured rows (increases, decreases etc).
Keep an eye out for Petulia, as this shawl will hopefully be coming out in the next few months (once the charts, pattern, tech editing and photography are done).
The reason for my being at Caffi isa yesterday was so that anyone who was interested in Knitting for Beginners classes could come and have a chat with me or even have a mini taster session to see if they were interested. Actually, the one person who did come (hi Bev!) wanted to ask advice about picking up for thumbs on mitts and gloves. She’d seen my announcement that I’d be there on social media and thought she’d see if I had a spare five minutes. Well, I certainly did! Hence the second cup of tea and a lovely chat. I’m hoping to get some bookings in the next couple of days, otherwise I’ll probably need to postpone. Anyone can book a place by emailing me at kathandrewsdesigns@icloud.com or sending me a message on Facebook or Instagram.
My Sealy MacWheely fibre is now fully fledged yarn, skeined, washed and dried. I think it looks fantastic, even though there are occasional places in the yarn where the ply isn’t quite as even as you might wish for – but it is hand-spun, so it’s not meant to look the same as commercially spun yarn, is it?
Now I just need to decide which fibre I’m going to spin next!
I know I showed you this embroidery last week, but I’ve actually managed to make quite a lot of progress with it and have found the right angle for the photograph to show the stitches I’ve been doing! I’ve been working on the white and very pale beige stitches (beige currently on the needle here). If it wasn’t for the daylight magnifying lamp I wouldn’t have a hope, but these colours are (whisper it) nearly done and it *should* be a little bit easier with darker/brighter threads.
I shall be taking this with me tomorrow to Mum’s so she can see it in person, along with the current issue of The Knitter (my design is on the cover, did I mention that!?), and my Am Byth. I should probably take my socks in progress too as they are not going to finish themselves! I’m only there until Friday and there will be a lot of other things to do, but I don’t want to get caught out again like I was that other time, when I only took one project and finished it the first evening I was there!
I also made blackcurrant jam this week – but I forgot to photograph it. It’s VERY good, even though the blackcurrants had been in the freezer since July 2021…
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Take care, stay warm and do some stuff that makes you happy this week. K x