The past week has been so busy, and my intention of picking raspberries every couple of days has gone slightly sideways. The high winds today have done some other harvesting for us and there are quite a few windfalls on the grass waiting to be picked up tomorrow. The last two tomatoes are ripening on the kitchen window sill – they are tigerella tomatoes and their stripes are emerging nicely as they change colour.
Various projects I have been working on have also come to fruition and are ready to harvest this week! Partly as a result of these I have been updating my homepage of the website and I have to say I’m pleased with how it’s looking.
You may have seen on my newsletter or social media posts that I have something very exciting happening with The Knitter. Barragán Shawl is The Knitter’s Autumn 2023 knit-along, designed by me in McIntosh’s BFL (Bluefaced Leicester) yarn. It’s a gorgeous British wool and the colours I chose, MY Serenity and MY Joy, are stunning.
The shawl is called Barragán, named after the Mexican architect, Louis Barragán (1902 – 1988) who is quoted as saying, “A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy”. With serenity and joy being the names of the colourways I chose it seemed absolute serendipity when I came across this quote and I had to name the shawl after him.
You can pre-order a yarn kit direct from McIntosh. (By using this link, if you decide to buy a kit, I get a little commission!). Part One of the KAL is out in Issue 194 of The Knitter on October 4th, so in order to receive your yarn kit in time, pre-order by September 29th.
Another piece of exciting design release news relates to my Petulia shawl which I designed for RiverKnits. It is going to be launched at Yarndale, this coming weekend (September 23rd and 24th)!
There are still some tickets available for timed entry to Yarndale on the Sunday if you haven’t got one yet. The pattern is a big one; there are two shawl shapes within the one pattern. Both versions use the same two-colour brioche leaf motif as a structural building block. The smaller version of Petulia is symmetrical and uses 2 x 50g skeins of Chimera and 1 x 100g skein of Nene 4ply, the other is larger, asymmetrical and flamboyant and uses 3 x 50g skeins of Chimera and 2 x 100g skeins of Nene 4ply. If you’re going to Yarndale look out for my large Petulia shawl on the RiverKnits stand – they’re on stand F1!
Just as with Tiffany and Agnes, Petulia will be available exclusively from RiverKnits for the first six months, after which I will be selling the pattern as well.
I finished sewing the zipped project bags on Thursday and was really pleased with how they turned out. I even discovered that my sewing machine has a thread cutter on the side, which I had no idea about, despite having had my sewing machine for over 6 years – doh!
Sewing the tabs on the side was the trickiest part – 12 layers of fabric, 2 layers of fusible fleece and a zip to keep lined up! I’ll be adding them to the website later this week.
Yarn Gathering on Sunday was fantastic. We had a dozen wonderful vendors and over 160 visitors. I really loved seeing all the people in The Daniel Owen Centre having a good time, chatting about yarn, weaving, crochet, knitting and dyeing.
Some of the best moments of the day for me were when knitters came to show me their finished projects, either on a photo or in real life – I wish I’d thought to take some pics of them, but it only occurred to me afterwards…
There have been some great posts on social media, with folk showing off their purchases. The day ran smoothly, after the slightly scary moment when we opened the fire doors to the car park and the alarm went off! Fortunately one of the lovely people from the venue arrived a few minutes later, turned it off and all was quiet again!
My workshops at Shaz’s Shabby Chic are going well and I’ve booked some more dates in for October – more details to follow very soon. Working with Colour – Slip Stitch Knitting is tomorrow (you can still book a place!) and I’ve had fun digging out samples of my designs that use slip stitches to create colour patterns.
If you want to expand (or begin) your knitting skills why not sign up for a workshop? The October workshops will be available to book by the end of week.
Yet again, the day is running away from me and I need to get this posted. I will tell you all about how tomorrow’s workshop goes next week and hopefully I’ll have some news about how Petulia was received at Yarndale.
Until then, take care one and all, K x