Some people hate routine and really push against it. I have to say I like routine, even though I don’t always stick to the routines I know are good for me, like getting up at the same time every day. I do like knowing what I’m doing and what’s coming up next and knowing where everything is. I spent at least twenty minutes today looking for some very important documents. I did find them, but it was somewhat stressful!
The past month has tested me as there has been little in the way of routine, although several of the days leading up to Christmas were really lovely. Until last Friday I’d been at home for less than 48 hours in three weeks. This is why I haven’t really been posting much on social media lately and also missed last week’s blog post – life has been a little more complicated than expected, but hopefully things will be smoothing out soon. My lovely wife has reminded me of the phrase, “It’ll be alright in the end. And if it’s not alright, it’s not the end”! The other version is, “It’ll be alright in the end, but sometimes it’s a bloody long end!”.
Not a lot of knitting has taken place in this time (in fact I didn’t pick up the needles at all for about 10 days), but I have done a little. My new Haori cardigan is still growing, but somehow I have lost three stitches between when I picked up stitches to work the shoulder and upper body out towards the underarm to the current point – which is 60 rows on. I’m fairly certain it’s occurring at the point where the end of the row joins with the live stitches on the lower body.
I’ve been trying to tell myself it doesn’t matter, but I know that I’ll undo this part of the shoulder/upper body and redo it so the stitch count doesn’t reduce from 100 to 97 unexpectedly. Otherwise I’ll end up trying to mimic it on the other side and may even end up losing more stitches! It may seem like a lot to redo, but in the end that’s what will make me happier.
On the way to Kent before Christmas I did also knit another sample of the Imperial Cowl – the design I created for the North West Winter Wool Festival – see more about that event below. That’s six samples of this cowl I’ve knitted now – it really is a ‘more-ish’ pattern. This one is in shocking pink DK yarn, dyed by LottieKnits that I bought at her trunk show at Yarn O’clock, and it just needs a wash (aka blocking) and seaming. I’ll photograph that one soon.
If you are on my newsletter email list, you will know that in just over a week there is a free knitting summit – the Knit Happy! Summit – taking place and I am one of the speakers! There are more than 25 of us and we have all pre-recorded presentations on a wide variety of knitting topics. I am speaking on ‘How to Knit a Pi-Shawl’. It’s a fascinating technique to create a flat knitted circular item (that may or may not be shawl sized) starting at the centre and working outwards.
The Knit Happy! Summit takes place 23-26th January and you can get your free ticket here. All the presentations are available for 48 hours after they go live. If you want to be able to access them beyond that (or even get a knitter’s toolkit with freebies worth hundreds) you can upgrade your free ticket after you have registered and secured your place.
The Extended Access Pass is $57 (that’s currently less than £47) and gives you early access to all the presentations, lifetime access to watch them and all the presentation notes. The VIP Happy Knitters Toolkit is $77 (less than £64) and gives you all of that, plus tickets to 3 Zoom events that are social knitting/stitching sessions for summit attendees, $425-worth of knitting patterns, workshops and more, and 30-days free membership of Stitch Society which is run by Jessica from Doublethestitches.com who is organising the summit. Full disclosure: If you book your free ticket through my links on here, and then upgrade it, I get a commission.
I’m also doing some teaching this month on Zoom. There are still places available on both workshops!
21st January, 7-9pm (GMT), Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting, £25 per person
- Learn this amazing knitting technique to create a wonderfully squishy fabric. We’ll cover the basics of the two colour brioche stitch and the terminology. We’ll also explore a brioche increase and two simple decreases to create geometric shapes in your brioche swatch.
- Skills required: cast-on, cast-off, knit, purl, yarn over.
- You will need 2 contrasting colours of DK yarn (approx 7g of each), 5mm circular knitting needles (60cm long is ideal) and a pen or pencil. Needles must be circular for brioche knitting, though we will be knitting flat, not in the round.
28th January, 7-9pm 9GMT), Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting, £25 per person
- Develop your two-colour brioche knitting skills further with increases and decreases to create wonderful geometric and curved shapes.
- Two increases and three decreases enable you to knit this splendid geometric swatch. Even better, they’re some of the most commonly used incs/decs so you’ll be able to tackle a wide range of brioche patterns after taking this workshop.
- Skills required – cast-on, cast-off, knit & purl, some experience of knitting basic two-colour brioche stitch.
- You will need 2 contrasting colours of DK yarn (approx 7g of each), 5mm circular knitting needles (60-80cm is ideal) and a pen or pencil. Needles must be circular for brioche knitting, though we will be knitting flat, not in the round.
My first show of the year is coming up very soon as well. The North West Winter Wool Show is taking place at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool on 15th-16th February. I’ve mentioned this show to you already as I have designed the exclusive pattern that you get if you purchase an advance ticket! A day ticket is £6 and a weekend pass is just £8! There are going to be 40 vendors and workshops in a beautiful setting and I highly recommend you visit if at all possible.
I will get the website updated very soon with the details of shows I am attending this year. Some of them I can’t list until they reveal their vendors and workshop teachers, but full details will be up soon!
I hope the start of 2025 is treating you well and that you get a chance to do something that makes you happy this week. Until next time, take care, K x