There has been quite a lot happening here in the past few weeks and I apologise for not posting last Tuesday. My lovely wife has been re-posting her blog posts from this time last year during the past couple of weeks, so I thought I would look back and see what I was writing about then as well.
If you want to see the whole of the post from this time last year, it can be found here: https://kathandrewsdesigns.com/2024/04/16/after-the-storm/
I had been working on the shawl that would become Rhiannon, published in four parts during October-December in The Knitter magazine. I will get the rights back to self-publish this shawl at the end of June/beginning of July, so I’ll have copies with me at the August shows. This is one of the shots of it that The Knitter used on Instagram:
I was also working hard on my Persian Tiles crochet blanket, designed by Janie Crow. That blanket now lives on the back of one of the chairs in the lounge in case we need to be extra cosy in the evenings.
This time last year I was also preparing for my first Wonderwool as a vendor and I’m getting ready for Wonderwool again now! I spent most of yesterday printing more patterns – there are still a few to do – and today has been about tweaking my workshop notes (I’m teaching moebius knitting on both days to sold out classes!) and playing with different layouts of the stand space.
I’m going to be in the same place as last year; W16 in Hall 3. Looking back at last year’s sales it’s interesting to note that the patterns which did best were the ones in the ‘swing-up’ display stand (on the left in the image below). I now have two of these, but there may be a couple more by the time I get to Wonderwool. They really are great for displaying patterns. The photo below shows part of last year’s stand. There will be a few changes to the layout this year and of course a few new designs!
It was interesting to read about and remember my attempt to add a WooCommerce shopping cart to my website last year. That attempt really backfired as my whole website stopped working for a short time. That was incredibly stressful and I had to get some help from the clever folk at WordPress to get things back to looking and behaving how they had been before it all went sideways. I had intended to try again with WooCommerce, but I haven’t yet had the courage or time to dedicate to getting it sorted out. Maybe 2025 will be the year I do? Or maybe not. Payhip is working well for the process of actually selling both patterns and kits for now. We’ll have to see what else the year has in store first I think, before I brave attempting the WooCommerce option again.
And it’s now a year since my lovely wife’s second collection of poetry was published. Welcome to the Museum of a Life is still available, from all good bookshops and from Sue’s website and Payhip store – she’ll even sign it for you if you ask!
Looking back not quite as far as last year, I had a lovely day last Saturday at Yarn O’clock, when Anne hosted me for a trunk show. That’s a bit like a pop-up. I had lots of my designs and samples in the shop and was there all day, chatting to Anne and the customers. I also got some more knitting done on the border of my new sample of Elinor Hap Shawl!
As you can see I took over a large proportion of the shop! Huge thanks to Anne for inviting me to do this.
We also had the pure joy of seeing Mary Poppins on Sunday with my lovely sister-in-law. The tickets were her birthday present and it was a real treat for us too. I’ve never seen anyone tap dancing upside down at the top of a proscenium arch before!
Before I get to Wonderwool (26th and 27th April), there are a lot more things to do, including singing from up in the bell tower on Thursday! I’m the alto in the quartet for Allegri’s Miserere and we are doing a dash up the stone spiral staircase while the rest of the choir process to underneath the bell tower and sing the communion hymns. I just hope I’ve got my breath back by the time the Allegri starts! We’ll be singing through the archway circled in the pic below. Yes, it’s a long way up!:
Wish me luck! I’ll let you know how it all went next week. Until then, take care, enjoy Easter if you celebrate it in any form, and I hope you get the chance to do some stuff that makes you happy. K x