Last night I had two sales of my Nevern Throw pattern in quick succession. Now, while Nevern Throw is my most popular design, that actually doesn’t happen very often so I wondered why. A quick visit to Facebook showed me that someone had shared their completed Nevern Throw in the Stranded Knits group and it’s lovely. A range of colours from yellows, greens and blues and really well knitted too. I popped into the group to add my congratulations to the many already there on a great piece of knitting. And woke up to two more sales of Nevern Throw! I know they’re not the kind of pattern sale numbers that will pay the bills, but it does give me a boost when I’m working on lots of new designs currently as well. Nevern Throw was first published in January 2020 by Knit Picks and I self-published it in January 2022 once the rights returned to me. Since then I have sold 867 copies of the pattern either online or at yarn shows – four of which have been in the last 24 hours.
Nevern Throw is also the design at the top of my website and on my banner. I do now have my replacement banner from Instant Print and it is much better. I’m currently tempted to see if I can move the pull up section from my very first roller banner that I broke by falling onto it into the cartridge the blurry one is currently in. I’ve watched the youtube videos on how to do it and it seems you need a ‘locking key’, but it’s just a piece of metal. I’m sure I have a crochet hook of the correct width that I could poke into the hole to stop the art-work/end-piece pulling back inside the cartridge.
I started counting up how many items I’ve knitted in the past two months and it’s no wonder I have a ganglion on my wrist at the moment! There are two shawl samples for one commission (plus the first shawl that didn’t meet the brief, but is still a completed shawl), three accessory samples for another (one of which is a nearly 2.4m long scarf), most of a garment, a hat and part of my short version of Leaf & Vine! Blimey! And we’ve had three shows in that time too! I’m “getting there”, as my mum would say, with the deadline knitting and I’m looking forward to being able to return to Leaf & Vine and to make a start on Sue’s Gwen lace top. That design was published in Knitting Magazine in July, which feels like ages ago now!
I have a new 3-part knit-along design starting in The Knitter next month (issue 233, 234 and 235) which is a shawl in LANGYARNS Naturalis, a roving spun yarn that is dyed with plant dyes. If you get my newsletter you will already have seen the photos (and the offer I have been able to share with subscribers) and you may have seen it being advertised on Facebook and Instagram as the magazine are also running their own subscription offer with the yarn.
Next year I think I want to run my own self-published knit-along design. I may also look at teaming up with one of my yarn-dyeing friends for this – I haven’t mentioned this idea to any of them yet, but I think it could be fun. What do you think? Would you be interested in taking part?
I haven’t done any knitting I can share with you this week! But we have bought some splendid hi-vis. We have to wear these at some of the shows when setting up and packing down and we decided it would be nice to have branded ones. This is a screenshot from the little video we took yesterday. I tried to upload the video here, but it distorted the image from portrait to landscape which looked very odd!
Yarn Gathering is taking place in less than two weeks on Sunday 20th September – it would be lovely to see lots of visitors to this event. Do come if you are free! There are 13 wonderful vendors, spread across three rooms in the Daniel Owen Centre. The full list of vendors and a map of Mold plus more information is on the Yarn Gathering page.
You can also combine a visit to Yarn Gathering with a visit to the Mold Food and Drink Festival which is taking place that weekend as well. Entry to the Food & Drink Festival costs £7 on the Sunday, whilst entry to Yarn Gathering is free!
That’s all from me today. I’m off to calculate and knit a neck band. I hope you have a good week and get to do some things that make you happy. K x