Category: 2022

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Holiday

The past few weeks have been a patchwork of working really hard and relaxing in different places.

Part of my set-up practice for Popup Wool Show shows the different colour yarns I will have with me for Nos Da kits and also the gorgeous colours of laceweight available for my various lace designs, including Drifting Leaves (attached to the left side of the table).

Nos Da and Drifting Leaves with yarn

The floor plan of the show has been published and I’m delighted to see I’m right next to Lottieknits – she has such wonderful colours in her hand dyed yarn.

Popup Wool Show Floor Plan

We were in Pershore recently and I acquired this bag at a cool shop called Follyies. It’s perfect for a large sweater quantity project – and has an internal zipped pocket to keep the bits and bobs safe.

‘My Doris’ bag

We had a little day trip to Chirk last week and bravely walked across the aqueduct which is right next to the viaduct! There’s also a patch on the canal path where you can stand with one foot in Wales and the other in England! Apparently that’s unique on the UK waterways.

Ronnie by Chirk Viaduct (whilst on Chirk Aqueduct!)

When visiting family we often stay in a Premier Inn, but sometimes it’s nice to treat ourselves. This is the view from our room at The Crescent Turner near Whitstable. You can see the sea and this room has its own little terrace to chill on!

View from our room by day

And the sunsets were magnificent! There was one tree that was silhouetted against the sky with the colours shading between blue and orange – it could almost have been an African skyline!! Sadly I didn’t get a photo of that detail.

View from our room at sunset

Ronnie continued his adventures and decided to do his impression of The Lady of Shalott over a clear running patch of river in Canterbury. He’s getting far more adventurous in his old age (he’s been with us for 20 years now!).

Ronnie trying to be The Lady of Shalott

I have even been able to get some knitting done that I can share with you! This sock has made excellent progress and should be finished in a day or so. The trans flag stripe is from a whole skein of Trans Pride Flag yarn from The Knitting Goddess. She sells little ‘stripey stripes’ too which are two sections of yarn containing one full flag each, but I wanted to get a whole skein so I could do more. These socks will be a gift for one of our niblings and they have been gamely trying on the sock in progress so I can ensure a good fit!

Sock for nibling coming on!

One of the drawbacks of writing my blog on my phone seems to be that I can’t include links – but I will add them in as soon as I get access to my laptop again. [eta – links now done!]

I hope you’ve enjoyed the mix of pics today! Take care and keep hydrated, K x

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The Kits Are Alright!

Four small cream bags lined up each showing two of the four half balls of yarn they hold, a larger blue bag on each end holding two whole balls of yarn.

The past few days have been mostly about prepping for the Pop-Up Wool Show at Hulme Hall in Port Sunlight on August 20th. I’ve been checking my stocks of kits, gift tag sets, patterns etc and making lots and lots of lists! I’m quite proud of my kits. They all come with a cotton project bag, metal stitch markers (if needed and the correct number for the pattern), a printed pattern and yarn in majority natural fibres.

Today a folding 6 foot table was delivered. Not only do the legs fold away, but the whole thing folds in half so it can fit in the car!

I’ve also borrowed back lots of knitted samples from Yarn O’clock and borrowed a couple of little stands to add to my display set-up.

The Mini Socks Advent Calendar looks great on the tree!

Mini Socks Advent Calendar, Kath Andrews, on tree

I also took pics of it hung on the mantlepiece and a door, as not everyone has a tree they can hang 24 mini socks on.

Mini Socks Advent Calendar, Kath Andrews, hung on mantlepiece
Mini Socks Advent Calendar, Kath Andrews, hung on door

The kits are all made up and include stitch markers and the tags for the numbers, as well as 10cm pieces of ribbon to tie them to the hanging loops and one long piece of ribbon to hang them from.

This is what a four colour kit looks like:

Mini Socks Advent Calendar Kit Pinks

The striped sock has been test knit (by Anne at Yarn O’clock) and she made hers super stripy, as one of her yarns was variegated. Doesn’t it look cute?

Striped Sock from Mini Socks Advent Calendar

There have been a few things happening this week that are not wool show related. I finished the Morse Code Cowl! It is currently drying having had a bath this morning. I was very pleasantly surprised that no dye emerged while it was soaking, despite the yarns being such deep saturated colours – excellent yarn from The Travel Knitter.

Morse Code Cowl Front, poem by Sue Finch, knitting by Kath Andrews
Morse Code Cowl Back, poem by Sue Finch, knitting by Kath Andrews

I know the poem will be impossible to read, partly as it curves around the cowl, partly as it’s in Morse Code and partly as there is not a lot of contrast between the two yarn colours, but it’s satisfying to know that it really is Sue’s poem. This is the actual poem that I knitted into the cowl:

This Was Once a Good Poem

but it has eaten cheese and pickle rolls for a week now

and it can’t work out why the vitamins aren’t working.

It rocks in the chair until its eyes are too tired to see

and has scared itself with thoughts of Autumn spiders

under glasses in the hallway.

It is wondering if it is true that conkers in corners

keep arachnids at bay

and is now standing in the dark

sniffing last year’s horse chestnuts

desperate to find their scent.

Sue Finch

I also took delivery of some yarn for a project I won’t be able to show you for AGES, but it’s going to be a fun one. The yarn is gorgeous – Fleece from West Yorkshire Spinners in Ecru and Fellside – and I’m looking forward to casting on later today.

West Yorkshire Spinners Fleece in Ecru and Fellside

We harvested our broad beans at the weekend, along with the first two of our squashes/courgettes. The broad beans were pitiful in quantity, but tasted good. This is the entire crop in the left-hand photo!

Broad Bean Harvest
First of the Squashes

And on a slightly less healthy, but very fun, note – did you know you can now get BLUE Jammie Dodgers?! They are filled with coloured, berry-flavoured apple jam.

Blue Jammie Dodgers!

Anyway, today’s post was going to be a short one – but it doesn’t seem to have turned out that way! Take care one and all, and if you happen to be in the Port Sunlight area on August 20th it would be great to see you!

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Christmas in July

24 mini socks lie drying in two rows on white foam mats. A larger sock is at the bottom right. The socks are a mix of solid colours, stripes and colour blocks in various combinations of four yarns; purple, pink, red and multicoloured.

The Mini Socks Advent Calendar is almost complete! The socks are knitted, the ends are woven in, the hanging loops have been crocheted and sewn on (and more ends woven in) and they have all had a nice relaxing bath. The measurements and gauge have been taken, the pattern is written up and checked and I’ve decided what order I’m going to hang them in.

A close up of the mini socks drying in two rows on white foam mats. 10 are visible. A larger sock is at the bottom right. The socks are a mix of solid colours, stripes and colour blocks in various combinations of four yarns; purple, pink, red and multicoloured.
Kath Andrews Mini Socks Advent Calendar close-up

Although there are twelve pairs of socks I have decided not to hang them in pairs, but instead following the sequence: solid-striped-colour block. And overlaid on that is another sequence following the colours of the cuffs; red-pink-multi-purple up to the halfway point and then reversed. I like it, but if you make the advent calendar you can hang them in any order you prefer! You could even hang them all separately on a Christmas tree to make the hunt more of a challenge.

All I need now is for the small round kraft labels to arrive so I can tie the numbers on to the hanging loops and string the whole thing together with ribbon and hang it up for some proper photos!

The kits are prepped – I’ll have seven with me at the Pop-up Wool Show – three in the colourway shown, two in a blue/green/purple/multi combo, one in just red and cream and one in blue and cream. All using West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab DK, with the multicoloured yarns being two of the Zandra Rhodes special colourways.

The Mini Socks Advent Calendar takes 200g of DK yarn and I was able to get the larger Day 25 bonus pattern out of that amount as well, though it might be a push if your gauge is looser.

Kits will be £20 to include the yarn, a printed copy of the pattern, stitch markers and a cotton project bag. The pattern will also be available on its own as it makes a great stash buster!

A small hand knitted sock in stripes of blue, pink and white lies on a pale gold carpet.
Kath Andrews Tipton Sock

I’ve been on a bit of a sock flurry! This is Tipton. It’s small because this version was actually a swatch for a submission, but it’s intended as an adult sized sock. While it wasn’t chosen to be part of the collection I submitted it for, I do like it and have decided to work on the pattern for self-publication. This sample swatch was knitted with CoopKnits Socks Yeah! I’ve had the colours for ages and think they’re now discontinued, so I will need to go on a yarn hunt (what a shame…!) for current yarns in these colours. I’ll tell you more about Tipton another time.

A cross-stitch in progress showing a variety of pride flags
Safe Space by Peppermint Purple in progress

My cross stitch is coming on. Safe Space by Peppermint Purple is a fab design that comes in both cross stitch and blackwork versions and includes a huge variety of pride flags. 50% of the profits from the pattern go to Stonewall as well. Can you see any similarity between one of the flags and Tipton?

An embroidery in progress re-creating a b&w photo of my mum in her twenties
Photo Embroidery of Mum in progress

My intention to complete four more colours this month is stalled – partly as I’m currently working on one of the most prevalent colours. It’s a dark grey which is almost indistinguishable from the black and it’s not easy going on the eyes. I’ve found a good solution to help me not lose my place on the chart in between stitching sessions though – a small post-it with an arrow drawn on it pointing at the last stitch I worked. Using magnetic strips wouldn’t help much with this one as the colours jump around so very much. I think I’ve done more on Safe Space instead as it can be worked without reference to the chart for every single stitch!

A close up of a stranded hand knitted cowl in progress. Main colour is dark red. Black is used for purl stitches in the corrugated ribbing and the morse code poem
Kath Andrews Morse Code Cowl 2

Do you remember the red and black yarn I purchased from The Travel Knitter at the RiverKnits Open Day? It’s halfway to becoming a stranded cowl. The Morse Code Cowl, as I have called it, has one of my lovely wife’s poems translated into Morse code and then converted into a knitting chart. That was a LOT of work, before I could even cast on! But it’s coming on. I am most pleased with the section that isn’t Morse code – the part that will say “Poem, Sue Finch“:

The other side of the hand knitted cowl in progress, showing the poet's name - Sue Finch - worked in black on a dark red background.
Kath Andrews Morse Code Cowl 1

The link on her name will take you to her publishers where you can read some reviews of her first collection, Magnifying Glass. (And you can buy it if you like what you read!).

The last pic I’m going to share with you is one of those roses I rescued last week. They still look might fine in their bowl of water! The orange has changed to a more pinkish shade now and they’ve opened up, completely filling the bowl. It was a really good way to save what otherwise looked like a bunch of flowers destined for the compost.

A glass bowl filled with nine rose heads floating in water. They are orange shading to pink in the centres.
The rescued roses – one week on!

Take care one and all, and look after the folks around you as well as yourselves. And, if you can, go knit something – maybe plan ahead a little!

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Summer Rain

A blue knitted lace swatch pinned out on a purple foam mat.

The past couple of days have been something else weather-wise and I’ve been hunkered down in the house with the curtains and windows closed. I did walk to the new bakers on Monday morning. I was out of the house for 15 minutes around 9am. By late Monday afternoon, my forearm was hot and red – I could hardly believe I’d been sunburnt at that time in the morning in such a short space of time, but I had!

The wind starting getting up yesterday afternoon, but it was still around 34 Celsius outside and 27 in the house. This morning was a different matter though. There was a lively breeze still and the air was cool and more breathable than it has been for days. And then – it rained! Good steady rain that lasted for over an hour. It might even help our courgettes grow.

All of this is a long way of saying, ‘this week’s blog post is a day late because it was too hot yesterday to think/write’. If you follow me on social media you will have seen my little post giving a heads up on it, along with the rescued roses. The roses were gifted to my lovely wife, but with the heat they had all drooped within less than 24 hours. Mum’s wonderful suggestion was to cut the stems off and float them in a bowl of water. It works beautifully.

Lots of woolly things have been coming to fruition this week (as well as the gooseberries being harvested and the red and blackcurrants being ready to be harvested).

My new online course, Introduction to Lace Knitting, is now live on Craftucation! The course is £40, for which you get lifetime access to the four hours of course videos, downloadable materials, including a pdf of the full video transcripts with still photos and access to the student forums (where you can ask questions of me and other students). There’s lots more information on the course when you click on the link or the image above.

I have finished and cast off the second RiverKnits shawl, the one using the rainbow minis of Nene 4-ply. This yarn is gorgeous; it’s 100% Bluefaced Leicester Wool, the colours are mesmerising and it blocks like a dream! The pattern is all typed up and has gone to the tech editor. So, there should be two new designs coming out in September with RiverKnits yarns! RiverKnits will have a 6-month exclusivity period on them, so you’ll be able to buy the pattern (or kit!) directly from them only to start with. After this initial period I’ll be selling the pattern as well.

I’ve also finished knitting and typing up the pattern that will be launched at the Pop-Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight on August 20th.

It’s an advent calendar of 24 mini socks (12 pairs) made with WYS ColourLab DK, using a mix of their solid and Zandra Rhodes shades and the pattern also includes a bonus Day 25 larger sock pattern – if you’re feeling particularly generous to the recipient! It would also be a great stash busting pattern.

I will have kits in two different colourways as well as the pattern on its own. The mini socks are big enough to hold all sorts of little treats – even those small little skeins of yarn that many dyers or yarn shops create now!

Why sell an advent calendar pattern in August? Well, with 24 little socks to knit before Dec 1st, I need to allow knitters plenty of time to create the calendar so it can be filled! There are 14 weeks between August 20th and December 1st, so you could knit one or two socks per week and you’ll be on schedule. (I knitted six on Monday…!)

There are many ends now to weave in and hanging loops to sew on, but I held off from doing that until they were all complete so I knew how much yarn the pattern needed. Once I’ve got all the ends woven in, the loops attached and the socks hanging on their ribbon, I’ll show you the finished article again in all its glory.

I definitely couldn’t have concentrated long enough yesterday to tell you about all of these things coherently! I hope the weather is bearable where you are. Take care and stay hydrated. K x

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I Can Sing a Rainbow

A close-up shot of the back of a piece of knitting using a muted rainbow of colours moving from left on the red to purple on the right

These past few days I have been SO grateful to work from home. No hot and sticky commute and I can move between rooms as the sun moves round the house. (Yes, I know, technically, the sun stays put, but it’s an easier way to think of it, okay?) It has still been very hot, and doing the ironing yesterday morning just because that’s what I do on a Monday perhaps wasn’t my best choice, but I have been able to cope with it fairly well.

Today has mostly been overcast, warm and rather humid with occasional bits of rain, but definitely more comfortable. The sun is now making its first appearance of the day (at 5.30pm) and I’m writing this a little later than usual because I had a visitor! Yes, a real-life friend came to the house for a cuppa and a natter (hi Liz – thanks for the cosmos!) and before we knew it three hours had flown by.

Since the weekend I’ve been knitting like mad with the RiverKnits rainbow yarn, as my tech editor has a window next week when she can edit the pattern. I’m now on the final section, working with colour no.12 and about to bring back colours 1, 2 & 3 for a last hurrah.

Aren’t these colours just gorgeous? The knitting is deliberately scrumpled up and inside out as I’m not showing you the full design until nearer publication, but I wanted to be able to show you all the colours together.

The pattern is all written up in my bullet journal, which isn’t a lot of help to Deb, so I also need to type it up, but at least I have written it out properly and not just made a few vague notes or used some kind of shorthand that I then can’t translate. A bit of typing I can do.

Since bringing home those embroidery threads from Mum’s, I have been slightly obsessing over storage solutions. As a result of some googling I am now getting emails from Pinterest with suggestions of things I might like. They’re right – many of these cabinets are stunning.

The boxes and tins Mum’s threads were in were not big enough for both her threads and my existing ones, so I did need a coherent solution. There are two brands, DMC and Anchor. The DMC ones now have a rather splendid home:

This is the top drawer of an old small chest (also from Mum) that had been used to keep a random collection of bits and bobs. Now it’s highly organised thread storage! You see those dividers? I made those from an Aldi bran flakes box. That white line on the pic below is where the bottom flaps of the box were glued together.

When I’ve finished the next box of cereal, I’ll do another set of dividers for the next drawer and fill that with the Anchor threads!

My newsletter subscribers have had access to a special sale during the past week that finished yesterday. It gave them 25% off all patterns by using an exclusive-to-them code. I’m really pleased that some took advantage of it. One Australian knitter is clearly planning ahead as they bought SIX patterns at once! Surprise sales like this don’t happen all the time, but they are one of the benefits of being a newsletter subscriber. Other benefits include introductory discounts off new self-published patterns in their first week. If that sounds like something you’d like, why not sign up? You only get one newsletter a month (unless there’s something really exciting I need to tell you that is time sensitive), so I promise not to clog up your inbox.

With it being properly hot and likely to remain so for a little while, you’ll probably want lightweight knitting to do (if you are a knitter). Laceweight yarn is perfect for this season – and good value financially as well. And just because it is really thin does NOT mean it needs tiny thin knitting needles.

What Do Points Make? (the 2020 MKAL with Yarn O’clock) uses laceweight yarn and 4.5mm needles. Only the largest size of four needs more than 100g of yarn, so it’s cost-effective to make and light as a feather to wear. In fact, I’m wearing this one (in size three) as I type.

That’s all for today – I’m going to go and drink my fourth pint of water. Stay hydrated folks and do what makes you happy. K x

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Gathering it all Together

A close-up shot of part of my table at the pop-up shop in Feb 2020 - various yarn kits, patterns and knitted samples arrayed on the table.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Anne at Yarn O’clock and I have been planning something for September. Well, it’s going to be happening!

We are hosting a small yarn gathering in Mold on Sunday 18th September!! We’ll be open 10-4, which will allow you plenty of time to visit us AND the Mold Food and Drink Festival which will also be happening that weekend.

There’s a dedicated page on the website that has the full details and the same page will be on Yarn O’clock’s website too.

On the subject of yarnie events, did I mention I’m going to be exhibiting at the Pop-Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight this year? It’s at Hulme Hall on Saturday 20th August. Although the exhibitor list isn’t fully up to date on their website, I will be there! It’ll be my first event of this kind since the ‘before times’ and my first proper wool show – exciting! I’ve been checking through my designs and planning which ones I will have kits for there. There will also be a completely new pattern launched at the show – with kits! Suffice to say that I came away from Yarn O’clock with bags-a-bulging this morning!

At the weekend I worked out that I’m currently working on four designs, with a fifth submitted yesterday, a sixth swatched that will be submitted next week and two others that will be worked on in the coming months. One of those will be a mystery knit-along, but it won’t be happening until October. This is probably why I’ve not had a huge amount of knitting that I can actually share with you recently…

So here is a sneak peek at my progress with the Rainbow minis from RiverKnits:

I’m loving these greens! With 20g of each colour, it’s possible to plan the design so the colour changes fit in nicely, and with 12 colours to play with I’m always keen to jump into the project bag to check out what the next one is going to be.

What else have I been up to? Well, I’ve started spinning some chunkier yarn. I’ve got 200g of undyed Polwarth that is a dream to spin with and, as I knew it wouldn’t be all knotty and misbehaved, so it seemed like the perfect choice to practice spinning thicker singles. It’s working out really well at the moment, but I’m going to have to weigh what’s left to work out when to start the second bobbin. This yarn won’t be chain plied (3-ply), so the two strands will need to be on separate bobbins, as there’s no way I’m going to wrap 200g yarn round my wrist to bracelet ply it (working from both ends of the yarn simultaneously)!

I’ve sort of found room for all the embroidery floss and other bits and bobs I came back with last week, but I’ll probably end up reorganising the study again at some point as I don’t think everything is in an entirely logical place yet. However, that will need to wait a little while!

My ‘Safe Space’ cross-stitch, designed by Peppermint Purple is making some progress. I’ve decided to do one flag at a time, rather than complete one colour at a time and it’s making it much easier. Of the 33 flags in the design, I’m on my fifth.

I’m so pleased the design includes a map identifying all the flags as there are lots I don’t know. I also didn’t realise before that the gender queer flag uses the same colours as terfs use (the suffragette colours) and which are ALSO my old college colours (purple, white, and green).

I’ve also been working on ironing out the issues with the pdf that will accompany my next Craftucation course (An Introduction to Knitting) – Graeme, the amazing tech wizard behind their website, had to do some rummaging to work out why I was unable to edit it and figure out some workarounds. I can now make it behave and get photos on the same page as their captions (I’d list that under ‘quite important’!) with a little bit of prodding. There’s one more section (5 chapters) left to do and (I’ve done 22 chapters already!) then it can be uploaded for approval and listing.

On Sunday we spotted a ripening raspberry in the garden, so very soon I hope to be able to share pics of our first harvest of the summer with you. The blackcurrants are nearly ready to pick as well!

Take care of each other and stay safe, K x

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Back on Track

A close up of part of a stranded knitting square with designs based on the Nevern Cross. The background is dark grey and the pattern colour is duck egg blue.

So, after last week’s own goal of knitting from the wrong chart, I’m all sorted again. The correct chart has been completed and blocked (and I’m so glad I bothered!) and I’m halfway through one of the other new charts in the Nevern Throw Expansion Pack. Yes, I really do use that many pins when I want completely straight edges – especially when the vertical edges have the two yarns twisted at the end of every row.

I’ve been helping Mum sort through some of the mountain of craft supplies she has – some of it has gone off to the church fete and some of it will be re-homed with me! (I will find room, I will find room).

Having rediscovered stitching, Mum has let me raid her embroidery floss collection (and there was a lot!). These beauties are now joining my stash:

I’ve finished her socks and have been able to get the toe shaping just right, with the classic and very scientific approach of getting her to try one on and pinching the end until it felt like it fitted. She’s very pleased with them. So, it’s not all been a one-way street.

I’ve also finished the fibre I’ve been spinning for the past couple of months (I posted these shots on my socials yesterday):

And! The rainbow of Riverknits Nene minis is starting to turn into something fabulous… Here’s a sneaky close-up to tempt you!

My phone’s personal hotspot is being a little temperamental today, so I’m not going to write much more, but I hope that, despite the awfulness of much of the world at the moment, you are able to find some moments of peace and tranquility. I find that looking at and playing with yarn helps.

Take care one and all, K x

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Let’s start (again) from the very beginning…

A piece of stranded knitting in progress. The background colour is dark grey and the pattern colour is blue. It shows the beginnings of a Celtic knot and is pinned onto a pale gold carpet.

At the weekend I had one of those moments that most knitters have had at some point. I’d completed something, washed and blocked it, photographed it and THEN I noticed an error.

If this was just going to be a thing for me it wouldn’t have mattered so much, but it is a sample of one of the squares from the Nevern Throw Expansion Pack (coming soon!). And the error was fairly significant – I’d knitted the square from an old version of the chart. I mean, I could have decided to just go with that version of the chart and forget about the new version, but there was a reason I’d altered it and I wanted it to be correct. So, now it’s all been frogged and reskeined and is dry yarn again, ready to be used once more. I found a little more of the same yarn and so have been able to start again – this time definitely working from the correct chart! The first third of it is in the main blog picture.

I remember the Yarn Harlot writing on her blog (possibly more than once) that the thing about being a fast knitter was that she was able to make bigger mistakes more quickly – it certainly felt a bit like that for me! The lesson I need to learn is to throw out old print outs once I make updates – or at least label them as not being the most recent version!

I’ve been doing some other stranded knitting as well. When we were at the RiverKnits Open Day last month, Sue chose some yarn from the Travel Knitter for me to use knitting up her poem that I’d translated into morse code. It has begun! Her name will certainly be nice and clear. I’m hoping the morse code will become clearer as I go on. It’s quite odd to think that I’m quite literally knitting the poem backwards as each round (line) goes from right to left and from the bottom to the top, so I will knit the first word of the title last!

The spinning is slowly making progress. This is (still) the gradient yarn from Cassiopeia Yarns that I bought at Wonderwool in April. It’s not until I look back at the photos of its progress that I realise just how much the colour has changed – it’s so gradual and subtle that you hardly notice at the time. I’m hoping to finish and ply this by the end of the month.

This was the view I had the other afternoon when I was doing some work in the study. That pigeon looked really comfortable on Medium’s head and sat there for quite some time! He’s called Medium, because when Sue bought him he had a label on his underside that said “Medium Lion”. The rose is The Poet’s Wife and it’s settling in nicely with lots of buds ready to bloom.

The shawl in Aysgarth yarn from RiverKnits is complete! Like, really complete. Washed, blocked, ends woven in, gauge measured etc. The pattern is written up and with the tech editor! Isn’t the Sloe Gin colour gorgeous?

That means that I’m on to the Nene rainbow minis – yay! I’m so excited with these colours and I love that I get to knit in a rainbow in June, Pride month.

Leaf & Vine Cardigan is out!! The physical book is not out for another week or so, but you can see (and buy) the individual pattern and the whole Haven: Knit Lace Patterns eBook of 13 lovely lace designs on KnitPicks.

This afternoon I had a very productive meeting with Anne at Yarn O’clock. We are planning something exciting and yarnified to take place in Mold during the weekend of the Mold Food Festival – there will be more details coming soon! (I’ve linked to the food festival’s picture gallery page, just because the home page is very meaty).

Random observation of the day: “The Humming Chorus” from Madame Butterfly sounds awfully like “Bring Him Home” from Les Mis!

Take care one and all, and remember the sunscreen and water. K x

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Here Comes Summer

Designing for external publications has quite a long lead time. Even more so when it’s for a book rather than a monthly magazine. Last month I was able to share with you my excitement about my Ceridwen wrap being on the front cover of The Knitter issue 176.

*This* month I am finally able to share with you my latest design for Knit Picks. Leaf & Vine is knit using Palette, a wonderful non-superwash 4-ply weight Peruvian Highland wool, that comes in over 150 colours.

Leaf & Vine is going to be in a collection called “Haven: Knit Lace Patterns”. It’s a lightweight summer cardigan with very short sleeves incorporated into the body and it comes in TEN sizes with finished chest measurements of 38-71″. It’s intended to be worn with 7-10″ positive ease (that means 7-10″ bigger than your own body measurements).

The photo on the left is one of Knit Picks’ own photos on their model. The photo on the right is a close-up of my sample (in a different size) on my mannequin. I took this photo in mid-November – when summer seemed so very far away!

These are ‘sneak peek’ pics as the book that the pattern is in is published tomorrow (about 11am PST – which is about 7pm British Summer Time).

For those of you who don’t know, Knit Picks is a large American yarn company. They publish various pattern collections in books each year, featuring their yarns, which run to a specific theme. For example, Nevern Throw was in “Entwined: Celtic Cables Collection”. They also have an extensive range of individual patterns.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the physical book as they are always really great – super layout, fab photography and high quality paper and printing – and you CAN get the physical book posted to you in the UK without excessive postage charges. I’ll be posting more about Haven and Leaf & Vine in particular in the coming days with links to the patterns once the book is out.

Mum’s bedsocks had a mini hibernation recently while I was working on a couple of other designs (and racing to finish Sue’s embroidery), but I’m back on them again now. I started the second sock on Sunday whilst watching My Name is Leon – at various points I had to put the knitting down as I was so gripped by it (and at times because of tears). If you have BBC iPlayer, look it up – it’s brilliant.

It’s a good job that I’m back on the socks as I need to have something small to knit with me this afternoon. The dentist appointment has finally arrived and I have no cold and the precautionary lateral flow test I did this morning was clear. I’m finally going to get my filling fixed…!

If you follow me on social media you’ll have seen a few random close-up shots over the past couple of weeks of some purple and silver grey knitting in progress. It’s a design for RiverKnits using their Aysgarth yarn which is 100% Wensleydale wool. The colours are called Sloe Gin and Antique Pewter.

This morning, I cast off! I now need to block it and finish writing up the pattern before it gets sent off to the tech editor. You will get to see the whole thing sometime in September!

One more viewing recommendation before I go and floss one last time. We recently watched “Falling for Figaro” on Netflix and it was brilliant. I absolutely loved it and heartily recommend you to watch it if you get a chance (it’s got Joanna Lumley in it too).

I think that’s all I’ve got time for today – wish me luck at the dentist and take care of yourselves. K x

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New Tricks

A completed crocheted granny square in self-striping yarn that changes from pink-maroon-orange. It is lying on the arm of a pale sofa.

Last night’s workshop of Beginner’s Crochet was great fun. There were a couple of people there who had done some crochet years ago and some who had never even held a hook before. By the end of our two hours they had all crocheted at least two rounds and were feeling more confident with trebles and chains. Folk even asked when the next class would be, so I must have been doing something right! Many thanks to Liz for sending me the pic of her finished granny square once she got home (that’s the main pic!).

All those attending were brilliantly positive and determined, even when finding something tricky initially. As adults we can forget what it feels like to learn a completely new skill and how frustrating it can be when it doesn’t click immediately. But the satisfaction when it does is immense. It’s only relatively recently that I taught myself to crochet right-handed, having done so left-handed for decades. It really did feel like starting from scratch – and I *knew* what I was supposed to be doing with my hands! But practice and time make it feel more natural, as with any new skill.

I’m so proud of what everyone achieved. If you are a crocheter (or are simply good at seeing patterns) you might look at some of these pieces and think you spot some ‘errors’ – and that’s completely right. As with the brioche knitting workshop a few week’s ago, unless something was going to cause a major problem later on, I encouraged people to avoid undoing their work, or to try and make it ‘perfect’. Leaving in ‘errors’ helps you see how you’ve progressed and also see what happens when you do a particular thing. For example, the centre bottom image has more trebles in the chain spaces than you would do in a granny square – but it would make a great flower!

Much thanks as always has to go to Anne from Yarn O’clock for booking and organising the evening, keeping everyone supplied with drinks and biscuits and for being generally fab!

The next workshop is on closed ring cables – there are spaces! If you are near Mold and are free on 21st June 6.30-9pm, have a look at the full details on Yarn O’clock’s website.

Next week I will be able to share something very exciting with you – a new design is being published on Wednesday 15th June. We have been asked to keep ‘sneak peeks’ to a minimum before then, so newsletter subscribers and blog readers will hear about it first in the early part of the week.

Last Wednesday we had a visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We’d not been there before and although we walked miles (literally) and saw lots and lots, it seems there is still a huge amount to explore, so we will be going back again! There was even gorgeous vegan cake in the cafe. Some of my favourite sculptures were the Barbara Hepworth ones – and Ronnie enjoyed them too!

And on Friday we had an early morning walk around part of the Great Orme to celebrate my lovely wife’s birthday. We walked about a third of the way round and then back again. I’ve been all the round the edge of the Orme in a car, been up to the top in a car, a cable car and on foot, but it was the furthest I’ve gone round the edge on foot (must remember the walking shoes next time to avoid a repeat of the big blisters).

It was quite a wind-swept experience, but lovely to sit on a bench with a flask of tea with a view of nothing but the sea in front and the Orme behind and to the sides of us. We also saw seals, cormorants and… a peregrine falcon!!! We wouldn’t have known what we were looking at if I hadn’t asked one of the two men who were sitting on folding chairs with cameras that looked like paparazzi ones with the huge lenses on the front (apart from the camouflage wrapping!) who seemed happy with the photos they had been getting.

Finally, you might be pleased to know that I did finish the embroidery by my Friday deadline! Sue is very pleased with it and it is currently drying on a towel before being pressed and stretched over mounting board prior to framing. The pattern is “Hint of Chocolate Limes” from Peppermint Purple. This was my first experience of blackwork embroidery and I loved it. I will be doing more.

I’ll be showing you LOTS of knitting next week! Take care and stay safe. Kx