Category: Uncategorized

January is traditionally a time for starting new things and this week I have started three new things! I have begun a new design for a publication I haven’t submitted to before, I have done the majority of my first proper tech editing job and I have done my first day as an exam invigilator. I am enjoying all of them, although I am hoping I learn the layout of the school soon and don’t have to keep asking fellow invigilators where the staff toilets or staff room are! When I’m tech editing I know where everything is, as I’m working from home! By the way, if you can’t read the writing on the pencil in the main pic, it says “Knitting feeds my soul”. Very true.

The new design is for knitty.com. They are very different to other publications as you don’t send them a submission of a design proposal, you send them the finished written pattern, complete with photographs of the finished item! One benefit of this is that, if it is rejected, you have a completed pattern ready to be tech edited, rather than an idea which languishes for a couple of years before you find it again (either at the bottom of the swatch box or in a computer file marked “Submissions/Unpublished” – yes I do have a file with this name!). Fortunately the lead-times are much longer than for other publications with their submissions – with about a three month deadline rather than three weeks, in recognition of the significantly bigger task! I can’t tell you anything more about what I’m doing, or share any pics, but I’ll let you know when I find out if it’s been accepted (probably by the end of April!).

The new socks for Sue are coming on apace and I am delighted with how the self-striping yarn is behaving. By total accidental/serendipity the heel turn is red. The yarn changed colour just as I started the heel turn and finished just before I picked up the stitches to start working the gusset (foot shaping). It’s a bit like a Louboutin sock!

I bet the second sock doesn’t do this – I have no idea whereabouts during the grey section of the yarn I began the cast-on, so I can’t reliably replicate it.

I’m also gearing up to begin the new season of yarn shows, several of which are new to me this year (TexStyle in Manchester in March is a brand new show as is The Midlands Wool Festival at Wolverhampton Racecourse in July, and I’ll be doing The Wool Monty in Sheffield in June for the first time too.

The first show of the year is in just over a month! The North West Winter Wool Festival is being held at Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool this year and I am not only exhibiting there, but teaching two workshops as well. An Introduction to Brioche Knitting is on Saturday 14th February and Moebius Knitting is on Sunday 15th February. There are only two places left for the brioche workshop!

Contact me directly if you’d like to book a place on either of these workshops (you will also need to buy a ticket for the show itself – £8 for the day or £10 for the whole weekend, which includes a code for a free knitting pattern, designed by me!). There are lots of other workshops taking place at the show as well and they are all listed on the North West Winter Wool Festival’s workshops page.

March will be very busy with TexStyle in Manchester on March 14th and 15th and the East Anglia Yarn Festival in Norwich the following weekend (March 21st and 22nd)!

The organisers of TexStyle have generously allowed those of us exhibiting to run ticket give-aways and so I have five pairs of tickets up for grabs! If you and a friend would like a ticket for TexStyle at Manchester Central On March 14th/15th let me know in the comments and I will draw names from a hat on Friday 23rd January and get the relevant code to the lucky winners!

That’s all from me for today! I now need to get back to making sure Lorelai is going to be ready for her relaunch as an individual pattern in time for the show in Blackpool! This is one of the lovely photos from The Knitter:

Take care and remember to comment if you’d like to be in the draw for TexStyle tickets! K x

We currently have snow. Not anywhere near as much as we have had in previous years, but it is causing some issues in our corner of North Wales. We are ever more grateful to live on a bus route as these are the roads that get gritted, so as long as we can clear the top of the drive we should be fine to get out in the car. Side roads are more like skating rinks as we discovered on a walk yesterday. Where the snow is driven on and compacted, melts a bit and refreezes it creates a very skiddy situation! Surrounding areas have had more snow than us as well with some folk being snowed in.

And so, the weather has meant that both commitments in my diary today are off. This probably doesn’t mean I’ll be out in the garden making snow angels, but I am admiring the traditional snowman complete with scarf that has been built by a young family who live in the road behind us.

I also love the light you get when there is snow. Everything is brighter and that is just what we need right now, especially as we took the Christmas decorations and tree down yesterday. All the cheery Christmas lights in the neighbourhood have gone away for another year and so the brightness of the snow helps it not feel so dark.

I will walk up to the post office today and post a design sample that is due to arrive by the weekend, and then email the pattern and all associated files to the magazine. I will also have time to start looking at a tech editing job I have recently been asked to do and play with the numbers for a new design of my own.

While I am enjoying the current weather I am also hoping that it is all gone by the weekend so my journey to visit my mum in the midlands is straightforward. The signs are promising – keep your fingers crossed for me!

In the meantime I have actually done a bit of knitting I can share with you. I knitted some new toes for Sue’s favourite socks at the weekend as she had worn through them. I’ve already shared these on facebook and one of our friends said it was “love declared in the form of knitting” which I thought was spot on!

Also, I was given some sock yarn for Christmas (thank you Katie!) and last night I started some new socks for Sue using that. It’s West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply in the colourway ‘Robin’.

For those of you who like to know these things, I’m doing 80 sts on 2mm needles, 20 rnds of 2×2 ribbing, then 60 rnds of leg (I’ve done 27 so far) before a heel flap worked on half the sts. So that’s 8000 sts by the time I get to the heel turn! So, yes, if someone knits you socks (or anything!) as a gift, it means they love you.

I hope you have a good week and have had a good festive season. Until next week, take care and do some stuff that makes you happy. K X

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

Last weekend’s event was fun. Lots of fun. The North West Winter Wool Festival was held at The Imperial Hotel in Blackpool and was a first in many ways.

It was the first time I have stayed at the same venue as the yarn show. That in itself was lovely. There was no travelling once I’d arrived and set the stand up. I could just go for a walk if I wanted to or relax in my room or the bar of the hotel. Several of the other vendors were staying there too, and it was really nice to be able to sit and chat in the evening or share a table at breakfast. Having breakfast in the morning before the show was also super. It was a buffet style and both mornings I helped myself to a plate full of mini hash browns, tomatoes, mushrooms and baked beans. Plus tea – of course.

It was also the first time I’ve done a show at the seaside! I was in the ‘overspill’ room, rather than the main room, but that was no hardship. The room was beautifully light, with amazingly high ceilings and chandeliers, and looked out over the front of the hotel to the sea. I literally had a sea view all weekend, as from my room I could see Blackpool Tower, the pier and the sea.

This show was also the first time I have been the designer for a show pattern. Lots of people came with their completed Imperial Cowls (mostly in bags or tied to bag straps as the hotel was so well heated you didn’t need to wear any woolly goodies) and it was so good to hear their enthusiasm for the pattern as well as see their finished knitting.

And, it was the first time the North West Winter Wool Festival has taken place, and it was the very first time Shirley had organised a yarn show and she did a splendid job. I really hope it happens again next year – I will definitely be signing up!

The show was super busy for most of Saturday and was almost as busy as times on Sunday. I was concentrating on talking to customers and other vendors so much that I completely failed to take photos of anyone else’s stand, but the vendors (and the lovely Bowland Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers) with whom I shared the room were all super and I highly recommend having a look at their websites: Handmade at Harcles, Why Knot Macramé who trades as Kiln and Craft on Etsy, 3 Seas Yarn, Little Likac Yarn, Farm Yarn UK, Riverside Knitting Yarns, and Super Effective Fibres.

We were only 8 of the 40 vendors present! During the weekend I gave a few mini demos of how brioche knitting works and made some connections with folk for possible future workshops and collaborations.

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I also took possession of these beauties from Penny Stitch Craft at the weekend:

This is a Tencel DK weight hand dyed yarn and I can’t wait to play with these skeins and see what they want to become! Keep your eyes peeled for a new pattern later in the year…

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It won’t be long until my second show of the year – East Anglia Yarn Festival (or EAYF) in Norwich, which will be held at the Norfolk Show Ground Arena on March 15th-16th. I will also be teaching at this show! Workshops have just gone up on the website. My Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting workshop is on Saturday 15th March, 1-3pm.

The workshop is £36 and all handouts and yarn are included. You just need to bring a 5mm circular needle (60-80cm long) and something to write with so you can annotate your handouts.

If you’re coming to EAYF and you’d like to learn to knit two-colour brioche – now is your chance! Just make sure you come on the Saturday as I’m not teaching on the Sunday.

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Shortly after that, and much more local to me, I have a trunk show at my local yarn shop!

Yarn O’clock in Mold is hosting me and my designs for the day on Saturday April 12th. The shop is open from 10am-4pm, there is no charge to come in, so why not pop over and say hello, and see what lovely yarn Anne has that you could use for one or more of my patterns?!

That’s all from me for now, apart from to let you know that my donation to Treasure Chest YGC (50% of sales of Bodelwyddan sock pattern during February) is currently standing at £33! I wonder if we can get it over £40?

Take care, and I hope you are able to do something that makes you happy this week. K x

The snow I showed you last week hung around and got added to occasionally during the week. I didn’t try moving my car until Thursday when things were just starting to melt a little, but as it had been tucked down the side of the house it still had four inches of snow on the roof! Not only that, but the snow was frozen on top and also frozen solid to the roof of the car. I am nothing if not determined however, and did get most of it off.

I had been due to travel to Welwyn Garden City on Friday for two workshops as part of the Wool-in Garden City Wool Festival on Saturday, but a lack of bookings meant the workshops were cancelled, so we gained an extra day at home and travelled on Saturday instead, leaving the snow behind and travelling into rain. (I will be running both the brioche workshops as Zoom workshops in January – and there will be in-person workshops as well in 2025, so watch this space!)

Despite Storm Bert making its entrance during our journey, we arrived safely and got set up in the lovely space that is the main hall of Oaklands College in Welwyn Garden City.

It was lovely to see Helen, the organiser of the festival, again and to catch up with a few other vendors who were setting up as well. Afterwards we were able to find our Premier Inn and relax with a rare glass of wine!

On Wool-in Garden City Wool Show day itself (Sunday) I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of footfall, as the stormy weather could well have made everyone want to stay at home, but many people did come, and it was so lovely to see some familiar faces amongst the visitors.

Here’s a quick spin around the main hall where the majority of vendors were, just before opening time:

One particular face at the show that was familiar to me, through the medium of telly, was Kellie Bright, who plays Linda Carter in EastEnders (Sue even got a selfie with her!). She was there with hundreds of crocheted squares that needed to be joined together into blankets. These blankets will be auctioned off to raise money for the charity Solving Kids’ Cancer UK, of which she is patron. The squares have been crocheted by folk from across the country who have sent them in, and what makes these blankets even more special is that each one will contain a ‘celebrity square’. I found this out when I asked Kellie why one particular plastic bag of squares had a piece of paper with the name ‘Danny Dyer’ showing through the side! Yes, Danny Dyer has crocheted a square for the charity blankets.

Kellie was there by invitation from Helen so that visitors (and vendors) could help with the mammoth task of joining the squares into blankets, either by crocheting them or sewing them. As we had a little quiet time during the afternoon, I offered to do some joining and was able to join two sections of blanket together that included a square from Tom Daley!

It was good to be able to contribute to this great cause in a practical way and it was lovely to see just how many people wanted to help. And, even if they’d never sewn or crocheted before, Kellie was giving clear instructions on what to do, so they could.

Sadly one person I was hoping to see didn’t come to the show. I still have the mitts and hat I knitted for Simon that he commissioned back in January. Maybe one day he’ll get in touch and I’ll be able to send them to him…

The journey home on Sunday night was just as wet as the journey there, if not more so at times, but we took it steadily and I was quite grateful for the roadworks on the M1 that meant everyone had to stick to a top speed of 50 (and sometimes 40), as that helped reduce the spray off the road a bit. We even treated ourselves to a proper stop with a vegan burger and chips once we got as far as Telford services – it felt almost extravagant!

Wool-in Garden City was our last show for 2024 and my next show will be in Blackpool, February 15-16, at the North West Winter Wool Festival, held at The Imperial Hotel! There will be 40 vendors including myself and the Bowland Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers will also be there. See you in Blackpool?

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All the snow had gone by the time we got home, and the morning revealed that our lovely myrtle had not entirely coped with the weight of the snow on it for so many days. Hopefully more branches will grow to fill the gap that has been created.

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With all the excitement of Wool-in Garden City, I had completely forgotten to say that I am taking part in Fasten Off Yarn-along once again this year! Over 90 designers are signed up and you can get 25% of many of their patterns by using the code FO2024 until the end of December 5th. It’s not just for hand knitters; crochet, Tunisian crochet and machine knitting is also included. This is why it’s a ‘yarn-along’, rather than a ‘knit-along’!

All of my self-published individual patterns are included in this discount period. Fasten Off Yarn-along (or Fasten Off YAL) is an off-Ravelry event, so all the patterns from all the designers can be accessed somewhere other than Ravelry. Mine are all on my Payhip store.

Fasten Off YAL is far more than just a pattern sale – there are bingo games and prizes to be won and all sorts of social stuff. Go to your favourite social media site and search for them – Instagram is particularly lively, but you can find them on other sites too and you can get all the information about the event from their website. There are also links to all the designers and their wonderful designs on the website along with great search features if there’s something specific you are looking for.

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Now seems like a good time to remind you that I write a monthly newsletter for my subscribers. Subscribers get special offers in these monthly emails that are not available *anywhere else* and I will be making a very special offer in the December newsletter which is going out on Dec 1st. So now would be a really good time to sign up!

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I have also done quite a lot of knitting on two different new designs this week. I’m hoping I’ll be able to show you some sneak peeks of at least one of them soon!

In the meantime, stay warm and dry if you can, and do something that makes you happy, even if it’s just breathing in some cool crisp late autumn air (when it’s not raining!). K x

I’ve talked about swatching before. For most knitters this usually refers to knitting the stitch pattern in a design they intend to make, using the needles stated in the pattern to check that their tension is the same as the designers, and that the finished item will have the intended measurements. Many knitters will make this swatch as small as possible, if knitting one at all, feeling that it’s a waste of time and just holding them up from getting started.

For a knitwear designer, swatching is so much more than this. For me, it’s a time to play and dive deep into knitting possibilities. Trying out different stitch patterns and combinations of stitch patterns, sometimes trying out different needle sizes to find the perfect one to give the best fabric and experimenting with combinations of colours. If I’ve been given specific yarn to use before a design is finalised, then I’ll find out how different stitch patterns behave with that yarn and what the fabric is like once blocked. This can involve swatches that are really quite big. Thanks have to go to my City & Guilds tutor, Loraine, here who always said, “Swatch big – it’ll give you better information”.

Last week I showed you the three gorgeous colours of McIntosh BFL 4ply yarn I’m using for a new design and told you that James always kindly supplies me with extra yarn for swatching. My current swatch for this design is pinned out now – and it’s over 60cm long and nearly 60cm wide at its widest point! Swatching big indeed. I want to see how the fabric behaves in the shape I’m intending to use, how it hangs and what the edges do.

With other designs when there is no set yarn, other than one or two suggested yarn weights, I might take a different approach. I’m also working on a design like this at the moment. For this design my swatches will be tried out in a variety of yarns (different fibres, different dye styles such as solid or semi-solid colours, variegated and striped) to see how the different yarns work with different stitch patterns. Some stitch patterns can be completely lost in very ‘busy’ yarn. Ideally, for this design, I’d like to choose a stitch pattern that will work with as many yarns as possible – and the only way to find this out is by swatching – knitting the same stitch patterns in different yarns to see what the results are.

And although I may try out a large number of stitch patterns for a design when I only need one or two, this is not ever wasted time or yarn. I’ll often discover a stitch pattern or combo that is great, but just doesn’t work for the design at hand and I can ‘bank’ it for a later one! I also continue to learn.

Thinking about this has led me to look back at one of (about a dozen) lever arch files from my City & Guilds course in Hand Knit Textiles. Experimentation was a key part of the learning and I loved it. I would often knit half a dozen or so swatches in the morning before driving to work. For example, knitting different stitch patterns with the same cast-on, then changing the cast-on and knitting the same set of stitch patterns with that cast-on helped me to understand which stitch patterns and cast-on techniques work well together, making notes on each one as well for future reference (and to fulfil the course requirements!). This is page one of three for this exercise!

Another early task was to knit a stocking stitch swatch with different selvedges (edge stitches) to understand how these affected the fabric.

I’ve kept all these files as they contain so much useful information and knowledge – including lots of stitch patterns I developed myself. Almost a reference library, if you like.

As well as swatching (playing) this week I’ve also made some decent progress on my new cardigan and the yarn is working much better with this design. It may not look like much yet, but this is almost two full skeins of DK yarn!

The body is worked in one piece to start with and then the construction gets really interesting. I’ll be sure to take pics once it develops further.

That’s all from me for today. I’ll tell you all about how Stollen & Wolle went next week. K x

Today is Bonfire Night in the UK. We went to watch our local firework display on Sunday (first time it hasn’t been on the 5th), and the colours were spectacular. The loud bangs still make me jump, but much less so than they used to. I’m braced for some unexpected booms outside later on. It was really good to walk up to our usual spot (out of the way of the crowds, but with a mighty fine view of the sky) and enjoy the display for the 20 minutes it lasts.

I’ve spent the past couple of days swatching for a new shawl design. This means the previous design is completed, blocked, measured and written up! All that remains is to weave in the ends, double check the pattern and get it all sent off.

The new design is giving me some challenges. I thought I had the shape fixed, but then I realised that it wouldn’t use nearly enough of the yarn (the yarn is the gorgeous BFL 4ply from McIntosh – the same yarn I used for Barragán). Don’t worry, I’m not using all six cakes of yarn in the main post photo – some of it’s for swatching as James kindly supplies me with extra! So there has been much experimenting and swatching, alongside checking yarn quantities used for different shawl shapes in some of my many knitting books and this has led me to a solution. So now I just need to finalise the stitch patterns and overall design and I’m good to get going with it!

It’s been good to immerse myself in something new and I’m enjoying playing with some joyful colours.

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There has been a lot of ‘life stuff’ going on in the background this past month (and is still going on, but it’s come down a gear) which made it hard to fully focus on design work. I was lucky with my last design as it was a re-working of something I’d developed during my City & Guilds course, so I was tweaking and refining, rather than starting from scratch. Tweaking and refining I could do!

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I’ve done a few more rows on my new sample of Elinor Hap Shawl. I think there are 14 more rows to work on the border and then the edging begins. I dug out my needle protector case recently as well after the needle tips got caught in the lace whilst in the project bag and pulled a long strand (ouch!). If you’ve not seen these before, they are very helpful and also stop stitches falling off the ends of the needles. I got mine from Yarn O’clock.

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Back in September, before Yarndale, I told you I was knitting a new Manu cardigan designed by Kate Davies using some yarn from the deep stash, but I wasn’t at all happy with how the colours were behaving together in stripes. This week it finally got ripped out and I have decided to knit a new Haori cardigan instead, using the yarn in blocks of colour. There’s not a lot exciting to see at the moment apart from a long strip of blue grey garter stitch – hopefully I will be able to make it grow and become more exciting to look at soon!

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Tomorrow I am giving a 1-to-1 knitting lesson. Did you know these were available? Depending on where you are based they can be either in-person or via Zoom and we can cover whatever knitting issue you have. It may be that you want to do a specific workshop, but on your own, or (as with tomorrow’s lesson), you have a knitting problem that you would like help with. 1-to-1 knitting lessons are currently £25 per hour and can be booked by emailing me. At some point soon, I intend to be able to get a calendar set up where you can choose from available dates and times.

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November sees my final two events of this year. I know I’ve mentioned these before and you may have seen me write about them in my social posts and newsletter, but I want to tell you a little more about each of them.

I’m delighted to have been invited to exhibit at Stollen & Wolle Winter Market and Wayzgoose at the RiverKnits studio in Weedon Bec on Sunday 17th. Becci and Markus of RiverKnits have invited some of their favourite yarn, art, and artisan craft businesses to exhibit alongside limited edition artworks and printmaking demos. It will be a great opportunity for gift buying while supporting local, creative, and sustainable businesses. And there will be stollen and glühwein (as well as non-alcoholic options). Early bird tickets are available for £5 and on the door tickets are £7.

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A week later we will be in Welwyn Garden City. Wool-in Garden City Wool Festival actually starts on Monday 18th with workshops and a pop-up shop in the Howard Centre at Welwyn Garden City, and a daily knit and natter, crochet and chat will take place by the escalators each afternoon, and finishes on Sunday 24th with a one-day wool show at Oaklands College. The pop-up shop and knit and natter/crochet and chat are free to enter. Advance tickets for the wool show at Oaklands College are £6, with on the door tickets at £7.

As well as exhibiting at the wool show, I will be teaching in the pop-up shop on Saturday 23rd, teaching both of my brioche workshops. If you want to learn to knit two-colour brioche, this is a great opportunity! Both workshops have a maximum class size of 8 giving each attendee lots of tutor time, and each costs £30 to attend, including two colours of 100% wool yarn to use and detailed handouts for you to take away. You just need to bring a 5mm circular needle (60-80cm long). If you are feeling up for a challenge you could even attend both workshops! Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting is 10am-12noon and Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting is 1-3pm. Once you have learnt the stitches in these two workshops a whole range of brioche patterns will open up for you.

Here is the full info about the workshops from the festival website:

Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting with Kath Andrews 10 – 12 pm – £30 Brioche knitting is a distinctive knitted ribbing technique that is recognizable by its interesting texture. In this workshop you will learn how to achieve this effect by alternating columns of slipped stitches with yarnovers and knit stitches. Handouts and yarn will be provided, but participants will need to bring 5 mm circular needles (ideally 60 – 80 cm long). 

Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting with Kath Andrews 1 – 3 pm – £30 Develop your two-colour brioche knitting skills further with increases and decreases to create wonderful geometric and curved shapes.  You need to be able to cast-on, knit & purl confidently, be able to follow a written pattern and have some experience of knitting basic two-colour brioche stitch.  Yarn and handouts are included, but participants will need to bring 5 mm circular needles (ideally 60 – 80 cm long). 

There is a wide range of workshops priced from £25 to £70 happening during the week, including knitting, crochet, drop spindle spinning, rag rug making and more! Have a look at the Wool-in Garden City Wool Festival Workshops webpage where you can book one or more workshops.

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I’ll have my ‘Flying the Shawls 2025’ calendars (as featured in Issue 208 of The Knitter magazine) with me at both events, but, if you can’t get to either, you can still get a calendar here, for £10 plus postage. They make great gifts – The Knitter says so!

That’s all from me today. I shall be watching the news across the pond with interest and crossed fingers for the next few days. Take care one and all and I hope you get the chance to do something that makes you happy this week. K x

Someone on Threads asked recently why knitwear designers post pics of unravelled knitting and rewound balls of wool. I replied that when working on a commission knit we’re not usually allowed to show the knitting itself in progress before the item is published and so showing the yarn – even when ripped out – is often the only way we can post about our current project. Also, if it has been unravelled and is about to be reworked, that shows there is design progress happening, even if not actual knitting progress!

Last week I told you I was nearly halfway through the section that used the second colour of yarn in my current commission design. I finished it midweek but knew straight away I wasn’t happy with it. The first part with the first colour had been initially designed with 5 repeats, but I’d omitted the final one, thinking the item would be big enough without it and worrying I wouldn’t have enough of the first colour of yarn. I was wrong! It wasn’t big enough without it and when I ripped the second colour out to add in that final repeat of the first colour, that I should have knitted in the first place, I did indeed have enough yarn. Silly me. I am now three quarters of the way through the second colour for the second time and fully expect to actually finish it this evening. I am enjoying using this yarn and it is working up really well – even on the second knit! And this time, it will stay finished!

Lesson learned to trust my initial designs? Maybe. Although sometimes you do need to make changes to something partway through to make it work or to make it as good as it can be. And change is ok. It’s not the end of the world if you need to pull some knitting back and redo it – as long as there is time in the schedule to allow for this! There are many other things in life where change is much harder to deal with.

Last Tuesday’s Zoom workshop, Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting, went really well. The two knitters who were there had both attended the Introduction workshop two weeks before that, and they made brilliant progress with their brioche increases and decreases as well as deepening their understanding of how the fabric is constructed. We even managed a little step-by-step reversing and fixing of a mistake by Zoom which I think is pretty good! In an in-person workshop that side of things is easier as I can hold the knitting in question and work out exactly what has happened and help the knitter fix it. This time it was achieved just from having it held up to the computer camera and me giving verbal instructions, which were ably followed. I will be scheduling more Zoom workshops over the coming months as I think it’s a great way to attend a class without having to travel.

However, I will also be teaching both these brioche workshops at Wool-in Garden City on Saturday November 23rd! These will take place in the pop-up shop in the Howard Centre in Welwyn Garden City (near the entrance and just by the escalators up to the station). The Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting is 10am-12noon and Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting is 1pm-3pm. You could even book on both! The following day I will have a stand at the Wool-in Garden City Wool Show at Oaklands College, also in Welwyn Garden City. (I will be sending the hat and mitts I made for Simon that he commissioned in January to the organiser to be in the pop-up shop during the week as well, in the hope that he might show up to claim them).

On Saturday I was at Ewe Felty Thing’s Designer Day in Conwy. I hadn’t been over to the shop since before it opened in its new venue and I have to say I am very impressed with what Nikki and her team have achieved. The shop used to be a bank and there are things such as the vault door and the two safes in the vault that have been made into great colourful features. The vault door is a bright blue, the room inside is equipped with comfy chairs and space to knit/crochet and relax. The two safes in the room have had their doors removed, one is now bright yellow, the other Barbie pink, they have shelves inside and are stocked with books and patterns! A fabulous idea. One other remaining vestige of the shop’s previous life as a bank was in the ladies’. A notice glued to the door was titled something along the lines of “What to do in the event of an armed robbery or bomb threat”! It took me a moment to realise it was from the shop’s time as a bank and not likely to occur in a yarn shop.

The rest of the shop is spread across two other large rooms with a huge range of yarns (commercial and hand-dyed), wheels, looms and other craft items for sale. We were in a newly renovated room that I think used to be the manager’s office. One of the designers (Tanya from The Woolly Tangle) wasn’t able to be with us, but the four of us filled the room admirably and it was like a micro-mini festival. This little video gives a sense of it:

During quieter periods we chatted with each other and made progress with our current projects, and when it got busy we chatted to the customers and made suggestions of patterns and yarn combinations! Sue was with me and made good use of being in Conwy by having a walk in ‘someone else’s town’ and discovering the ice-cream shop sold vegan sorbet. I was delighted to be surprised with an intense raspberry sorbet mid-afternoon. All in all we had a great day.

Did I show you the wonderful yarn I was given for my birthday recently by my lovely wife?

I haven’t yet decided what it will become, but hopefully I will be able to turn my attention to it soon. Maybe I’ll have some ideas to share with you next week!?

Until then, take care, and do something that makes you happy this week. K x

a yarn show appeared!

Yarn Gathering took place on Sunday at the Daniel Owen Centre in Mold. It was our third time organising this show and we had 17 vendors (including myself) which is the most we have ever had. This meant we needed to hire the large room upstairs as well as using the hall and cafe spaces.

As always, when Anne, Sue and I arrived on Saturday afternoon to set out the rooms, it didn’t seem possible that in a few short hours the empty rooms would be bursting with colour, woolly goodness and lively conversations. But that is exactly what happened. Each of the vendors worked their magic to make their space look gorgeous and by 10am we were ready to open to the public – some of whom had arrived at 9.40 eager to get there before it got too busy! They were encouraged to go and have a cuppa somewhere warm as the weather wasn’t great and returned shortly after 10.

The day was amazing and flew by – it was our busiest Yarn Gathering to date as well as our biggest! There are some videos of vendors stands over on the Yarn Gathering North Wales Instagram page (particularly the upstairs stands, in case anyone couldn’t make it up the stairs). I clearly need to learn more about reels as the ones I put on the Facebook page seem to have vanished – another magic trick perhaps? However, Yarn O’clock made a super video of the setting up process, which is on her facebook and Instagram pages, the Yarn Gathering facebook page and my own facebook page. Anne was able to share the video with me! Here it is:

And then by 5pm, just an hour after we closed, the building was nearly empty once more and most things were back in their original spaces. People really do bring places to life – especially when they bring yarn and fleeces and fibre and weaving!

As you can imagine, yesterday was a bit blurry for me. The post-adrenaline come down probably. But I am back on all my cylinders today and have updated my notes for the sock workshop I am running tomorrow, analysed my sales of all my patterns everywhere – online and at each show I’ve done, and made a plan for how much printing I need to do in preparation for Yarndale at the end of the month!

I’m very excited about Yarndale. Our stand is L14 and my workshop (which is sold out!) is being held in Workshop Theatre 2. If you’ve never been, it’s a BIG show with 201 exhibitors, all based in the Auction Mart at Skipton, so our stands are defined by the metal rungs that mark out the animal stalls for the auctions. They do hose it down well before we arrive, but the floor is functional for an animal auction venue so is made of ridged concrete which can get very cold to stand on.

My summery shoes broke completely after Yarn Gathering on Sunday. I ground the plastic grid inside of the heels away by (shock, horror) standing and walking on them, and the insoles (and my heels…) collapsed into the void left behind, so they have had to go. I am rapidly breaking in some more shoes ready for Yarndale!

I’m also getting ready to re-release Prynhawn Da as an individual pattern soon. It was published in Knit Now in May and the rights have now returned to me. It’s an unusual little pattern, being a lacy coaster and placemat set, perfect for an afternoon tea where you want to go all out, but maybe not something for everyday use. The great thing about the design is that it’s a good way to learn the Pi Shawl construction on a small scale. The Pi Shawl is a way of knitting a perfectly circular shawl from the centre outwards without having to worry too much about the maths. I don’t know if it was invented or ‘unvented’ by the legendary Elizabeth Zimmermann – a knitter whose patterns were chatty in a way that would be really frowned upon now – and it is quite brilliant and works a treat. My Maid Marion Shawl is a Pi Shawl and Tiffany is a half Pi shawl.

Currently I’m re-blocking the samples as they were very crumpled by the time they got back to me, and I’m going to video the process as it’s so easy. The coasters and placemats were knitted in mercerised cotton and soak up water instantly, so you only really need to run them under the tap thoroughly to get them properly wet, rather than the usual 10-20 minute soak that wool can need.

Here is one of the coasters as it arrived back to me in the post, and another after re-blocking:

I have more workshops and shows coming up after Yarndale. I now have three more events before Christmas and six workshops, and I will start promoting the events just as soon as I have the official info! Most of the workshops are already on my Events page on my website – including some opportunities to learn two-colour brioche knitting or Fair Isle / Stranded knitting from the comfort of your own home if you can’t make it to an in-person workshop.

That’s all from me today. I must be more tired than I thought, as I started writing this at 5pm! Take care one and all. Thank you if you came to Yarn Gathering on Sunday, and do something that makes you happy this week. K x

I feel as though I have spent most of the day at the garage, but that’s not entirely true. I was there for just under 3 hours this morning while my car was being serviced and during that time I completed the penultimate repeat of my Bargello Aurora Scarf! I can also confirm that the sofas and chairs at Lookers / Kia in Chester are very comfortable.

There are now only 40 rows left to knit!

Unfortunately, on the way home from the garage the car started to judder and wasn’t accelerating properly. One of the warning lights came on briefly too. I got home, we had lunch and then I took Sue out in the car to see if it would behave any better after a run on one of the bigger roads, but no. There was lots of judder, little power and no ability to overtake, so we limped our way back to the garage.

After an explanation of the problem (and the fact that it hadn’t been doing it previous to the service…) the car was taken out by a technician to assess what was going on. Cue another wait on the very comfortable chairs, but I didn’t have my knitting with me this time (I did have my lovely wife for company and moral support though, which in all truth was better!). It was an hour that time, but the problem was identified, the spark plugs all changed and we were able to go on our way home, minus judder and with acceleration! Result!

All this is by way of some explanation as to why today’s blog post is a little later in the day than usual.

But I am so pleased to be nearly there with the scarf. There are a lot of yarn ends aren’t there? Have you noticed that? The pattern will contain a very strong suggestion to weave the ends in as you go. Here I’ve woven each end in on the first seven stitches.

Not only will this shorten the final finishing time, but it add important structural integrity to the scarf as well. Do you remember how firmly I blocked the cowl, so that it went from a corrugated mess to a thing of beauty?

The same intense vertical blocking will happen with the scarf. Not only did I weave in each yarn end separately, I also knotted the new colour on to the old colour. This is to stop the right hand side of the scarf pinging apart and unravelling when under the tension of blocking. Knots can be good! Scroll up to see the wrong side picture of the scarf again – can you see any knots looking massively out of place and awkward? No! It is ok to knot your yarn now and again, and in this case, it’s pretty much essential!

I’m hoping to have the updated version of Bargello Aurora online by the end of July, and I will definitely have printed copies with me at the rest of the shows I’m doing this year. The next show is the Pop Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight on August 18th. If you happen to buy a digital copy of Bargello Aurora before the end of July, you will get the original version of the pattern with just the wrap. Ravelry customers will get an email when the new version of the pattern comes out with a link to the updated pattern. Payhip customers need to ensure they click the ‘please keep me updated’ button when they purchase the original pattern so that I can send you the link to the new version. Or, you could wait until the updated pattern is released and get it all in one go.

I’m knitting all the Bargello Aurora samples in the same yarn. This is BFL Singles (100% Bluefaced Leicester wool – the sheep breed, spun as a single plied yarn) dyed by the amazing Rachael of Cat and Sparrow UK. She has yarn kits for the wrap for £50, which includes 100g of the dark blue and 50g of each of the other four colours. You might be interested to know that this same yarn kit could instead be used to knit both the cowl AND the scarf!

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The Bargello Aurora Scarf isn’t the only thing that’s grown massively during the week. My crocheted Persian Tiles blanket, designed by Janie Crow, is now nearly all pieced together!

On Saturday I posted about this blanket’s progress, when there were five octagons joined with their interlocking squares and triangles, and it got a lot of love on Twitter and quite a bit on Facebook and Instagram too. It looks so much more ‘real’ now and I think the pieces may well all be joined together by the end of the evening, which will just leave the 5 or 6 rounds of border to complete.

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I have a new pattern coming out on Thursday in the next issue of The Knitter! All I can tell you at the moment is that it’s a cowl, it uses brioche and it has a very ‘organic’ feel to the design. I’ll be able to tell you more about it next week – and you might even have seen it in the magazine by then! Update – the pattern isn’t actually in this month’s issue after all, so the big reveal will have to wait a little longer. I hope to know more about when it will be released soon.

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I seem to have a thing for patterns beginning with B. Last week I told you about Bryn, my brioche cowl designed for knitters new to two-colour brioche and its kit that comes in a tin. I’ve just been telling you all about the update to Bargello Aurora and I’m also currently putting the finishing touches on the pattern for Barragán.

Barragán was a wrap that was published in The Knitter last autumn as a four part knit-along, and they were including 300g sets of yarn for the pattern (150g in each colour), hand-dyed by James McIntosh, as a subscription gift.

The rights for the pattern have returned to me now and I’m putting the pattern into a single document in my house style, ready to publish online and have as printed patterns at events. I’m delighted to be allowed to use some of the photographs taken by The Knitter as their photography is so good.

Again, I’m intending to have this pattern ready to go live by the end of the month – it may even be sooner!

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By the way – I did make jam! The blackcurrants were picked yesterday afternoon and by 7pm the jam was in the jars! 12 jars, plus one very full bowl which is now in the fridge! The bees did a cracking good job fertilising this many currants on the blackcurrant bush this year – and there are still quite a lot left!

I’m not sure I’ll get to the redcurrants before the pair of thrushes that have taken to hanging out in our garden finish them off, but to be honest, I can’t remember the last time I saw a pair of thrushes, so I might let them enjoy the redcurrants and just use the ones from the freezer that I didn’t have time/jars for last summer.

That’s all for this week. Have a good week, and do some stuff that makes you happy. K x