Tag: Am Byth MKAL

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Everything Happens at Once

It’s been a productive week and one that got busier as it went along! It seems as though my work is building momentum currently and that’s really quite exciting. This wouldn’t have been possible while I was a full-time school teacher as I just wasn’t able to put the time in to yarn-based stuff to get things happening.

The socks are finished as I intended and, as you can see, they fit me really well. I can’t wear them ‘properly’ yet as I want to use them as a teaching aid at my sock workshops at Yarn O’clock on Thursday and there wouldn’t be time to wash and dry them between now and Thursday evening. The yarn is from RiverKnits – it’s the cormo wool 4-ply version of their 2022 Open Day Special yarn, dyed with Lola from Third Vault Yarns, and the colourway is called ‘Ankh Morpork’. The pattern is the basic sock pattern I always use for me; 2.25mm needles, 80 stitches to cast on, rib for a while, stocking stitch for a while, heel flap, heel turn, gusset decreases to 68 or 72 sts (68 in this case), work foot straight for a bit, toe decreases, graft. What some people call a ‘vanilla’ sock.

Yesterday’s beginner knitting class went well. It was still just the one lady attending and she got on really well. I forgot to take a photo of her bunting triangle, so instead, here’s a pic of the one I made. She did some extra eyelet rows in hers too! I rather like the extra eyelets – it keeps it interesting and add extra practice of yarn overs too! Our next class will be in two weeks, with the focus on using knit and purl stitches to create texture. I’ll be adding it as an event to Facebook to see if that helps encourage folk to book a place.

I chose my next fibre and started spinning it. I’ve got 200g of this lovely Bluefaced Leicester wool. It’s dyed by FibreHut and the colourway is called ‘Faded Blooms’ which I think suits it well. As I’ve got more fibre to play with, I decided to spin this one a little thicker. The singles are (mostly) coming out around a DK weight and I’m hoping the plied yarn will be somewhere between an aran and a chunky weight. I do need to concentrate to avoid drifting back to spinning finely though. It’s certainly eating up the fibre more quickly spinning this way!

The final section of our mystery knit-along, Am Byth, was published on Friday and I’ve done two videos to help folk with certain technical aspects. One was for the 5 stitches to 1 stitch decrease and I’ve been absolutely astounded at how many views it has had on Twitter – at the time of writing, over 1700! I will add this one to the website as well. The other video I recorded was for one of the cast-off options. it’s a sewn cast-off that gives a fabulous finish to a ribbed fabric, but it’s not one that everyone knows.

Also, now the larger cables are complete, can you see why I called it ‘Am Byth’? Am byth is Welsh for ‘forever’, and these closed cables look like the eternity symbol (when you hold the knitting on its side!).

I’ve also started getting ready for Buxton Wool Gathering – which is now less than four weeks away!! These are the filing cases I transport and store my printed patterns in and I’ve been going through my patterns spreadsheet, deciding which patterns I need more copies of, and I started printing more out today. The next thing to do is to go through the kits and see what I’ve got and what I could do with replenishing. Although, at a pretty big yarn show (there will be 54 vendors) it’s not as if folk won’t be able to get some gorgeous yarns from the other stalls to knit my designs with.

Part Two of Branwen is in the new issue of The Knitter that is in the shops from Thursday. It’s a knit-along shawl (but not a mystery) using West Yorkshire Spinners Fleece. It’s a lovely DK yarn made with Bluefaced Leicester wool. There are three more parts to the pattern after this one, and I will of course be publishing the whole pattern once I receive the rights back. This also means that if you want to read the interview with me in Issue 185 you have one day left to visit WHSmith and buy a copy!

Yesterday I had two more design submissions accepted which is lovely and very exciting, and one of the reasons for added busying! I set up the Excel spreadsheet for the first one that’s due and started working on that this afternoon. I bet you didn’t know designing knitting patterns was so glamorous, eh?! Seriously though, it’s amazing how much easier the process is with a few formulae up my sleeve – it helps turns one set of numbers into ten far more quickly than I could ever do on my own. Afterwards, I go through it all and make sure it’s still elegant and all the sizes represent the design concept ‘authentically’. Wow, that sounds a bit pretentious, but it basically means if you have a sweater with a design where, for example, a cable hits the shoulder just by the neckline in one size, it needs to be positioned so that it hits the shoulder in the same place in all the sizes. The geek in me loves playing with the numbers to make it all work.

There have been one or two less fabulous things that have happened this week too – but that’s the way of the world, isn’t it? One of the things was that I broke ANOTHER tooth this morning whilst eating my breakfast. At least I already have a dentist appointment in two weeks… I think I need to go back to porridge oats stirred through plant-based yoghurt, it’s far less hazardous than a bowl of cereal!

Anyway, take care one and all and don’t go clicking any links in your notifications until you’re absolutely certain you know who it’s from! And do something that makes you happy this week. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Put Your Best Foot Forward

A panoramic photo showing one left foot and five right feet on a pale gold carpet. The left foot is just touching a red foam mat.

Sometimes photographing knitting has surprising results! I was trying to get a shot of something that is 220cm long and I couldn’t fit it all in, so decided to try the panoramic feature – I wasn’t expecting it to give me five right feet!

It seems appropriate as a photo for today (though I’ve cropped it to remove the knitting as that is yet to be published), as I want to write about sock knitting.

A panoramic photo showing one left foot and five right feet on a pale gold carpet. The left foot is just touching a red foam mat.

There are many ways to knit a sock: top down, bottom up or even flat and seamed!

Heels can have a variety of structures including the afterthought heel where you knit the whole sock as a straight tube and then add the heel in afterwards.

Needles also give a range of choice – double pointed needles (dpns), a tiny circular needle, two circular needles or one long one using the magic loop technique. There are also flexible needles that are a cross between dpns and circular needles that you use in a set of three.

Depending on the needles you use, you can knit one sock and then the other, or both at the same time – or even knit one inside the other!

With all these options there are bound to be some techniques that a knitter favours or dislikes.

Personally, although I generally love using circular needles for most things, when knitting socks I tend to return time and again to double pointed needles – those or the flexible version.

I also prefer to knit them one at a time, top down, with a reinforced slip stitch heel flap and a gusset structure. My lovely wife and I both find this type of sock fits us best. Short row heels are great for self-striping yarn, but I haven’t yet managed to get the fit right for myself.

I’ve finally reached the foot of the second sock of the pair I started in October (!) using RiverKnits‘ Open Day 2022 Special in the colourway ‘Ankh Morpork’, having finished the gusset decreases this afternoon.

The joy of hand knitted socks is that you can make sure they fit you: if you have particularly pointy toes you can adjust the toe shaping to suit; if you have one foot a different length or shape than the other you can make them slightly different; if, like me, your ankles/lower legs are larger than your feet your socks can have more stitches in the leg than the foot. Shop bought socks do not offer this type of customisation.

For me, once I reach the heel flap on a sock my progress tends to speed up. I think because there are small clear sections it’s easier to plan and see the end result: I’ll knit the heel flap and heel turn one day, the gusset decreases another and then I’m on to the foot and it’s not long until the toe decreases start. That might also explain why I’m not a big fan of afterthought heels – knitting a long tube with no shaping until the toe feels a bit endless!

Heel Flap, Heel Turn, Sock Gusset

I’m teaching a workshop on sock knitting at Yarn O’clock on February 16th, 6.30pm – 9pm. There are one or two spaces left. Contact Anne at Yarn O’clock if you want to book.

We won’t be working on a full size sock, but one very similar to the advent mini socks; that means you’ll be able to work through all the sections of a top down heel flap sock in one workshop.

My intention is for my RiverKnits socks to be finished by the workshop so folk can see how the structure scales up to full size.

In case you thought I’d forgotten about it, my Am Byth MKAL is all up to date! Part Three will be released on Friday 10th and I will be uploading a video for one of the cast-off options. I’ll share my completed Parts 1 and 2 here next week (and on social media this Thursday).

The garden is showing signs of spring! We have snowdrops, primroses, hellebores, cyclamen and crocuses in flower and there are some very early daffodils about to open. I can’t remember if I told you we planted about 70 in the late autumn, mostly in the lawn, with flowering times from late Jan/early Feb until late May. It’s good to see them start to emerge. The rhubarb is also starting to peak above ground level again as well. Here is one of the front garden borders with lots of lovely flowers in bloom:

As you can see, I don’t believe in removing all dead leaves from the borders – the worms will do that eventually and I think it helps protect the ground from the worst frosts.

That’s all from me today. Take care, stay warm and do something that makes you happy this week. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Winter Winds

A middle aged white woman with vibrant blue hair and a purple coat stands on Llandudno Pier with the Great Orme and the sea in the background. Round her neck is a hand knitted shawl, wrapped like a scarf, in bands of gradient turquoise garter stitch and cream garter stitch lace. Her hair is being blown all around by the wind.

We went to Llandudno on Sunday. Our main mission was to photograph Llandudno Promenade. on the pier and also on the promenade. Sue even lay down on the slipway to photograph the shawl flying as I threw it in the air above her. We hadn’t banked on it being *quite* so windy and cold, but we had a lot of fun. We also managed to get lunch at The Cottage Loaf which warmed us up a treat afterwards!

The shaw pattern is now with my tech editor and it should be having a relaunch in the second half of February.

Part Two of Am Byth MKAL was released on Friday and the photo below shows you Part One and a little bit more. I even did a little video to help folk with the 1-5 increase that is used during Part Two. If you are joining in with the MKAL and want some help with that, head to my Free Video Tutorials pages.

Two typos were discovered in the Special Stitches section (not the pattern itself, just the explanation of two of the cables) of Am Byth MKAL Part Two. It’s really annoying when these slip through, but it’s been corrected and the new version has been sent out to all those who signed up for email updates. If you missed it, the instructions affected are 2/2 RPC and 2/1 RPC which had the knits and purls the wrong way round (doh!). They should read as follows:

  • 2/2 RPC          Sl 2 sts to CN and hold at back, k2, p2 from CN
  • 2/1 RPC          Sl 1 st to CN and hold at back, k2, p1 from CN

Do keep sharing progress if you are knitting along with us using the hashtags #AmBythMKAL and #Yomkal.

Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple of hours at Caffi isa, having a cup of tea (which turned into two!) and working on one of my current projects. The time spent away from other distractions was clearly helpful as last night I cast the shawl off and I blocked it this morning! This is Petulia, the third of my shawl designs for RiverKnits. As you can see it’s two colour brioche knitting and it has THE best shape – it’s just SO funky. The lighter coloured yarn is Chimera and the darker yarn is Nene 4-ply – both of which are fabulous yarns to work with.

I’m working on the chart now – brioche charts are always fun – and I’m thinking of including the sketch I used to work from as well as the chart and the written pattern. It’s a little bit like the idea of Stitchmaps, but simplified even more to give just the details of the movement of lines on the right side/light coloured rows (increases, decreases etc).

Keep an eye out for Petulia, as this shawl will hopefully be coming out in the next few months (once the charts, pattern, tech editing and photography are done).

The reason for my being at Caffi isa yesterday was so that anyone who was interested in Knitting for Beginners classes could come and have a chat with me or even have a mini taster session to see if they were interested. Actually, the one person who did come (hi Bev!) wanted to ask advice about picking up for thumbs on mitts and gloves. She’d seen my announcement that I’d be there on social media and thought she’d see if I had a spare five minutes. Well, I certainly did! Hence the second cup of tea and a lovely chat. I’m hoping to get some bookings in the next couple of days, otherwise I’ll probably need to postpone. Anyone can book a place by emailing me at kathandrewsdesigns@icloud.com or sending me a message on Facebook or Instagram.

My Sealy MacWheely fibre is now fully fledged yarn, skeined, washed and dried. I think it looks fantastic, even though there are occasional places in the yarn where the ply isn’t quite as even as you might wish for – but it is hand-spun, so it’s not meant to look the same as commercially spun yarn, is it?

Now I just need to decide which fibre I’m going to spin next!

I know I showed you this embroidery last week, but I’ve actually managed to make quite a lot of progress with it and have found the right angle for the photograph to show the stitches I’ve been doing! I’ve been working on the white and very pale beige stitches (beige currently on the needle here). If it wasn’t for the daylight magnifying lamp I wouldn’t have a hope, but these colours are (whisper it) nearly done and it *should* be a little bit easier with darker/brighter threads.

I shall be taking this with me tomorrow to Mum’s so she can see it in person, along with the current issue of The Knitter (my design is on the cover, did I mention that!?), and my Am Byth. I should probably take my socks in progress too as they are not going to finish themselves! I’m only there until Friday and there will be a lot of other things to do, but I don’t want to get caught out again like I was that other time, when I only took one project and finished it the first evening I was there!

I also made blackcurrant jam this week – but I forgot to photograph it. It’s VERY good, even though the blackcurrants had been in the freezer since July 2021…

Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Take care, stay warm and do some stuff that makes you happy this week. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Ta-da!

The most exciting news for me this week has to be the publication of The Knitter, issue 185 last Thursday. See that shawl on the cover? That’s Branwen, my design, and it’s a five part knit-along that is begin run during this and the next four issues! Part One is in this month’s magazine. It’s the top centre section of the shawl (in green). It’s a DK weight shawl, using West Yorkshire Spinners Fleece (2 skeins of cream and 3 skeins of green) and it’s sooo soft and cosy! Once I’d bought my copy of the mag in WHSmith’s I wanted to go round the town showing it to everyone and saying – look! I made that!

But not only that, this video shows you a glimpse of the (three page!) interview with lots of pics of my designs and lots about me, my designing, inspiration etc. If you ever wanted to know where it all began, this article will tell you!

Speaking of knit-alongs, this is the completed Part One of Am Byth MKAL. Also, a DK weight project, this one only uses one skein. You can see the design taking shape now, but can you work out what the project is going to be yet? All will be revealed on Friday, when Part Two is released.

I’ve had a burst of activity with my spinning in the past week. I finished spinning the braid into singles on Sunday, and today I chain plied the whole lot! The thing about chain plying is that as you are making a big loop in one hand to catch and pull the strand of yarn from the bobbin through (to form the next big loop – it’s like really fast giant finger knitting), you’re using the other hand to control the twist and your feet are working the treadles. I tend to find that the singles yarn tries to turn and twist back on itself when I’m getting going, until I get a regular rhythm going, at which point I don’t want to stop and have it all tangle up again!. This is partly because the singles are spun (twisted) in one direction and this makes the yarn unbalanced. Plying twists the yarn in the opposite direction which balances the twist and gives you a yarn that doesn’t want to turn into nightmare corkscrews.

I’m pleased with how the chain plied yarn has come out. The clear shift from one colour to the next has been maintained which I wanted, with a subtle blending of colours in places. It’s a little thicker than I was hoping for, but considering it is a 3-ply structure it’s pretty good. About a sock weight I think, but I’ll check it later once it’s been washed. I absolutely love the colours – the fibre was dyed by Sealy MacWheely.

Finally, there is some progress on mum’s picture embroidery that you can actually see! I’ve done (nearly) all of the column on the right hand side which was half a page wide (20 stitches) and three and a bit pages long (190 stitches) and I’ve made a start on the next full page width to the left. The sections where there are more colours, such as the bottom right corner, are much more interesting, but take so much more concentration – and there are about 40 different colours in that section, so it’s quite hard to keep track of as well.

I baked my first sourdough loaf of the year today as well. Audrey 2 (my starter), was living up to her name after going into semi-hibernation over Christmas, and it took a lot of feeding to get her active again! It’s a good loaf, although I dived into it for lunch before I took any pics (don’t worry, it isn’t all gone!). I shall have to remember to photograph the next one before slicing it.

There are still spaces available on my Knitting for Beginners workshops!

These are due to start on Feb 6th 1-3pm at Caffi Isa in Mynydd Isa, near Mold, Flintshire. If you or anyone you know fancies learning to knit in a small group, in a relaxed setting with access to tea/coffee and cake, contact me to book a space!

This is what we’ll be making (these are Knitting for Beginners workshops 1, 2 & 3 on my Group Workshops Tuition page):

There are also some spaces on the workshops I am giving at Yarn O’clock, but they are booking up fast! In brief they are:

  • Introduction to Socking Knitting, 16th February, 6.30-9pm
  • Stranded Colourwork, 7th March, 6.30-9pm
  • Finishing Techniques, 18th April, 6.30-9pm
  • Moebius Knitting, 18th May, 6.30-9pm

Full details are on my “Where I’ll Be” page and also on Yarn O’clock‘s website. Contact Anne to book a space on one of these.

Just before I sign off I want to tell you that I am sitting here typing this in the dark, running the laptop from the battery. There’s no problem; we’ve signed up to take part in the energy reduction trials that are happening. There was one from 5-6pm yesterday, today is 4.30-6pm. It’s amazing how many things are on or on standby all the time even when we only use them for a small part of the day. Or rather, I should say how many things were on or on standby. They’re not now – I’ve been going round unplugging stuff or switching it off at the wall! (Just like my dad – but then he used to unplug the tv aerial every night as well) The multi-sockets that each have their own switch are proving handy too. It’s also striking how much quieter the house is, which is interesting as I never really considered ‘things plugged in’ to have a noise, but I suppose they must!

Anyway, take care, stay warm. Dw i eisiau un deg un paned! (I want eleven cups of tea). Tell me what you’ve been making lately. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

All Are Welcome

A cross-stitch montage of a wide variety of pride flags and skin tones for a brightly coloured square. Within that the words "Welcome All Races, All Religions, All Sexualities, All Genders, All Nationalities, All Disabilities, All People". A white mount surrounds the stitching with a narrow red frame. The background is a pale gold carpet.

I picked up the Safe Space cross stitch from the framers today! We go to P G Framing in Mold and Paul did a fabulous job as always. I had to request a perspex front because it’s going to be hung in a school and glass isn’t allowed. Taking pictures of things behind a shiny surface is always tricky, so you have a faint reflection of me in the pic too!

On Thursday (that’s the 19th, in two days), the new issue (185) of The Knitter comes out. If everything has gone to plan there should be a pattern in there from me and… an interview! I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m beyond excited. Do let me know if you get a copy!

Do you remember those brownies I hadn’t had time to make last week? They got made on Wednesday and lasted until yesterday! Very squidgy in the middle and particularly delicious with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice-cream. Pictured is the whole bake before cutting and a small corner cut off as soon as it was cool enough (essential for quality control).

Am Byth MKAL began on Friday and I get so excited seeing people share their progress on social media. Part One is fairly quick – I had to put anything that could tell knitters what they were making into Part Two, but it looks cool none the less! It’s also amazing when people say they’ve learnt a new cast-on, a new increase, done some cool baby cables and they’re loving it even though they have no idea what it will be! (Thanks @RobandThread!). Of course, now there’s a fairly long wait until Part Two is released – a whole extra ten days from now!

Here’s a little bit (but not all by any means) of Am Byth Part One, next to the image I designed as the pattern placeholder – can you see a connection? I’ll share my completed Part One next week.

Llandudno Promenade got blocked today. Because of the crocking (excess dye that had transferred to the cream yarn) I didn’t take my usual approach and leave it to soak for 15 minutes (or longer – I have a tendency to forget things if they’re in a different room!). Instead, I immersed it in hand warm water and gave it a good squeeze – to encourage the excess dye molecules into the water – and then repeated this twice more, the last time in colder water and holding the cream sections under the running water. It seems to have done the trick as the blocking photo looks to be less blue in the sections that shouldn’t be blue than the pre-blocking photo did!

Trying to minimise the amount of floor space taken up with blocking (this shawl wasn’t a suitable candidate to try the hap stretcher out on because of the straight edges), I ended up blocking it right side down. It’s not an aggressive block at all – just a case of getting the right angles sides straight and easing out the hypotenuse. Here are the before and after blocking pics:

A series of Knitting for Beginners classes has been booked at Caffi Isa on Monday afternoons (1-3pm), on Feb 6th, 13th and 27th. (Not the 20th as that’s half-term). I did a post about them on Instagram and Facebook on Saturday. If you know anyone who would like to learn to knit, is in Flintshire or Cheshire and is able to come to an afternoon class, please point them in my direction!

I’m also hoping to arrange a series of the same classes on an evening (in Mold) as I know afternoons don’t work for a lot of people.

That’s all from me for today. Have a good week, wrap up warm (Oh, I didn’t even mention the snow!), and do stuff that makes you happy. K x

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Cymru Am Byth!

There will be no surprise I’m sure that when I chose the name of our newest MKAL I was influenced by the wonderful phrase “Cymru am byth” – Wales forever! On it’s own ‘Am Byth’ also gives a nod to some of the design features – I wonder if you can guess what they might be?

Dw i’n mwynhau dysgu Cymraeg – very much. I’m on Day 66 of my Duolingo ‘journey’ – I know that because I’m on a 66 day streak and I haven’t missed a single day since I started learning. I’m currently on Unit 8, which is the last of the ‘Intro to Welsh’ units and there has already been a noticeable increase in difficulty level! Phrases are spoken more quickly now and words are gliding into each other. I’m often very grateful to the tortoise button, which replays the phrase at a slower speed, although it does rather sound like someone speaking sarcastically slowly to the hard of thinking!

There are some words I’ve found really difficult to remember – particularly the different between the various versions of the verbs ‘did’, ‘made’ and ‘went’. The present tense is fine, but the past tense seems to have all kinds of complications! I started off the course by writing words and phrases down in my journal and those have really stuck, so my plan is to revisit the more recent lessons that had me most flummoxed and write these down as well. Sometimes writing by hand can stick in the brain more than typing – I don’t know why that is, but it seems to hold true for me when I’m trying to learn something new!

(The groovy red dragon at the top of the post is a version of a Welsh flag available from wikimedia under creative commons license, designed by NikNaks.)

Speaking of new things…

There are only three days until Am Byth MKAL is launched! You’ve still got time to buy the pattern from me or get a kit from Yarn O’clock. I’ve even recorded, subtitled and uploaded the video for the Pinwheel Cast-On. You can find it under ‘Knitting Tuition – Free Video Tutorials‘. I’ve moved things around on that page so the most recent videos are at the top as I think that makes it easier to locate the latest additions. There’s quite a collection of these short videos now.

There’s also a new page on the website! Titled “Where I’ll Be”, it lists all events and workshops I’m booked for. Two days ago, when I set up the page, there were two yarn shows listed. Now there are four workshops added as well, and there’s going to be more! I’m adding contact details and links where I can so you can go straight to the right place to book a place or a ticket.

The way it’s set up you only see one ‘event’ at a time, and you use the arrows at the right and left of the screen to move through them. I’m considering adding a calendar underneath with the same info, so you can see it all at a glance as well if you want to. Would you find that useful?

I got accepted for the yarn show I applied for last week! I really wasn’t expecting to hear back from them until after the closing date, so that was a lovely surprise. I’ll add it to the page of ‘Where I’ll Be’ once I’ve paid the invoice and it’s all confirmed.

The Safe Space cross-stitch has been stretched onto mounting board and is at the framers! He’s a busy chap, so it’s in the queue; he expects to get it framed at the end of the month. The stretching took about an hour or so and used a HUGE amount of thread! I’m showing you the back as well as the front as this work will never be seen again once framed.

Since finishing this cross-stitch and getting my magnifying lamp (I wrote about that on social media last week) I have done quite a bit on Mum’s photo embroidery. I’m not sure you can actually see much of a difference from the last time I took a pic of it (last July!), but I promise you there are at least 8 hours of stitching added in, if not more. The July 2022 pic is on the left and the January 2023 pic is on the right.

This morning I cast off the reworked Llandudno Promenade. As the pattern went on, more changes were needed, including a rewrite of the border lace as the number of stitches and rows were different from the original. The shawl will now be blocked and I’ll get the new version of the pattern written up and off to a tech editor. I’m really pleased with it, especially with how well these colours match the paintwork on Llandudno pier! You can probably see how the darker turquoise sections are shedding colour onto the cream – that’s the crocking (the excess dye rubbing off) – it *should* all just wash out when I soak it for blocking. I’ll report back next week!

That’s all for now – unbelievably it’s already 8.30pm. It looks as though the brownies I’ve been trying to make since Sunday might have to wait until tomorrow!

Take care, stay warm and do something that makes you happy this week, K x