Tag: Brioche

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Something New

Three sets of stitch markers from Yarnistry lie side by side on a wooden desk. Each set is on a wire loop attached to a rectangular white card. From left: 6 acrylic sweater shaped markers with different types of glitter embedded, 8 wooden Christmas themed markers, 8 acrylic circular markers with snowflake designs.

These beautiful stitch markers arrived today. The postman was a little concerned as the corner of the box was a bit squashed and water damaged, but I checked and everything inside was untouched! They are made by Yarnistry and they are super – I highly recommend having a look at her Etsy shop. There are lots of different items on offer – including glow in the dark stitch markers!

Last night’s workshop at Yarn O’clock went well. There were five lovely people there learning new ways to cast on and cast off and which ones work particularly well for different stitches or different purposes.

We covered four of the six samples on the notes I’d prepared for them: Garter stitch with a crocheted cast-on and a basic knitted cast-off, stocking stitch with a cable cast-on and a graft, ribbing with an alternate cable cast-on and sewn cast-off and lace with a long-tail cast-on and a Russian cast-off. We didn’t have time for the pinwheel cast-on and picot cast-off or the two-colour braided cast-on and cast-off – but we did only have two and a half hours!

They sound like simple things, but pairing up the right techniques with the right stitches makes such a difference to the finished piece of knitting and it never fails to delight me when something ‘clicks’ for someone or they learn a technique they then really want to use in a specific project.

It was the first workshop I’ve given in the shop itself since the before times and it was nice to be back, surrounded by yarn. In the early part of the year we were in the very chilly church hall, all spaced out and masked. Later in the year we moved to the Daniel Owen Centre cafe space and now we are back in the shop. We have smaller groups in the shop than in the cafe or the church hall, partly as a result of the lovely new arrangement of the shop and the beautiful new wooden counter that Anne has, but also to avoid overcrowding the space.

We were all so engrossed in what we were doing that once again I forgot to take photos of the event!

The next workshop I am giving is an Introduction to Two Colour Brioche Knitting on Thursday December 8th and I am determined to remember to get some pics then. This workshop will also be at Yarn O’clock in Mold, and there are a couple of spaces available if you would like to join us! Ring Anne at Yarn O’clock to book a place (01352 218082).

Fasten Off Yarn-a-long begins this Friday and I am delighted to be one of the participating designers again this year – and it begins with a pattern sale! Fasten Off YAL is an off-Ravelry event with a focus on patterns that are accessible (size-inclusive, colour-blindness friendly etc), and all designers have to have their patterns available on at least one platform other than Ravelry.

From November 25th until December 8th all my available individual patterns will have a 25% discount ON PAYHIP when you use the code “FO2022”. I am only putting the discount code onto Payhip, but as my website is linked to my Payhip store you can still use this discount code if you buy a pattern via my website. The only patterns it won’t work for are ‘Leaf & Vine’ cardigan as you can only buy that through KnitPicks until 2024 and the three eBook collections.

Have a look at the Fasten Off Yarn-a-long website – there is lots of info there about how you can get involved. There are games and prizes and all sorts of fun to be had. And because it’s a ‘yarn-a-long’ and not just a ‘knit-a-long’, many of the designers will be offering crochet designs, and maybe even loom knitting or Tunisian crochet designs!

You may have seen that Ceridwen has come home from The Knitter. I’m busy putting the pattern into my own house style and taking, editing and adding new photographs. It will be available as soon after the 8th December as I can manage, and there will be a new pattern discount exclusive to newsletter subscribers!

I’m also in the last stages of getting the new charts for Nevern ready to publish. Following some photography requests from KnitPicks, it occurred to me that the six squares all joined up make a jolly good lap blanket, so my plans are having a mini re-jig.

Rather than publishing the charts simply as an extension pack to Nevern Throw with the joining information only in the original pattern, I’m now thinking of publishing it as Nevern Lap Blanket (a little sibling to Nevern Throw), with all joining instructions included and highlighting the fact that the charts between the two patterns are completely interchangeable and all come from the Nevern Cross. What do you think?

There are several other things in the pipeline too and some exciting news about something I’m doing next March that I’m looking forward to sharing with you very soon!

Til next week then, take care out there, K x

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What a Week

The top part of a partly completed blackwork and cross-stitch embroidery. Four colours are used, green, black and two shades of brown, and it is a geometric pattern based on nested squares at 45 degree angles to each other.

RiverKnits‘ Open Day on Saturday was wonderful. A gorgeously sunny day that wasn’t too hot, with friendly, welcoming people to chat to and relieve of their yarn (usually in exchange for money!).

I got to meet some lovely dyers I hadn’t encountered before, such as Larissa from Travel Knitter, from whom I got this intensely coloured sock yarn. This will become a cowl with a poem by my lovely wife that has been translated into Morse code!:

and Ishrat from Fruitful Fusion, whose colour palette was so varied. I fell for this skein of 4-ply, called ‘Spring Bloom’, which reminds me very much of the colours in our front border:

It was lovely to see Becci and Markus again and make some plans (intrigued? good! I’ll tell you more soon). I came away with these wonderful skeins of Aysgarth and something else that I’m not going to share with you yet!

I also bought some of the Open Day Show Special yarn, dyed jointly by Becci from RiverKnits and Lola from Third Vault Yarns, and called ‘Ankh-Morpork’ in reference to the covers of the Terry Pratchett Discworld books that inspired the colourway. A skein of Cormo in the darker batch for me, and a skein of Corriedale and Mohair for Anne, whose birthday it is today! (Happy Birthday Anne, glad you love it!). This is my skein:

As well as all of this yarny goodness, I treated myself to some new washi tape from Katie Green Bean. I was tempted by this at Wonderwool and seeing it again I couldn’t resist. Washi tape with hand drawn sheep! How could you resist??

So, we had a great couple of hours there and also chatted with Sharon from Dragon Hill Studio, talked to the sheep, listened to Johnny from Garthenor Organic talk about the process of transforming fibre into wool and went for a walk around the little village of Weedon Bec and along the canal towpath.

The walk was particularly important as it had taken three and a half hours to get there (traffic delays plus a much-needed service station stop added to the two and a half we had expected) and then nearly three and a half to get home (more traffic). Another time I will work out a route that bypasses the M6 completely…!

And then last night was the first of a series of three workshops in Mold, in conjunction with Anne at Yarn O’clock. We had the cafe of the Daniel Owen Centre, which is a good, well-lit space with plenty of tables that they didn’t mind us moving around to suit.

The workshop was two-colour brioche knitting and the six ladies who attended were wonderful! Despite being a bit flummoxed initially by the Italian two-colour cast-on, they all persevered with good humour and made great progress! Everyone got the main fabric sorted out, learnt how to do an increase and all tried a right-leaning decrease. We didn’t get as far as the sewn cast-off, but they have a reliable youtube link to refer to if they want to try it and several other options were given as well.

The next workshop is in two weeks at the same venue and is Beginners’ Crochet – there are still a couple of spaces on that one.

In designing news I have completed the charts for my Nevern Expansion Pack and will be knitting a couple of samples of the (six!) new squares soon. Two of them are based on this part of the Nevern Cross:

The veg patch is filling out, the embroidery I started recently (main pic) is going well (and the deadline is looking slightly more reachable) and I’ve even got the rest of my summer clothes out of the vacuum pack bag in the wardrobe!

So that’s been the week in my little world. I’ve deliberately not written about wider events as some of them are beyond words, but if you have been impacted by what’s been occurring around the world recently, I am so sorry.

Hold your loved ones close when you can and tell them you love them. Stay safe and make stuff. K x

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Be Careful What You Wish For

A wooden box of tissues, a packet of paracetamol and a strip of Strepsils lie on a small wooden table.

Yesterday afternoon I was bemoaning the fact that I had a dentist appointment for one (maybe two) fillings this morning. One was the large molar I broke back in February, the other an upper tooth with fractures that were discovered during an X-ray at my last appointment.

I didn’t want to go to the dentist today as I was nervous. I have limited movement in my jaw so holding my mouth open for long is painful (and it was a 40 minute appointment!) – that was worrying me more than the injection and more than the fillings themselves.

And then yesterday evening I began to feel ropey. During the night and this morning I could barely swallow – my throat feels like it’s full of razorblades. I’m now sneezing very loudly and repeatedly. Bugger. It seems I have my wife’s cold. I say ‘cold’ and not Covid as we’ve both tested negative recently, though I will check again tomorrow.

So, I rang the dentist first thing and croaked that I would not be able to make my appointment. It’s been rebooked to mid-June. I promise not to wish I didn’t have to go next time!

On the positive side of things I have only one chapter (16 minutes) left to capture still pics from for my Introduction to Lace Knitting Course and I’ve been swatching for my next two in-person knitting workshops – closed ring cables and 2-colour brioche. The first isn’t for another couple of weeks, fortunately.

Three small foam playmate have knitted samples pinned out on them. There are five swatches with a variety of closed ring cables in grey Aran weight and two identical brioche swatches in maroon and silvery lilac 4-ply yarn - one on left washed and stretched a little, the other not.

I cast on Mum’s new bed socks last night – for some reason I had to do it three times as things kept going amiss. That should probably have been a sign that I wasn’t well, shouldn’t it!? I used the alternate cable cast-on that I learnt knitting a Woolly Wormhead hat as it gives a lovely smooth edge to a ribbed cast-on. I also went up a couple of needle sizes for the cast-on to ensure they stretch enough that Mum will be able to use them even when her legs are bad.

One inch of 1x1 ribbing on a top down sock on dpns in purple/white yarn. It is resting on the ball of wool on my blue dress.

So, it’s a short one from me today. Stay safe, keep well, wear a mask when you can and keep knitting! K x

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What you got cooking?

How is this the last blog post of July already? Time really has been flying past. This morning saw some much needed rain along with a fanfare from the thunder. The rain has also brought with it some cooler temperatures which I have been taking full advantage of.

Yesterday morning was harvesting: the rest of the gooseberries got turned into the crumble shown in the post picture. It was gorgeous and there’s some left for tonight. It goes really well with vanilla soya yoghurt.

All of the blackcurrants which were washed, picked over and frozen in two bags (I didn’t remember to photograph these) and the redcurrants… Those redcurrants have been worrying me if you remember. The wood pigeons have been eating as many as they could get their beaks on and attempting to sit on the stems of the bush despite the fact that the stems were breaking under them. I was beginning to think there wouldn’t be any left for us.

However! Once I got down into the ‘underskirts’ of the redcurrant bush there was lots of fruit still there waiting to be picked. So I picked them all.

Once all the fruit was washed and picked over, the crumble made and the blackcurrants frozen I realised there wasn’t really any space in the freezer for the redcurrants. So, I stripped them all off their little ‘strings’ and got ready to make jelly.

A jam pan half filled with very ripe redcurrants.

This is a two day process as I like to leave the bag overnight. The tea-towels and clothes pegs are to keep out any curious insects!

This morning I was stiff as a board when I got up (that’s what an hour and a half in the garden mostly bent double will do for you when you’re me), but I was keen to see how much juice there was. With this recipe you don’t know how much sugar you’ll need until this stage (and so, of course, I had bought far too much), as it’s proportional to the juice volume.

The juice and sugar boiled up nicely and the jars were washed once again in the dishwasher and then sterilised in the oven. 12 jars. I realised this was too many, but needed to put the dishwasher on before I’d measured the juice.

I got 3 1/2 jars. Not a lot, but considering I had wondered whether we would get any at all, this is good. And it’s such a beautiful colour – and smells and tastes AMAZING! I’m so glad we have homemade redcurrant jelly in the house again.

3 1/2 jars of redcurrant jelly cooling on the breadboard in front of the jam pan.

But then I had 8 sterilised jars unused and the cooking apples from mum were just starting to look past their best. What to do? Naturally, I made the chutney.

Apples, onions and malt vinegar cooking in the jam pan as the chutney begins.

Following Mum’s additional notes (she adds onion which I’d forgotten about until the apples had been simmering for 30 minutes) I cooked it and stirred and jumped out of the way when it spat at me. Thank goodness my lovely wife suggested I wear my ‘hair-dyeing top’ today. I only got a few boiling hot specks on my arms (and toe). It did indeed take ‘a while’ to become the ‘required consistency’ – well over an hour once all the ingredients were finally in, but we now have 5 jars of homemade apple chutney with onion, garlic, brown sugar, sultanas, ground ginger, mixed spice, cayenne pepper and chilli flakes. It smelt glorious (and tasted good when I tried a bit that had dropped on the side).

The deep irony of the redcurrants is that we spent six hours sorting out the garage on Saturday and I discovered that I actually have some fruit netting. All of those redcurrants could have been ours!

Not all of my kitchen endeavours have been successful this week. At the weekend I made the worst loaf of my life…

A very flat sourdough loaf cooling on the rack.

The sourdough group I’m in on Facebook gave me lots of very helpful tips to avoid this happening in the future, so I’m not giving up!

And what of the knitting news I promised you?

I have been having lots of fun with the Brioche + Mystery shawl by Suzanne Sommer and will start the bobbles this evening. I do love a clear well-written pattern and this one is a delight. I’ve always been fussy about patterns, and I’m not sure whether this has increased since I started writing my own!

Into the Vortex continues apace – we are past the half-way point now with four parts being out in the world and there are three parts left to be released. Here is what Parts One-Three look like:

Parts One-Three of Into the Vortex MKAL in dark blue Nene 4-ply and pale multicoloured Chimera both by Riverknits lying on a light gold carpet.

When I showed you the very beginnings of the two I had cast on to knit in ‘real-time’ with the MKAL I didn’t tell you about the third. I’m experimenting with something with this one, using 100g of John Arbon Knit by Numbers 4-ply in one colour and 5 (or maybe 6) mini-skeins in all the shades of another. The experiment part is that this MKAL was initially designed for only 50g of each of two 4-ply yarns. I’m trying to see if I can successfully build off the MKAL to create a bigger version, using twice as much yarn. If it works out, this bigger version will be added to the pattern, so if you’ve joined the MKAL you’ll get this version as well (it might just take a little while, so don’t expect it the week after Part Seven is released!). I’m not going to show you any pics of this one yet – you’ll have to wait!

The other piece of knitting news is to do with pattern pricing. Always a fun topic. Into the Vortex and Angel of the North have both been priced at £5. My other patterns are currently £4, with a few at £3.60. My July Newsletter let my subscribers know that my whole pattern portfolio will be going up in price at the end of August. Those currently at £4 will become £5. Those at £3.60 will become £4.20. Subscribers will get an ongoing discount code to use along with a multi-purchase code. If you have your eye on any of my patterns at the moment and you’re not already a subscriber you could buy them before the end of August, or sign up to my newsletter and get the code. Or both! Why not sign up anyway?

That’s all from me for today, have a good week and keep knitting! K x