I’m delighted to be exhibiting this year at the CHRISTMAS WOOL SHOW, an exciting festival of knitting, crochet and woolly fibre crafts.
Please join us at the National Conference Centre near Birmingham (B92 0EJ), from 10am to 4pm on 14th & 15th November 2026. The venue is at junction 6 of the M42, which is a couple of miles from the NEC and Birmingham International train station.
An amazing range of top class exhibitors from all over the country
A great range of workshops
A fabulous venue with loads of FREE parking
A café selling a range of hot and cold food and drinks
Free demonstrations from local guilds
A charity magazine stall
A yarn winding service
Lots of room to sit and chat
So please come to visit. There’s so much to see, do and buy.
It’s not quite the longest night yet, but it’s close. If you haven’t heard the Mary Chapin Carpenter song of this name, I highly recommend a listen. Here’s a link to it! This morning it was still quite dark at about 8.30am, but now the sun is shining on the garden and I can even see some substantial patches of blue sky.
My plan of doing a 30 mins of embroidery at a time, rather than aiming to complete a set amount seems to be paying dividends. Although my December aim of spending 30 minutes every day either spinning or stitching hasn’t been achieved, I can definitely see progress in the picture on the right, compared with the one on the left taken two weeks ago. Slow and steady will get me there!
Yesterday morning I took part in a video discussion panel along with two other designers, Woolly Wormhead who is a Hat Architect, and Leela Francombe of Leela Mary Knits who specialises in brioche shawls. Sadly Little Seal Designs was unwell and unable to join us. This Zoom event was part of the Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long and was one of several that are taking place during December.
We were asked lots of questions that we each answered in turn about our designing, and how we came to be in this business and it was a really interesting and fun hour.
9am on a Monday morning (as it was in the UK – it was 8pm for Leela in Australia and 10am for Woolly in Italy) may not have been the time that most people would be available to log in and join us, but never fear! The discussion panels are all recorded and uploaded to YouTube, so you have the chance to watch it whenever you have the time. Ours is not there yet, but it will be soon. You may even get some sneak peeks at upcoming designs! All the discussions from previous years are there too, with a wide range of knitting and crochet designers talking about their work, so it’s worth a look.
Last Wednesday I decided to learn a new-to-me technique – working colour work brioche cables! If this sounds like a brain-bender to you then you are correct, but I jumped in (like I do) and got myself a copy of Dulcify by Synaptic Stitches, which is a great looking hat pattern, found some appropriate yarn in my sport-weight yarn box and cast on.
Last night I finished it! The crown did get quite tricky, managing the three yarns and DPNs as the stitch count got smaller and smaller, but I did it and the resulting hat is very cosy. Because of the stranding of the cable colours, you don’t end up with a reversible fabric as you do with regular two colour brioche, but the stranding helps maintain the structure of the hat and stops it getting too baggy or stretchy.
Hat selfies are not my strong point, but this gives you a good idea of what my version of Dulcify looks like:
I will definitely try this technique again in the future! I’m quite tempted by the Banneton pattern by the same designer and I like her ‘pay what works for you’ model with coupon codes right there on the pattern page to give 15%, 25% or 50% off the list price. Two colours of yarn only are used in Banneton, along with some intricate cabling.
If you’re on ‘the socials’ you may have noticed that I joined Threads a couple of days ago. It seems like a friendly and chatty place! If you’re on there, feel free to say hi and/or follow me.
Last week I told you about some of the 7 (!) yarn shows I’ll be at next year. I’ve now started thinking about how my design work is going to map out in 2024, and which of the calls for submission that have recently come through I will submit ideas to.
Currently I have a design coming out in May with Knit Now, and I also will be working on another shawl using McIntosh yarn. I’m hoping to have some more work published with The Knitter too.
As you know, I’m also working on the adult version of Honeybun, which I need to finish and get tech edited. I’ll have the rights return to me of four other designs which I’ll then be able to publish myself.
I want to work on some more options for Bargello Aurora – creating a cowl and a vertically knit scarf. Although a knitter could create these from the pattern as it is, it does help folk if there is a sample they can see to show them what the finished item will actually look like, along with precise instructions! So that’s quite a few things already (even the patterns that are coming back to me will require a certain amount of work to get them into my own pattern style, possibly with new photography) and I’ve got lots of other ideas floating around in my head! I think the best plan will be to write it all out in my new journal – I may even need to park some plans until 2025!!
This is my last blog post for 2023 – I’ll be back on January 2nd to tell you all about the exciting exhibition in Oswestry that I’m taking part in next month. In the meantime, I hope you have a good Christmas/Yule/Solstice, however you celebrate it, hold your loved ones close and I’ll see you on the other side. K x
On Saturday my lovely wife and I attended the Buckley Christmas Market and had a really great day talking to everyone who stopped by the stand to look, ask questions, chat and buy things. It’s been the most successful Christmas event I’ve had a stand at, and the atmosphere in the shopping precinct was buzzing and busy. The coasters were particularly popular!
Buckley Town Band played in the morning and Shelby’s Place Singers gave their inaugural performance of six Christmas songs in the afternoon! We were even accompanied by some very rhythmic jingle bells which added greatly to the festive feel. I’ve already started thinking about what we’ll learn to sing in the New Year ready for the next market at Easter time!
It was a full day; we arrived to set up at 7.30am and the market finished at 4pm – we were very glad to get everything back into the car and then into the house before the storm winds really took off!
Today I finished Part 3 of Barragán Shawl KAL which, as you no doubt know by now, is being published in four parts by The Knitter. I surprised myself by using slightly more yarn than I’d expected to (though I did still have enough), and I’ve been trying to work out why. My conclusion is that the first time I knitted it, while I was designing it, I was knitting faster. I was working to a deadline and I had to knit several sections of the shawl twice, ripping it out when I wasn’t fully satisfied with links between parts.
This time I’ve been ‘knitting along’. I worked out how many rows I need to knit each day to complete one part of the shawl before the next part was published and, for the most part, I’ve only been knitting that much. This difference in both speed and focus makes me wonder if my tension while I’ve been knitting this second shawl has been looser as I’ve been more relaxed about it? Relaxed, that is, apart from today when I began to wonder if there would be a game of yarn chicken in my future (there wasn’t!) and so knitted the final two full repeats of the stitch pattern in one go.
It’s made me think about tension/gauge again and how frustrating it is when knitters say they never knit a tension swatch as they always ‘knit to tension’. How can they? The tension listed on any given pattern is that of the designer while they were working on the pattern – not that of anyone else, and it’s entirely possible that a change of needle size might be required to achieve the stated tension. But that can only be discovered by working, washing and blocking a swatch.
The stitches and rows listed on a yarn ball band are considered the ‘standard’ tension for that yarn when working stocking stitch using specified needles, but that doesn’t mean that is your tension, nor that it is the designers’ tension. And what if the designer is using different needles from the ‘standard’ ones for that yarn weight, such as with lace knitting, where the needle size tends to be larger than you’d use for stocking stitch? In those cases the ‘standard’ tension is almost irrelevant – or at least guaranteed to be different from that of the pattern. And, as it seems, speed of knitting and levels of relaxation can also make a difference to a knitter’s tension, as even a slight change in tension that doesn’t show up much in stitch or row counts can fractionally affect how much yarn each stitch is using.
It’s a fascinating topic and it’s really interesting to me how knitters vary so much in their tension. I’ll probably write more about this in the future and I’m even tempted to get some data by measuring the (unblocked) tension of knitters in workshops who will all be using the same yarn and needle sizes, but who undoubtedly will have different tensions in what they are producing.
All that remains now is Part 4 (out on December 28th) which is the edging worked in the buff colour and the all-important blocking.
The other project I’ve made some progress with this week is the adult version of Honeybun. The colour work sections of the sleeves are now complete and I’m soon to move into the stocking stitch section where the increases happen.
I shall work on this while I watch Vigil later this evening! If you’ve not seen any of this and have access to iPlayer I highly recommend it. There have been 2 episodes so far and it is really rather gripping.
Have you had a look at my ‘Where I’ll Be’ page on the website lately? There are some more things to add (once the exhibitors for events are publicly announced), but it’s looking like an exciting 2024 for me.
Highlights so far:
10th January – Introduction to Lace Knitting workshop at Shaz’s Shabby Chic in Buckley, 6.30-8.30pm
19-26th January – Wool-in Garden City. A week-long yarn festival in the Howard Centre at Welwyn Garden City. During this event I will be taking part in a ‘Meet the Designer’ panel discussion with other designers (on Sat 20th) and teaching an Introduction to Brioche Knitting workshop (on Sun 21st).
9-10th March – East Anglia Yarn Festival at the Norfolk Showground Arena, Norwich
18-19th May – Buxton Wool Gathering at the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton
And we are hoping to run Yarn Gathering in Mold again in September!
Add to this three additional yarn shows I’ve been accepted for and you can see that the year is going to be busy! Thank goodness for Floella (my new-to-me estate car) who will be essential in transporting everything to each event.
Next week will be my final blog post of 2023 as I will be taking a week off between Christmas and New Year. Thank you for reading my posts – and especially those of you who take the time to comment; it’s always very much appreciated.
We’ve come to the last blog post of the year! I know there is still one Tuesday left, but I am taking a week off (!), so my next post after today will be in 2023. I’ll still be posting periodically on social media during the next two weeks, but not daily.
Speaking of social media, I’m now on Mastodon (@KathAndrews@toot.wales) as well as Twitter (@KathAndrews7), Instagram (Kath_Andrews_Designs) and Facebook (Kath Andrews Designs)! I’m finding my feet there and that’s where I share my progress in learning Welsh. This week I learnt how to say “Dw i’n hoffi gwisgo sgert a ffrog” – I like wearing a skirt and dress (yes, both at once, it’s called layering). Also; dw i’n gwisgo siwmper newydd, heddiw! (I’m wearing a new jumper today). It’s not hand-knitted, but it’s 80% wool and 20% recycled nylon, from Seasalt. It’s what I’m wearing in the pic of me and my lovely wife while we were in Chester this morning.
Christmas is only five days away now, but the cake is decorated, most of the cards are written (just the very local ones to do later today), everything is wrapped and the tree looks fab. Apologies for the very poor styling of the photo – a tub of tomatoes next to the cake isn’t exactly slick is it? It is however, very real.
I only made one knitted gift this year, which I shared on here a few months ago. Socks for one of my niblings – they know they’re getting them as we did a ‘try on’ part way through the first sock to make sure the fit was right, so I’m not spoiling any surprises here. They were knitted with British BFL/Nylon yarn from The Knitting Goddess in semi solid black and transgender flag colourways.
There have been times in the past where I’ve wrapped up one sock and a second one in progress on the needles, and another occasion where I’ve wrapped up a pattern book with a note saying “choose the style you like and I’ll make it for you”! That was when I was working full time in a school as well – it’s good to be more in control of my time now and to have been able to get these finished a while ago.
Looking back on the working year there has been a LOT happening – I published nine patterns during the year (they’re all in the picture above), completed my online course Introduction to Lace Knitting for Craftucation, taught several workshops, some for Yarn O’clock and some at The Knit-Tea Retreat, was a vendor at my first yarn show (Pop-Up Wool Show), jointly organised a yarn show (Yarn Gathering), had space on the RiverKnits stand at Yarndale, was on the cover of The Knitter with my first design with them and took part in the Fasten Off Yarnalong once more. There’s loads of other stuff too that hasn’t even come to fruition yet, but has been bubbling along in the background.
Next year I will be adding a new page to my website – a “Where I will be/What’s on” page listing events and workshops, which I think will be even more useful as I get out and about more.
The event that will be happening first in 2023 is my next MKAL (mystery knit along) with Yarn O’clock. Called “Am Byth”, it just requires 100g of DK yarn (We are using West Yorkshire Spinners Croft DK) and 3.5mm needles (dpns or circulars). Can you believe it will be our 7th MKAL since September 2018!?!
There will be three parts to the MKAL, each released on a Friday:
13th Jan – Part One
27th Jane – Part Two, where you find out what it is you are making!
10th Feb – Part Three
To take part, you can buy a kit from Anne at Yarn O’clock at £15, or just the pattern at £5 from either Yarn O’clock or myself. I will be adding a ‘placeholder’ for the design with just the basic info to the MKALs page in the Patterns section of my website, to Payhip, Ravelry and Lovecrafts very soon so you can buy the pattern if you want to get it from me. The three parts of the pattern will be uploaded to those places by 10am GMT on the dates given. We’ll be sharing our progress on all the socials using the hashtags #AmBythMKAL and #YOMKAL.
And you might want to keep en eye out for Issue 185 of The Knitter…!
For now, though, stay warm, stay safe, and hold those you love close. Take care one and all and thanks for reading! K x
Last Sunday was Advent Sunday, so we put the Christmas tree up and decorated it. It took a little bit longer this year (maybe we’re a bit older?), but it was good.
A couple of hours after we had finished, the power went out. Storm Arwen did most of her damage on Friday night in our area, so we were surprised to get a power cut on late Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t the tree – we checked and the whole street and most of the town was in darkness.
It’s not until something as ‘invisible’ as electricity goes that you realise how much you rely on it. The heating went off as the boiler itself is powered by electricity. All the lights, except one USB chargeable lamp, went out. We couldn’t make a cup of tea.
So we scrabbled about in the dark to find the small candlesticks and the taper candles and lit three of those. Once it got chilly we lit the gas fire (ignition is battery powered and it had its service less than a week ago!). Carrying the candles into the kitchen to make a quick stove top casserole, we discovered the ignition on the hob is run off the mains, so back to the matches to get that on. We lit the candelabra with the multi-coloured candles that has been on the dining table in the kitchen unused for ages. Going to the bathroom meant taking one of the candles with us.
But it was so quiet. We sat and did a crossword by candlelight and talked. The constant hum of electrical equipment that is always on the edge of our awareness had stopped and it was peaceful.
The power cut only lasted two and a half hours for us – barely anything compared to the four days some people in Wales have endured. But it made us stop, reflect and be grateful for the many things we still did have and were able to do (even without electricity for a little while). When the power came back on (as we sat down to eat and just in time for the Strictly results show) we were glad, but there’s something in that still quietness we had imposed on us that I don’t want to lose.
Today sees the start of the Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long for 2021 which runs until the end of the year. The discount code (valid from 9pm tonight EST until 11.59pm 6th December EST) is FO2021 and gives the same 25% discount for all patterns (well over 2000) from all the designers who are involved – that’s 101 of us. My page for the event is here.
In knitting progress, I’m back on track with the socks – the first leg is finished and I’ve started the heel flap.
I emailed my pattern with four days to spare before the deadline. I’m almost halfway through the sample for my second secret knitting and last night I knitted a bauble. I used the blank chart at the back of Arne & Carlos’ 55 Christmas Balls to Knit book to create a treble clef design and I’m quite pleased with it. I’ll be making two as Christmas gifts. It’s been a couple of years since I last made one of these baubles and I’m glad I still have the book to refer to for the shaping.
I’ve also cast on another design-in-progress of mine as I’ve decided to knit a sample in my size as I finish the write up of the pattern – partly to check the numbers and pattern writing and partly to get a new jumper! Unfortunately this is another thing I can’t show you yet, but I can show you the yarn I’m using. It’s Fleece by West Yorkshire Spinners, a really smooth DK yarn in Bluefaced Leicester wool – I’ve done the ribbing of the back so far and it’s working up beautifully. The colour is called Bramble.
The really tricky decision for today will be which of these projects do I take with me to my mum’s for the next few days? Actually, I think I know the answer to that – all of them.
Take care, have a look at the Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long (it’s for crocheters as well as knitters), wear your mask and stay safe out there. K x
Today I want to tell you a little about the ‘other’ side of my business, the wood burning, non-yarny side.
In May last year I accompanied my wife up Snowdon Mountain Railway with a number of pupils from her school and their families. It was a great adventure, despite the cloud being so dense that we couldn’t see anything from the top. When we got back down to Llanberis we had a wander around and, as there was a triathlon happening on the same day, ended up in a small area with seating and a few shops near the slate museum to have our lunch. One of the shops sold lovely wooden items that had been decorated with pyrography. We bought a train whistle and pin cushion. Sue expressed the belief that she could do that and would like to have a go.
On return home we looked into getting a pyrography machine and some wooden ‘blanks’ to experiment with. We both had a go and I seemed to have the steadier hand and the patience for it. I burned some coasters for the families who travelled up Snowdon with us, celebrating our journey and some other items followed.
This led to some knitting related wooden treats that I sold at the Pop-Up Shop and craft fairs I attended, and, inevitably, some Christmas themed ones too. Christmas is coming once more, whether we are allowed to travel to be with our families or not, and I have added a wider range of Christmas themed gifts to my website and Payhip shop. They are all only £3 each and can all be customised/ personalised/ made completely bespoke for only £1 extra, plus postage.
I burn everything by hand, completely freehand. There are no stencils, prints or lasers involved. This does mean that there is variation in each item and a little irregularity on occasion, but they are truly hand decorated. Some of them are knitting-themed, some are not; the bonus of this is that you can support a small business whether or not you are, or know, a knitter! Go on, have a look. Make a one-woman business do a little happy dance. It is my birthday.
