Yarn O’clock & Kath Andrews Designs are delighted to be hosting Yarn Gathering once again for its fourth year at the Daniel Owen Centre in Mold.
Entry is FREE!!
As well as being one of the organisers I am also exhibiting and selling my kits and designs at Yarn Gathering.
We have a lovely range vendors with us this year, all within an hour or so of Mold, showcasing their wonderful talents and products. Because the show is larger we are using three rooms in the Daniel Owen Centre; the cafe, the main hall and Room 4 upstairs.
See the main Yarn Gathering page for the full details.
If you follow me on social media (Twitter, Instagram or Facebook), you will have seen my post yesterday explaining that this week’s blog post would be delayed a day. If you’ve been waiting and didn’t know, I’m sorry. It will be worth the wait though, promise!
On Sunday I went to Wonderwool at the Royal Welsh Showground, Builth Wells. It has long been my favourite yarn show, partly because the scale of the buildings means you can move about freely and there are plenty of areas of seating as well as a HUGE number of vendors exhibiting their wares.
It was wonderful and slightly overwhelming to be back at a real live yarn show. It’s the first one I’ve been to since Yarndale in September 2019, in the ‘before times’ and I haven’t seen this many human beings in one day since then. There were people who I’ve only communicated with online before, via Zoom or social media, that I was able to talk to face to face for the first time. I think it says something about how effective Zoom and FaceTime are that it didn’t feel as though I hadn’t ‘met’ some of these people ‘in the flesh’ before.
So, as you can see from the main image, I came back with quite a haul of goodies. Let’s have a look at them, shall we?
Fibre for spinning first!
This is a wonderful braid of British Bluefaced Leicester dyed by Sealy MacWheely. It was my first purchase of the day and the colours and softness just made me grin. That and the lovely Katie who dyed it was so great to chat to. 😊 I’m thinking a chain ply would give me a great striped yarn, but I might just do a 2-ply and go for some funky barber-pole stripes.
This little beauty is a Merino gradient dyed by Cassiopeia Yarns. Again, it’s utterly soft and I’m going to adore spinning it. This one is definitely going to be chain plied as I want to maintain the gorgeous gradient effect from one end to the other. Maybe superfine for a lace shawl?
Rachael from Cat and Sparrow sold me this wonderful braid of Polwarth. The colourway is called ‘Ar Lan y Môr’ which is Welsh for ‘Beside the Sea’ and it is also the name of a traditional Welsh folk song. It was only today that I realised this is the same colourway I bought from her before via the online version of the Knit-Tea Retreat last year, which is now a yarn that Mum is gradually knitting into a cowl! Rachael is one of the people it was hard to believe I’d never met ‘in real life’ before as we’ve chatted online quite a bit and it was super to chat face to face on Sunday.
I’d not come across Velvet Sixpence before, but this braid told me it was definitely coming home with me! Another Polwarth (SO soft and a delight to spin), I think this one is going to become something for my lovely wife, as orange is very much her colour.
So, that was the fibre – now on to the yarn!
The first ball of yarn that came into my possession on Sunday was free!! I went up to the Simply Knitting / The Knitter stand and was offered the opportunity to spin the wheel. Whichever colour the arrow landed on indicated the basket from which I could select a ball of yarn. Cool, eh? I was delighted to find this ball of self-striping Novita yarn. It’s an aran weight 75% wool, 25% polyamide which will make either some chunky bedsocks or a hat. The yarn is actually striped with three distinct shades of blue and a green, although at first glance you might think the palest blue is white. And I had a chat with Kirstie and the ladies too!
Now this yarn is something special. Northampton Shear laceweight yarn from Riverknits. It was lovely to meet Becci and Markus in person and chat away. Again, I encountered them first through the Knit-Tea Retreat and then followed them on social media (that sounds a bit like stalking, doesn’t it? I promise it wasn’t!). Markus joined in with our most recent KAL – Calon Cariad – and he knit his from this very yarn. The shawl was on display as part of their stall which was very exciting to see and I wish I’d taken a photo – though you can see it if you look at the Riverknits Instagram page. Northampton Shear is a single ply yarn that is 100% Shetland wool from Braunston, Northamptonshire that is spun & hand dyed in the UK. The way the dye is picked up over the natural colours of the wool is stunning, giving a really, rich layered effect.
This skein of ‘Dark Forest’ from Mothy and the Squid was one of the later purchases of the day. I love the range of greens in the yarn and also the black that stripes through it in places. Being a Superwash Merino / nylon mix this will make long lasting socks, but it is also soft and silky enough for something close to your neck.
I’d not heard of The Crafty Bird before, but the range of colours she had were lovely. This is ‘Crisp Autumn Day’. It’s another Superwash Merino / Nylon mix, but it’s a different base from the green above. It’s also slightly thinner as 100g brings a very generous 425m.
I love Kauni yarns with the really long colour shifts, though I’ve only used their 4-ply so far. SKD Yarns sell this and it’s really quite funny to have travelled nearly 100 miles to buy a ball of yarn from people who are based less than five miles from where I live! The colours are really me. It was my cheapest wool purchase of the day, at £8.42 for 800m laceweight – an absolute bargain!
I’ve made a pair of Raggsocks from a kit from Midwinter Yarns before and they are my mum’s favourite bedsocks, guaranteed to fit no matter what her ankles are up to. So, I thought I would make another pair and this colourway is just right for her. Mr Midwinter looked very dashing in his kilt and I spoke to a lovely lady (not Estelle, but possibly her mum) who almost got me buying a sweater’s worth of their Ulligen Recycled Yarn (made from scraps of wool from the textiles industry that would otherwise go to waste) for a ‘Confetti’ sweater by Veera Valimaki. I resisted the urge (just about), but I’m sure it’s a yarn I will be using at some point – it was fab.
Finally, there were some non-wool purchases – apart from the cup of tea and vegan fruit cake that were very much appreciated!
First off all, I bought a pattern from Anniken Allis and had a nice chat with her. I know I design lace shawls myself, but this is a shape I’ve neither knitted nor used myself before and it really intrigues me. The lace patterns in it are beautiful too. I think the wedge shape in the centre makes it a Faroese style shawl. Maybe I will use some of the laceweight yarn I bought on Sunday for it and make a double Wonderwool momento!
As I was travelling from Wonderwool to Mum’s on Sunday afternoon, and it was her birthday on Monday, I really wanted to be able to find her a little gift from the show as part of her birthday present. These hand coiled coasters from Lilliputwight were perfect! They’re in the centre of the picture here. Unfortunately I didn’t take a separate photo of them before I left Mum’s yesterday. She is very happy with them – particularly as they go very well with her quilted placemats and the coiled rope means they have a much more ‘grabby’ surface than the glossy picture coasters she has, making them practical as well as beautiful.
You couldn’t miss the amazing hand-turned pot in the picture above, could you? It’s stunning and the blue/green is from two resin inserts that were sandwiched into the wood before turning. This was a gift for Sue, my lovely wife. It was given immediate pride of place among her pen pots (which is what I thought she would use it for), though I’ve yet to show her the magic that occurs when you place a light inside the pot – it glows through the resin! The pot was from Turning Amber Woodcraft, the husband to All Wool that Ends Wool who were right at the end of Hall 2.
What a haul, eh? As well as talking to lots of stallholders, one of the lovely things about a show like this is striking up conversation with likeminded people when you sit down for a cup of tea. I encountered several friends during the day as well which was great – it’s always good to see some familiar faces in a crowd!
Yarn shows are also a place where you can wear your hand-knits knowing they’ll be appreciated by others for the work that has gone into it as well as the colour of the yarn or pretty shape.
I chose to wear my Meg March shawl and got so many compliments on it. I know that knitters always want to know the pattern name of pieces they admire, so I went prepared by taking some of my Moo business cards. I’m glad I did as I ended up handing out quite a few and even sold two copies of the pattern during the day to people I’d spoken to! (Thanks Sealy MacWheely and Roy!).
It was quite a day – a real grand day out. Wearing a mask for the whole day was no problem – though I did nearly forget I was wearing it at one point when I went to sip my water – that could have been messy.
So, you can see why after that and a couple of days at Mum’s I was not really capable of writing this post when I got home yesterday evening – it’s taken two and a half hours as it is!!
The rest of today will be spent catching up with stuff, patting yarn and fibre and continuing to work on the still photos for my new online course.
Take care, stay safe and do what makes you happy, K x
Following last week’s excitement of getting the Little Orme Hat pattern and The Little Orme Collection out into the world (and photographed at the Little Orme, too!), there has been a real change of activity in the past couple of days.
I’ve done lots of knitting on my garment commission and I *so* wish I could show it to you, because I am absolutely in love with it. However, you (and I) will have to wait until October before it gets revealed.
As I can’t tell you very much at all about the current main knitting project in my life, I shall have to focus on the other things I’ve been doing. I was very kindly sent a bag of Bowmont Merino fleece locks a little while ago, and over the past few days I’ve been cleaning them. Fortunately, the kind person who sent them to me also sent a couple of links to some very helpful videos (thank you, Anne M and YouTube!), so I had some idea of how to go about this. The change of colour was quite astounding, although the first dip in really hot soapy water and rinse in even more really hot water left quite a lot to be desired. So, they got dunked again, and this time came out gleaming.
Today I attempted to spin some of them – the idea being to spin the yarn as finely as possible. This was much easier said than done, even to get it to catch onto the leader yarn to get going. Eventually it did though and I got about two and a half locks spun, before frustration at the constant falling apart of the yarn finally got to me. So I took a deep breath and put that to one side for the time being.
And then to console myself I got out a plait of Polworth fibre dyed by Rachael of Cat and Sparrow. I got this at The Knit-Tea Retreat marketplace and it was said to be a great fibre type for newer spinners. I love it. As well as the fact that I’m not attempting to spin as finely as possible with this, it’s a gorgeous fibre that so far is behaving beautifully.
Do you remember me talking about the next Craftucation course I’m working on? It’s called An Introduction to Lace Knitting and goes through all the important aspects of lace knitting. You learn many of the common stitches one at a time (yarn overs and eight types of knit decreases!), before putting them together into a practice piece, as well as learning how to follow both a written lace pattern and a lace chart. You then move onto a similar but larger and slightly more challenging small blanket/throw. In this you learn about lifelines – the amazing lengths of thread that stop your knitting unravelling any further – and how to insert and make use of them. You also work a knitted on lace edging and block your finished piece. How cool is all that? All you need to know before undertaking this course is how to cast on, knit, purl and cast off. If you can follow a basic pattern already that is a bonus.
Here is the practice piece:
I’ve recorded a fair chunk of this course already, but I can’t record the next part until my skin heals a bit more. The sudden change back to very cold weather has caused my knuckles to split and that’s not a great look close up on video. I want people to be looking at what my hands are doing rather than the state they’re in!
Hopefully I’ll be able to record the next section soon, but the joy of these courses is that I’m able to create them on my own schedule. Which is the same for the people who take the courses too – no deadlines, no weekly meetings that might not work in your time-zone – you just work through the course at your own pace, in your own way, with access to the tutors and other students on your course via the individual online course forums. There are videos, downloadable and printable pdfs of notes with the video script transcribed and lots of still pictures as well as the original patterns used in the course. So, if you want to try knitting and would like a course that can work for you and around your schedule, have a look at my beginners’ courses: Knitting for Beginners 1 and Knitting for Beginners 2. These links give me a higher proportion of the course fee than if you simply go to the website so if you’d like to starting learning to knit (or know someone else who would), please do use these links!
My current audiobook, Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness (the fourth book in the All Souls Trilogy….), has given me one of those weird coincidences. Last week we watched Hamilton on Disney+ (it’s amazing what you get when you upgrade a phone these days), which I found fascinating and really enjoyable. I previously knew nothing about this period of history. Then, Time’s Convert takes me to the same time period and some of the same characters as well! It’s funny how things sometimes line up together in life like that.
It seems I had plenty to tell you about after all, despite not being able to share the Grand Secret Project!
Stay safe and warm, and keep (or start!) knitting, K x
Some days and weeks you get all the fun stuff, some give you the sticky end of the lollipop and some are a real pick and mix. We’re halfway through the Welsh ‘fire-break’ and, as I work from home and haven’t been going out much anyway, I haven’t noticed a big difference in the day-to-day, apart from not being able to visit the lovely Anne at Yarn O’clock.
Very early on Friday morning I had the email no designer wants to see, the “Thank you for your submission; unfortunately…” Quite why I decided to check my email when I woke up at 5.30am I’m not sure, but it’s not a habit I recommend! So, I’ve come to terms with that disappointment over the past few days and I’m now thinking about where else I could submit the design, because, heck – it’s a really good one! Advanced Lace Stole/Wrap anyone?
On the up side of things I’ve been in communication with a really great blogger (hi, Hanna!) and my work preparing my first online course with Craftucation moves on apace. All my videos for it are uploaded, some of the notes are too. It’s aimed at total and complete beginners to knitting. My wife (a non-knitter) has watched it and said that she would be able to follow the course which is really encouraging.
I’m totally in love with my spinning wheel still and I’ve been doing fancy stuff like experimenting with the drive ratios (get me!). This is basically moving the big elastic band that links the wheel to the bobbin so it spins faster or slower – like changing gears on a bike, but imagine manually moving the bike chain every time you want to change gear. Fortunately, it’s not something that needs to change mid-spin. I do seem to be spinning telephone cord (remember the twirly ones?) when it’s on the higher ratios, so I’ll stick to the slow one for now.
If you are a knitter of mitts (or know someone who is) you might be interested in the multi-buy pattern offer I’m running at the moment. If you buy my Ice Diamond Mitts pattern you can get any (or all) of my other three mitts patterns for 20% off. This offer works on my Payhip store and on Ravelry and applies to past purchases of Ice Diamond Mitts too (though on Payhip you’d need to contact me for a special code). I’m not linking to Rav because of the vision problems it is still causing some people since the new look was launched in June and I don’t want to cause anyone a migraine, but if you know you can use it safely the offer’s there too.
I have two sweaters, blocked and ready to photograph which I love and which fit me perfectly. The one in the pic is in Rowan Felted Tweed made completely out of leftovers which has pleased me no end. The pattern is On the Beach by Isabell Kraemer (link goes to Pinterest) and it was used as the ‘base’ pattern for my last live workshop (in February…!) called ‘Making Your Sweater Your Own’. Newly on the needles are some lush DK bed socks (pattern is Bob, friend of Dave by Rachel Coopey) – After doing lots of big projects it’s really nice to settle in with something where you can get half a sock done in two evenings.
Audiobooks are still keeping me company and I have just started re-listening to the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaranovitch and beautifully read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I’ve also treated myself to the excellent Outlander Knitting book, edited by Kate Atherley. I’ll tell you more about that next week once I’ve had a chance to fully immerse myself in it.
This week I finally got to grips with a craft I have wanted to do for a very long time. For my birthday (last week, remember?) I got a spinning wheel. It’s an Ashford Joy 2 which is portable (it even has it’s own backpack!), beautiful and goes like a dream. Because it really is a fancy-pants wheel I’m also getting contributions towards it from family for Christmas.
Sometime back in 2019 when we could do such things I went to an event at Ewe Felty Thing in Llandudno where I had my first go on a spinning wheel. I’d been looking at them at yarn shows for years, hypnotised by the movement of the spinners and wanting so badly to try, but too shy to ask. Fortunately the amazing Nikki Small at Ewe Felty Thing encouraged me that day last year and showed me the ropes. But then that was it. I didn’t believe I could justify buying a wheel; I thought it would take up too much space; I didn’t think I had time for another craft.
Until a few weeks ago when an old friend of mine (hello Helena Thomas!) advertised her wheel on Facebook. It was virtually unused. It was a bargain. Barely 20 minutes after spotting the ad and talking to Sue about it I’d messaged Helena – only to find she already had a potential buyer! But the fire had been reignited and would not die down. I did some online research and discovered that the wheel I really wanted (not actually the model from the Facebook advert) was out of stock in most shops. Apart from one – Fibrehut, which just happens to be based in the town where I grew up!! Serendipity? I think so.
So, this past week there has only been one day when I haven’t done some spinning. I’ve spun, plied, washed and skeined my very first yarn (pictured) and the second one is currently drying over the bath. Oddly enough, there is room for it in our little house – it takes up no more floorspace when in its bag than a multi-pack of loo-roll. I have found time for another craft – and I haven’t been ignoring the knitting! I uploaded my design submission four days before the deadline and I’m well on the way to finishing another wip (work in progress) that’s been languishing in the basket for a while.
The deadline for the design submission was yesterday and feedback is due by the end of the week. I’m really pleased with the finished design, but I can’t show it to you yet. I hope they say yes. The waiting is hard – but there’s plenty here to distract me!
