Tag: Hand Knitted Socks

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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

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

A couple of women stand in front of a tree constructed from silver baubles. They are grinning into the camera.

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

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Human

A hand knitted wrap in five colours (dark blue blue-green, grey, jade and apple) is pinned out on blue and purple foam mats. The wrap has dramatic zigzag stripes and pointed edges. The background is a pale gold carpet.

There’s a magpie hanging out on the back fence. Every now and then it wanders over to where some of the raspberry canes overhang and has a peck at them. It’s the most chilled out magpie I’ve seen in a while! I have to say I don’t mind it helping itself as I harvested a load of raspberries yesterday afternoon, and any that the magpie is able to get to are either too ripe or completely out of reach to me!

Yesterday evening I sent out my monthly newsletter. A few hours later I had a look at the Mailchimp app to see how many people had opened it and noticed it was 55% opens and 8% clicks. Once I was in bed though, it occurred to me that the clicks number was odd because, after pressing send, I realised I had forgotten to insert a link to Cat and Sparrow’s yarn kits for my latest design (Bargello Aurora Wrap).

It was one of those thoughts that niggles at you. You know the ones? And then it occurred to me. I had written the newsletter using an old one as a template. Which probably meant the clicks were to links from the old newsletter that had stayed in place after I’d replaced the photographs… Argh!!

First thing this morning I braced myself to check and, sure enough, if I clicked on the photos in yesterday’s email… they took me to completely unrelated webpages. So, I went back into Mailchimp, removed the old links, added some new and relevant ones, added an apology to the top of the newsletter and re-sent it.

If you are one of the people who subscribes to my newsletter I am so sorry you ended up receiving emails two days in a row from me. I really do try hard not to send things out into the world until I know they’re right and it’s one of those occasions where I have to remind myself that all people make mistakes and we’re only human, etc, etc. (If you don’t yet subscribe, please know that this is a rarity, and that all subscribers get a permanent subscriber discount code to use on Payhip and Ravelry).

Anyway! One of the things I wrote about in my newsletter was the Bargello Aurora Wrap that is featured in this month’s issue of The Knitter magazine (Issue 180). Rachael of Cat and Sparrow, who dyed the yarn for me from the picture of the North Lights that I showed you last week, has yarn kits for the wrap, which is very exciting. The Knitter have shared one of the fabulous modelled shots of the wrap on their social media and written some rather wonderful words about it too!

We think Kath Andrews’ new wrap design is out of this world! Her ‘Bargello Aurora Wrap’ has a mesmerising stripe pattern, inspired by the distinctive zigzag stitches used in Bargello tapestry work. The project uses some unusual increase and decrease methods, which result in dramatic point details along the edges. It’s knitted in five complementary colours of Singular BFL, a hand-dyed yarn from Cat and Sparrow. You can find Kath’s pattern in Issue 180.

The Knitter, Facebook, 4th September 2022

Here are some of the shots Rachael took on a tailor’s dummy:

Those pointed zigzag edges are achieved through blocking as well as dramatic increases and decreases. (Soaking the wrap, then pinning it out firmly whilst damp.) There were a lot of pins involved. With some designs you can simply pin the outer points, and you could do that here, but you would get a different end result. Here are two photos from the blocking stage. The left hand image shows the outer points only pinned, which gives a curved line to the points overall. The right hand image shows the full pinning with every change of direction, and the mid-points between them in the zigzag, pinned into place. I think you’ll agree it was worth the effort!

There are only twelve days now until Yarn Gathering!! Above is the flyer with the full line-up of vendors. If you head over to the Yarn Gathering page you can click on each of them for more details about their business and what you might be able to expect to see on the 18th.

DO come and join us – we’d love to see you!! With eleven vendors spread out through the hall and the cafe space of the Daniel Owen Centre, there will be plenty of room for you to see everything and everyone without feeling too crowded. It was lovely for me to meet up with LottieKnits at the Pop-up Wool Show a couple of weeks ago and I am really looking forward to seeing all the other vendors and catching up. This is one of the joys of a yarn show and one of the aims of Yarn Gathering; you get to talk to people, have conversations, share ideas, ooh and aah over other people’s stalls and purchases – in fact, have some human contact!

In other knitting news, I am on the final section of my latest secret knitting (though you won’t see that one until January…)!

And – I have finished the socks for my nibling, apart from weaving in the ends. I am very pleased with them and hope that they will be too:

I used The Knitting Goddess‘s 4-ply BFL Nylon yarn in semi solid black and Trans Pride Flag. I could have bought some Stripey Stripes of the pride flag yarn, but I wanted to get a whole skein so I can do other things with it as well later on. I just had to wind off a pink-white-pink section between the blues so that the flag was correct and matching on both socks.

I think that’s everything for today. I’m trying to get my head around all the [insert adjective of your choice] things going on in the big wide world outside of my wool-based bubble. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I can get rather cross about politics on occasion, but for now, I’m going to aim to be more like this morning’s magpie; chill out and eat a raspberry now and then.

Take care all, K x