Tag: Inspired by and living in Wales

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A Stitch in Time

I finally finished this cardigan (Manu by Kate Davies) in August 2018.

Before I got to the stage of being able to wear it there were a few false starts – I needed to make it two sizes bigger than I had begun in order for the sleeves to fit (and to fit over the roomy dresses and smocks I love from The Slow Wardrobe) and also it was originally going to be all orange.

However, the skeins of yarn I was using (Shilasdair Luxury DK – now discontinued) are hand-dyed and dyed with natural materials at that (Madder root for the orange) and so, although I thought I had matched the colour of the skeins well when I bought them at Wonderwool in 2017 it turns out they weren’t similar enough. I could have switched between two skeins of orange every other row as is recommended with hand-dyed yarn, but I didn’t. The point at which I was getting going with the second skein was also the point where I realised I was knitting the wrong size. Which meant I didn’t have enough orange yarn anyway. So, I decided to do the recommended striping, but with other colours!

Many who know me will say that I can be quite indecisive at times (and at others, so not!) and so it was that, although I was pretty sure it would work really well with three colours striping through, I couldn’t decide which additional colours to use. I think I bought seven. The others are still waiting patiently in my stash.

I loved the narrow stripes and the way they repeated up the body. Especially the way the short rows at the back of the neck separated the final set of green stripes from the rest of them. It did, however, result in lots of extra ends to weave in!

Rear view of me wearing a recently finished Manu in the garden.

I also discovered that my knitting and purling tensions are not the same. The body is worked flat (knit one row and purl the next) and that was made first, as far as the armholes. I wanted the stripes on the sleeves to line up with those on the body. The sleeves are worked in the round (knit every round), but my stripes were not matching up. Turns out my purl stitches are tighter than my knit ones, so the stripes on the body were ever so slightly narrower than the sleeve stripes. The solution? Rip the sleeves out and try again with a slightly smaller needle. Fortunately that worked, or my whole striping plan would have been out of the window.

You can see that this cardigan took quite a lot of effort to come into being. So, when it started to wear thin under the arms on the body and the sleeves I had to do something about it. I got the spare yarn out and duplicate stitched (sewed over the knitted stitches, recreating them exactly) large patches of the fabric, maintaining the original striping. It took a long time and, again, there were a lot of ends to deal with. But it worked and the reinforced fabric looked brand new again.

The reinforced areas under the arms show up as darker patches when held up to the light.

Unfortunately parts of the reinforced areas are now wearing thin again and I’m not sure if working a third layer of yarn through those stitches will help or damage it further. I noticed this yesterday when I was working on the cuffs.

The whole body of the cardigan and the cuffs are worked in garter stitch edged with i-cord which gives a beautiful piped effect. But it’s not very stretchy, at least not with the yarn I had used (10% baby alpaca, 10% baby camel, 40% angora, 40% merino lambswool) which in itself does not have a lot of elasticity. And I am a sleeve-pusher. I like wearing long sleeved garments, but if I need to wash my hands, make bread etc I push my sleeves halfway up my forearms. I also have a tendency to stroke the edge of my cuffs between the fingers and palm of my right hand. Both of these things had meant the i-cord had taken a bit of a battering and the yarn had snapped and worn out in a few places on the cuffs. A year or so ago I mended them.

A close-up of the ravaged cuff that had previously been repaired just by whipstitching over the frayed edges.

Last week I noticed they were in a state again and this time it was much worse, with patches of knitting that were starting to unravel. Luckily the cuffs were picked up and knitted after the sleeves were complete, so I would be able to re-knit them completely.

But then I thought, why? Why remake the cuffs in the same way they were before when it doesn’t suit how you need your sleeves to function? And so, rather than knit a new garter stitch cuff with i-cord edging I decided to do something different. After all, one of the signs of madness is supposed to be doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, right? This time I would make the cuffs as stretchy as I could.

I cut off the old i-cord and carefully pulled out the garter stitch back to where the stitches where picked up. In several places the yarn was only just holding together still.

The old cuff cut off lying on a wooden desk along with the unpicked remaining yarn looking like instant noodles. In front of this is the sleeve of the cardigan with three double pointed needles picking up the stitches prior to re-knitting the cuff.

I put the picked-up stitches back on the needles and counted them. 42. I was planning to do a two by two rib, so I needed a multiple of 4. I worked the first round adding 2 extra stitches and holding my breath that the original stitches I was working through would hold while I did so. Then I worked another seven rounds and decided it was time to cast off.

I needed as flexible a cast-off as I could find and remembered Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off which I discovered in Knitty years ago. Because it had been so long since I had worked it I had to look it up again, but it proved to be exactly what I needed. Cast-off complete.

One new cuff and one old unrepaired cuff laid on top of each other for comparison, with an open MacBook in the background.

Once I had done the same with the other cuff and woven in the remaining ends, I had a cardigan I could wear again with pride (and much smarter looking cuffs than the old shabby ones).

Now I just have to think about what I will do when the patches under the arms wear through again…

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All These Things That I’ve Done

Last week I finished by telling you I had marmalade to make when I got home. And indeed I did. However, the lovely Chris from Hampton Farm Shop had popped in the last few of the Seville oranges in addition to the ones I’d asked for, so rather than 1.4kg (3lb) of oranges, I had 2kg (4.5lb)!!

Marmalade was made on Thursday AND on Friday. It’s rather gorgeous in both colour and taste and I have found a solution to the skin withering tendency of the oranges when squeezing and chopping them – wear gloves! Obvious really, but it’s taken me until now…

This coming Friday sees the launch of our latest KAL – Calon Cariad and I’m really pleased that a number of people will be knitting along with us. The invites to the Cast-on Party on Zoom have started going out and I have got my chosen yarn all balled up; three skeins of CoopKnits Socks Yeah! in Xenon, which is a truly NEON pink.

I’ve also finally done some more embroidery and I *think* I may nearly be done with the black thread.

The spinning is coming on too – the 15 minutes per colour seems to be working well!!

I’m also working on a new pattern that is due for release next month (if you’re in my Facebook group you’ll have seen a sneak peek pic of it!).

I have blocked my Water Dragon Shawl and I love it. I still have the ends to weave in, but apart from that it is done! The top left image is straight after I cast off. The next is whilst blocking and the other two are after blocking.

This month’s pattern (due at the end of the month) is the re-launch of Of Night and Light, the colourwork vest that appeared in Knit Now Issue 134 last October – the rights return to me this month and I will get the pattern formatted into my standard layout and some new photos taken over the next couple of weeks.

But it’s not all been about the new things this week.

Today I have been mending my favourite cardigan (again). It’s three and a half years old and I wear it A LOT. The repairs and re-knits it has had deserve a post all to themselves and that will be what I tell you all about next week.

Have a good one and do stuff that makes you smile. K x

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Keep On Keeping On

I have lots of stuff to tell you about, but it’s been quite a day and it’s late, so I will keep it short and show more than tell.

First up, there’s a new pattern in the world! Small Acts is a pattern for a scarf AND a cowl. I even put lippy on for the pics. Click on the link for all the info, including where the name came from.

Next, I’m getting excited about our Calon Cariad KAL – it starts on Feb 11th, which is actually next week!! If you want to get a kit from me or from Yarn O’clock, there’s still time, but you need to choose your yarn quickly! I have a new pic of the Erika Knight sample of Calon Cariad to share with you:

Spring is starting to make its presence felt in the garden:

And I finished my Water Dragon Shawl by Red and the Wolf Designs!! The lace section took longer than expected, partly because I kept working on other things and partly because there were 1121 stitches per row. I added three extra garter stitch rows at the bottom and then cast off. The cast off was very satisfying. A great re-use of a lot of Colinette Jitterbug that had previously been an unworn cabled vest.

I’ll block it when I get home. Thursday is going to be a busy day too – haircut, kit to post, shawl to block AND… marmalade to make!

See you next week šŸ˜Š K x

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And, breathe…

Last week I finished by promising to tell you about the spinning and baking I’ve been doing, as well as how the workshops went and all about next monthā€™s knit-a-long!

Let’s start with the workshops. It was probably the longest amount of time I had (a) been on my feet and (b) spoken for, in over three and a half years. In other words, since I left the classroom!

Five hours of workshops went SO fast. Not just for me, but also for the lovely knitters who were there. In both the morning and afternoon sessions phrases such as “It’s not that time already, is it?!”, “I’ve never known two and a half hours go so quickly” and “Really? Only 10 minutes left? No!” could be heard. (Of course, because we were all so focused I completely missed the opportunity to take any photographs of their progress. Must do better next time!).

Lots was learnt, including the magic that is mattress stitch as part of the Finishing Techniques workshop. I love seeing the faces of knitters during this process. Most don’t believe they won’t be able to see the lime green yarn they are seaming their grey squares with, and when it proves to be true, it’s just a delight. Also we unpicked why different types of decrease are used and the importance of mirrored decreases to make your project look balanced.

The Introduction to Sock Knitting in the afternoon went even faster than I had anticipated, and everyone turned a heel successfully. I had an email yesterday from one of the attendees that made me so happy and I’m going to share part of it with you (with her permission):

“Thanks a million for all your guidance on Saturday.Ā Just learning to knit on 4 needles was great, but to become a wool engineer apprentice and turn a heel was brilliant!”

Yvonne

We didn’t manage to get the graft done at the toe, however, so I promised to record a video showing how this is done and I have now uploaded this to my social media platforms. I wanted to get this up as soon as I could for my workshop attendees, but now I also need to add closed captions to the video.

This is the third little techniques video I have recorded and put on Facebook etc and this morning it occurred to me that they should really be on my website too. So, the Knitting Tuition page now has a new section: Free Video Tutorials! I’ll get the captions done on the toe graft video before uploading that one, but there are two others you can have a look at already. It will give you a little flavour of my Craftucation courses as well (though none of the videos are duplicated from there).

A still shot from a short knitting techniques video. My hands are holding needles and yarn with a multicoloured shawl in progress underneath them. The knitting is resting on a wooden desk with a coaster partly in view to the left.

Another addition to the website today is a section for next month’s Knit-A-Long! We are knitting Calon Cariad together, a lovely shawl whose name means ‘The Heart of Love’. We begin on February 11th with a Cast-On Party on Zoom at 7pm!! We’ll run the KAL over five weeks and there will be prizes šŸŽ. If you want to join in, the click ‘going’ on the KAL event and/or the KAL Cast-on Party event on my Facebook page, or just send me a message! All the details are here.

There are even kits available – I’m especially fond of the Erika Knight Wool Local which knits up beautifully in this pattern.

In other news, I have finished the scarf sample for Small Acts and that just needs blocking and photographing properly. I’m aiming to get the pattern out by the weekend. If you’re a subscriber look out for an extra (short) email with a discount code!

A large mid-indigo blue scarf lies in a heap on an oatmeal coloured carpet. There are two large mirrored cables running up the centre, flanked by two small mirrored cables at the sides. In between the cables are columns of moss stitch and the scarf has a narrow garter stitch edging.

Spinning is fun at the moment and I have starting on my second batch of Colours of Cambria fibre (this colour way is ‘Coast’). I wanted to create fairly regular repeats of the colours but I am not confident at judging the quantity when dividing the fibre into sections, so I came up with another approach. I set a timer on my phone for 15 minutes. I spin one colour from the sequence during that time and when the timer goes off, I stop and break that colour, ready to start with the next one when I spin again. Not only is this hopefully going to give me some good stripes/blocks of colour in the yarn, it also encourages me to spin more on a daily basis, even when I am busy, as 15 minutes can usually be slotted in somewhere!

An overhead shot of a bobbin on the spinning wheel. There is some soft green fibre at the bottom of the image waiting to be spun next. On the bobbin can be seen two shades of blue, a golden yellow and a little of the green. The yarn is spun quite finely.

I made the sourdough bagels that I have been wanting to try for a while. They weren’t as hard as I had anticipated, but I do think I over-baked them a little. It was a good taste, and nicely chewy, but a little too crunchy/firm on the outside. Next time, check five minutes sooner!

Eight uncooked bagels sit on a dark grey baking sheet waiting to be boiled before baking.
Cooked bagels on a cooling rack with the bamboo kitchen worktop visible behind. Four bagels are fully visible, with two partially shown on the left and one on the right. They are dark golden brown in colour with lighter centres.

We even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Little Orme where we saw the largest group of Seals I’ve ever seen there. They looked so happy and relaxed on the beach and were chatting away to each other quite a lot! It made us relax too, and even though there were quite a few people up there on Sunday (some even had telephoto lenses and tripods for their cameras, so the word about the seals must have got about), it was really peaceful. We sat on a bench and ate a little homemade picnic, all wrapped up against the wind and it was lovely. The perfect balance to the ‘business’ of the day before.

A pebble beach covered with 30-40 seals as well as some larger stones and big rocks. Seen from the cliff edge above with a bit of the sea-glass coloured sea visible on the right and the cliff wall on the far side of beach showing at the top of the picture.

Take care, stay warm and do more of what makes you happy, K x

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Getting Ready

January is a strange month. It seems to either be very, very grey and dark, or bright blue skies and freezing cold.

I was fooled earlier today by the amount of sunshine and went into Mold without a coat or hat, just my large Into the Vortex shawl wrapped several times round my neck. Although this foolishness has left me with a cold head, it was quite useful as one of the things I was doing was having a look at the venue for Saturday’s workshops and it let me know that thermals are the order of the day. I’ve been there for events before, but never when running one and needing to know things like where the light (and heat) switches are and whether the windows open. Spoiler – of course they don’t, it’s a listed church hall, with leaded church windows! It’s a great space – huge and light with lots of tables and very comfortable chairs.

Photo Ā© David Dixon

The workshops are both fully booked now and everything is prepped and ready. The swatches have been blocked. The mini sock samples have been made (one each to examine and compare with the workshop members’ own work as they go, rather than passing one round as we would have done in the ‘before times’). The bottles of water and wrapped biscuits have been bought, along with anti-viral wipes for the tables and gel for hands.

And I have a new toy! A small whiteboard on a ring of casters that takes a flip chart on it as well. This will be far better than me drawing on a scrap of paper that not everyone around the table can see properly and, sometimes, the teacher in me needs to literally illustrate a point!

Last week I was hoping to have finished my Water Dragon Shawl by now. However, the yarn for my scarf sample of Small Acts arrived shortly after writing the blog, and I needed to get cracking with knitting that up. It’s nearly done and will be ready for the pattern release at the end of the month.

I’ve also been spinning and baking more, but I’ll tell you all about that next week, along with how the workshops went and all about next month’s knit-a-long!

Take care, stay warm and do more of what makes you happy, K x

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Mine!

This has rapidly turned into a week of finishing things.

On Saturday I plied the yarn I’ve been spinning, I skeined it on Sunday and washed it on Monday. Today it is dry and it is glorious! It’s Cambrian Wool which uses fleece from Welsh Mules. These are a cross between Welsh Mountain sheep and Blue Faced Leicester. The back of the packet the fibre came in says; “These sheep produce wool with beautiful sheen and incredible bounce and a long staple length”. The fibre came in five 20g coils, each of a different colour and collectively named ‘Mine’, from Hilltop Cloud. The colours really remind me of a trip to Parys Mountain a few years ago.

I have the skein next to me as I write and I can’t stop looking at it. The long staple means that it’s fairly easy to spin without the fibre vanishing out of your hands and it does have the most incredible sheen and is SO squishy. I think it’s about a DK weight, which is what I was aiming for, so I am a happy spinner here. šŸ˜Š

Also finished is the Percy Pig jigsaw that I was given for Christmas. It’s the smallest of the jigsaws at 500 pieces, but I think was far harder than any of the 1000 piece ones will prove to be. I was convinced I’d made a mistake in it earlier on as I just couldn’t find one particular piece, but once I had placed all the pieces that were laid out on the table, that gap was still there! Perhaps there was a piece missing? I’d checked the floor already. I even swept my arm (carefully) underneath the green felt cloth the jigsaw was on in case it had become caught on the fabric as I unrolled the jigsaw. But no. And then I found it! It was upside down (of course) and wedged underneath a wooden coaster on the tablecloth. It was very satisfying to put that last piece in. I’ve left the puzzle complete until my lovely wife comes home, partly so she can see it and partly so I can be a little bit proud of my perseverance every time I go into the kitchen.

ALSO finished today… drumroll please…is the second secret project! It needs washing and blocking, but the actual construction is DONE, including a graft. I’m really pleased with it and I hope the magazine will be too. The next step is to block it, measure it, finish typing up the pattern and contact the mag to see if they want it now or if I should hold on to it until nearer the deadline (which is April). Unfortunately I can’t share pics with you yet, but it is lovely, though I say it myself.

Finally, I have finished the squares for the (full) Finishing Techniques workshop. Fourteen of them, two each for the six class members and two for me, all ready to be seamed and have stitches picked up from. They are currently blocking in the lounge. That’s seven hours work there!

There are still a few spaces on the Introduction to Sock Knitting workshop on the afternoon of Jan 22nd if you are near Mold at all that day.

A not-yet-finished thing that has nevertheless been making progress is one of my projects from Fasten Off YAL, the Water Dragon Shawl by Red and the Wolf Designs. I knitted three rows last night. That doesn’t sound like much, does it? But each row is now 1121 stitches long and takes about an hour. There are 14 rows left. I’m hoping to get it finished by the end of this week. Because it is so long I’m photographing it with the needle looped in a coil, showing all 70 stitch markers in use. Some things I knit as gifts (there’s one of those in progress at the moment too), and some things I knit for myself – this one is definitely one of the latter – it’s mine!

The blue of the yarn isn’t showing up quite right today, but that might be the light – it’s very sunny! In fact, I’m now going for a quick walk to make the most of it.

I hope you have a good week, enjoy the sunshine if you get some and keep doing what makes you happy.

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This is the Day

I began yesterday’s newsletter telling subscribers how we had started the year drinking a cup of tea on the patio at first light, with a warm breeze blowing. It was unseasonably warm then and the weather seems to have caught up with itself today, as there is currently hail bouncing off the garage roof!

One disadvantage with this return to colder temperatures is our current need to keep the windows open as much as possible, as ours is a Covid house. Not me (I’ve managed to dodge it so far), but my lovely wife. She is on the mend now and we are trying to do all the right things to contain it, but it isn’t half chilly today. It’s just as well there are a lot of woollen things around here šŸ˜Š

The main image on today’s post is Cleo, my mum’s cat, somehow sitting on my lap whilst I was knitting the Water Dragon Shawl by Red and the Wolf Designs. She didn’t seem in the least perturbed that there was a ball of yarn by her back that kept turning. I’ve never known her do this before (and neither has Mum!).

This morning saw the (re-)launch of Nevern Throw. It’s the biggest piece I’ve designed so far, yet being made in individual squares means you aren’t carting a double bed sized blanket around with you while working on it. This is the first square being blocked. Once I done that one I drew lines joining up the dots of the pin-holes in the back of the blocking board so that the other 23 squares would all be blocked to exactly the same measurements.

Not until the latter part of the making up stage, anyway. At this point it definitely stops being a portable project!

It’s been on our bed for most of the past two winters and is wearing *really* well. I’d not used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Superwash yarn before making Nevern and I am truly impressed with it. When you’re making something on this scale, you want the yarn and all your hard work to look good for as long as possible! The colours in the blanket I made are nearer to the image below than in the one above.

I’m also looking forward to designing more charts from carvings on the Nevern Cross in the coming months as an ‘expansion pack’ to the original Nevern Throw pattern. There are so many more designs on it still to explore.

Before Christmas I mentioned that live workshops are back on the agenda (Covid permitting). With the support of Yarn O’clock, there will be a day of two classes on Saturday 22nd January. We are using St Mary’s Church Hall in King Street, Mold to give plenty of room for everyone (classes are still limited to six). I think there is one space left in the morning workshop and I know there are spaces in the afternoon one. Each workshop is Ā£30 and can be booked directly with Anne at Yarn O’clock (she re-opens 11th January).

I have been busy prepping the materials – I’ve done four of the 14 squares I shall need since yesterday!

Finishing Techniques 10 – 12.30pm

Learn to block and seam your knitting to give fabulous end results. Learn to pick up stitches, make neat buttonholes and how to choose the right type of increase and decrease for your project.

You will be supplied with 2 pre-blocked pieces of knitting to seam which you will turn into a knitted purse by adding a buttoned flap.

Skills required: cast on, cast off, knit, purl.

Equipment to bring: 4mm needles, tapestry needle, everything else will be supplied.

Introduction to Sock Knitting 1 – 3.30pm

Learn all the steps of knitting a top-down sock on double pointed needles: Cast-on, ribbing, leg, heel flap, heel turn, gusset, foot, toe, grafting. 

We will be working on a scale that means you can complete the whole sock in the workshop!

Skills required: cast on, knit, purl, k2tog, ssk.

Equipment to bring: 3mm short double pointed needles (you can buy these from the shop if needed), tapestry needle. Everything else will be supplied.

These little socks are so cute that I’m also planning on turning them into an advent calendar. Not like a yarn advent calendar where you make one a day during December, but one you make in advance and hang up with sweets in for Advent. There would be 24 small socks and a slightly larger sock for 25th December. Patterns and possibly also kits will be available in September.

Now look at that! It’s January and I’m talking about September already. That’s because I actually sat down at the weekend and started planning what I want to do this year with my design business and even began mapping out a publication schedule! Not every month has some in it yet, but it will I hope.

I haven’t made resolutions this year, but I have set some goals. How’s your year shaping up so far?

Stay safe and keep knitting, K x

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Here We Go Again

I’ve just re-read my post from this time last year. On Dec 22nd 2020 we had been told that non-essential shops were closing (again), and most people’s plans for Christmas had been curtailed, cancelled or, at the very least, altered in some way. Fast forward to today and we are in an exhaustingly similar position, but with Covid case numbers at a point I never imagined they would actually reach. I will be surprised if they don’t go over 100,000 cases a day this week. Ronnie (pictured) is clearly feeling it too.

So, I’m even more grateful to have had my booster jab last Tuesday. Side effects were one afternoon of being really cold and a couple of days of being foggy-headed (I forgot to go to the hair-dressers – and only remembered seven hours after the appointment!), which is fine by me considering what it might help me avoid. My lovely wife has managed to get hers as well. Thank you NHS Wales.

On a more creative note, I’ve been swatching like mad for my new design idea – I keep wanting to try out tweaks and different combinations of colours. I managed to get my responses to the tech edit that came in last week done, though it did involve a few more hours of number crunching. Fortunately the foggy head was wearing off by then!

The socks are so *very* nearly finished. Here they are. Just one toe to go, right?

A pair of almost completed hand knit socks on a wooden desk. The upper sock has needles in still and the toe is not yet made. The yarn is self-striping in yellow, blue, purple, red, green and pink, although the two socks do not start with the same colour.

Actually, no. I got the recipient (my lovely wife, of course!) to try the first one on, and the toe was a couple of rounds short. Not loads, but enough to feel a little tight. This would no doubt consign them to the back of the sock drawer, which is not the aim of knitting socks – they need to be worn and worn out with joy and comfort. So, once I have completed the second sock (later today), I will be undoing the first sock toe and re-knitting it to match. They’ll still be done in time.

I got some spinning in this morning for the first time in a week or so.

An overhead view of a spinning wheel with a half-filled bobbin of singles. The yarn is two shades of purple, with a more bluey shade in the top quarter of the bobbin. A chunk of grey-purple fibre rests on top of the wheel, on the band.

I’m not one hundred percent sure what’s happened to stop me spinning so regularly of late, but maybe it’s something to do with the big pile of knitting project bags by the sofa? It’s daft though, because I set the timer for 20 minutes on my phone this morning and got a good chunk of fibre spun up. It’s much more productive than spending the same amount of time playing games on your phone and that is SO easy to do (and then some).

There was a request for dystopian sci-fi recommendations on Twitter recently and I remembered a book called Wool, by Hugh Howey that stayed with me long after I had read it. Having recommended it I then looked it up as an audiobook and I’m right back in that world, just over halfway through. Quite why listening to dystopian fiction seems appropriate right now I couldn’t tell you, but maybe it’s something to do with the national mood?

I’m hoping to be with mum over Christmas as long as the lateral flow tests keep showing negative and we don’t get told we can’t travel. Whatever you’re planning, I hope you enjoy it and stay safe at the same time.

See you on the other side – my next blog post will be Jan 4th 2022, when it will be marmalade making season again! Kx

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Snowdrop

The first snowdrop is in flower in the garden! It’s called Gabriel and is one of the earliest, always flowering before Christmas. Seeing these always lifts me – they are so delicate and yet so very resilient. I couldn’t understand how they survived the frost and snow until Mum told me that they contain their very own version of anti-freeze.

Why are booster jabs like buses? You wait for ages for one and then two turn up at once! On Sunday evening I received a text message giving me an appointment date in January for my booster. Then, yesterday evening I got another text offering an opportunity to book one sooner if I wanted to, by clicking on the link. So, my booster jab will be happening this afternoon! Don’t worry, the whole text message thing isn’t dodgy – I’ve had all my notifications from NHSWales this way.

This has made me replan today a little, just in case I feel a bit ropey later on, but that is a benefit of being self-employed; I can organise my time to suit, which makes me very lucky indeed.

The knitted baubles are in the post, as are two wooden coasters that were ordered last night. If you are thinking of ordering a kit or anything else that needs to be posted for Christmas please do so by the end of this week (17th December). The lady at the post office thought I should sell the baubles (I’d need to develop my own base pattern to do that, but that is fine), although I’m not sure people would pay for the time/skill involved. Would you purchase one of these? If so, what would you be willing to pay? Answers in the comments please!

My sock knitting is on schedule as I finished one yesterday and started the second. I should get some more done later while I wait for my jab.

I’ve also made progress with two of my Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long pattern purchases! Gridlock Mitts by Karen Butler is now into the main colourwork (that was during Only Connect last night).

Water Dragon Wrap/Shawl by Red and the Wolf Designs is skipping along. I began with 140 sts and currently have 340 sts on the needle. The increasing will continue for a while yet and that will mean the rows get slower, but it’s great telly knitting!

The first deadline project that was due at the end of November has now had its first tech edit and has come back to me to be checked. This is where I get to see if I can remember how to use ‘track changes’ in Word…

My other secret deadline project (so no pics) is also coming on, though I haven’t touched it for a couple of days while I’ve been knitting other things – I’m still totally in love with the yarn though and plan to knit a lot of it in the next few days!

And… I’ve been swatching for another design and I’m really quite excited by how it’s working out. The submission deadline for this one is early next year and I’m keeping everything crossed that they want it. šŸ¤ž

It’s getting a bit scary again out there with Covid-19, so please take care and do the things you know will keep you and your loved ones as safe as possible. K x

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Good with my Hands

Somehow, despite being away from home for three days during the past week, I have managed to do quite a lot of knitting! I’ve finished two projects, started another and worked on yet three more (two of which I can’t show you). As part of the Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long I’ve bought four patterns (supporting other designers and because these patterns are awesome!) and matched them all up with yarn from the stash (yay!).

The main image for today’s post is one of my project bags from The Knitting Goddess. Yes, it’s a bit cheeky; yes, I like it!

Treble clef baubles:

Woodstock:

Sock! (Heel flap completed, heel turn is next):

Gridlock Mitts by Karen Butler (one of my pattern purchases as part of Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long):

As I got to the end of the cuff on these I realised that I had reversed the Main Colour and Contrast Colour stitches. I ‘fixed’ it by fiddling the set up round before the main colourwork chart began by moving the start of the thumb gusset to the first two sts of the round instead of the last two, as I could see from the photos that the edging of the thumb gusset was supposed to grow organically from one column of ribbing in the same colour. If I hadn’t worked those extra two stitches, the thumb gusset would have been sitting awkwardly on top of a column of differently coloured stitches.

Do you remember that last week I told you all about the Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long and that there would be games? One of these is bingo and I’ve just been filling in my bingo card – it’s looking good! A column completed already and two rows nearly done!

Yesterday we had BT Openreach here to upgrade our broadband. I hadn’t quite appreciated that it would involve the engineer scaling the nearest telephone pole and actually putting new cable from there to our house, but it did. He drilled holes where he had to and persevered through phone calls and lots of trial and error when the broadband didn’t seem to want to work at all after all that effort. Three hours of work and we now have super speedy fibre broadband and a… digital phone…?!?! That last bit threw me a little – I didn’t realise that our old phone simply wouldn’t work any more as the old copper wires were gone and the new ‘wires’ are made of glass. The new phone is nice, though I’m not sure about the Alexa feature – and I’ve chosen not to enable that yet.

I’ve listened to a lot of audiobooks this week as well – Terry Pratchett’s Snuff accompanied me on my long car drive and over the past couple of days I’ve been listening to The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I wasn’t sure about this one to start with, but the more I listened the more I got into it and I was very pleased with the ending. I do like an ending that brings things together and feels satisfying.

Audrey2 has been been behaving very well recently and you can see how well she’s doing in the photo below (the jar behind the loaf). I started a loaf yesterday that was baked at midday today and looks gorgeous:

And now I’m going to go and make some sourdough banana bread. This will have two benefits – we have a couple of elderly bananas in the kitchen somehow, and Sue and I both fancied cake yesterday and there wasn’t any. There will be soon.

Stay safe, keep knitting and do what makes you happy! K x