Tag: Knitalong

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A Room with a View

We had a lovely weekend at Buxton Wool Gathering and we had the best view of the Pavilion Gardens building from the lounge of the flat we were staying in! The weather was lovely on both days of the show and we even had a chance to soak up the sun with an early lunch before setting up on Friday.

It was so nice to talk to visitors and other vendors about all things yarn and knitting during the weekend and one of the most exciting things was spotting that our first customer of the show was wearing a Marianne Half Hap shawl that she’d made with her own handspun laceweight yarn. It’s stunning!

I’ve also gathered together the top 5 selling patterns from the weekend to share with you. They were:

In joint third place: Gnarly Roots, Nevern Lap Blanket and Nevern Throw:

In second place: Petulia:

And in first place: Lichfield!

Having had such a long run of dry and sunny weather, it was a surprise to wake up to the sound of rain! There wasn’t much this morning, but we’ve had a little more and the broad beans are finally starting to show themselves in the veg patch. The seeds that we started off in seed trays are looking more developed and we may even have some veg of our own to eat later in the year! We’ve been enjoying lots of rhubarb in the meantime though.

Last week I told you about the need to rewrite the sleeve instructions for my current design. I’m now on the third iteration of the sleeves and I’m happy with them. After the second version wasn’t behaving the way I wanted (Tuesday-Wednesday) I decided not to rip it out straight away, but wait and see how the third version went (Thursday onwards) – partly so I could compare the two, rather than just try to remember the previous version! I’m so glad it’s now where I want it to be, and I can just knit away and follow the instructions.

It’s been a while since I did two shows on consecutive weekends and this Saturday sees us at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, now an English Heritage property, for Yarnies at the Flaxmill, a new yarn show. It’s a single day even and it will be open from 11-5pm. There will be alpacas too!

Every show leads you to consider what works well and what could be even better, and today I’ve been re-writing lots of sample labels. The new labels will help folk to see more easily what a pattern is knitted in, the variations it has and any extra features such as if it’s reversible! We’re not bringing everything with us to Shrewsbury, so I still have some to do! Some of the patterns and samples will be staying at home but we will still have 44 patterns with us (and all the knitting kits) so there will be plenty of choice!

There are still spaces on the knitting workshops at Sew Woolly in Cheadle next week!

Introduction to Sock Knitting covers knitting a top-down sock, from the cast-on to the toe graft, via the heel turn. Wednesday 28th May, 10am-12.30pm.

Introduction to Lace Knitting teaches you how to include deliberate holes in your knitting! Learn how to use specific decreases to create directional lines and patterns in your knitting and how to follow a written lace pattern and a chart. Wednesday 28th May, 1.30-4pm.

Yarn and handouts are included for both workshops (£35 each). Ring Sew Woolly on 07905 741969 to book a place.

I’m considering offering another online knit along. I’ve done a couple of these – one was for Calon Cariad and another was for any pattern of your choice and they were both great fun, seeing other people’s projects develop and chatting about all sorts of things as we knitted. I’m looking at whether there’s interest for another of these. So, with this in mind, here’s a poll!

That’s all from me for today. Take care and I hope you get a chance to do some stuff that makes you happy during the week.K x

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Over The Hill and Far Away

Our weekend trip to Gloucester was very successful and Sue’s reading at the Gloucester Poetry Festival was brilliant – I’m so very proud of her. The picture above is part of Gloucester Cathedral’s tower, and yes, the sky really was that blue on Saturday afternoon, despite the torrential rain the day before. It was lovely to see the Malvern Hills again (through the rain) as we drove down, and to see Moel Famau in sunshine as we neared home! If you have a few spare minutes, do read Sue’s blog post from yesterday – it includes the first poem she read on Saturday. We enjoyed lots of readings from lots of other poets as well during the day and evening on Saturday, and I was quietly knitting on Mum’s bed socks throughout.

I now have a finished pair! The sock blocker gives more of a realistic impression of how they’ll look in use – the change between syncopated rib (leg) and stocking stitch (foot) makes them look quite odd otherwise!

I’m not going to weave in the yarn ends at the toes until Mum has tried them on. They go down to 20 stitches and look quite pointy from the top, and I want them to be comfortable for her.

I continued to knit and document my progress on my Barragán Shawl while we were away (you can still order your own yarn kit or get it free with a subscription from The Knitter). Even though I’m only doing 10 rows per day at the moment it’s growing well. Today’s rows have yet to be done, but this is what 130 rows looks like:

This photograph was taken in the morning light and is pretty true to the colour of the yarn.

Something else exciting that happened while we were away was that I picked up a new-to-me car! I’d test driven it the week before when visiting Mum and it’s perfect. Exactly the make and model I thought I needed and I can’t believe the boot space. And it’s blue. You know me and blue – I do like it. Of course now I want to experiment (play) with putting all my show stuff in it to see the best way of getting everything in. All my stuff in one car – with the passenger seat free for Sue as well. It’s been a pipe-dream.

I wore my Umbriel for the first time yesterday and it’s very cosy. Today I’ve managed to get some pics of it. It’s got generous ease which is exactly what I wanted as I will be wearing it over layers. I do like the picked up, top down sleeve construction in the design. I think this is a construction I will explore in my own designs in future – no sewing the sleeve head into the armhole after knitting it, cos it’s all made in one piece!

While we were taking pics, I also got some of Lichfield. It’s starting to pill (bobble) a bit, but I think that’s because it’s not a high twist yarn, as well as the fact that I’ve been wearing it a lot.

Sales of Bodelwyddan are pottering on – please do spread the word about the October fund-raiser for Treasure Chest YGC. 50% of Bodelwyddan sales during October are going to this charity, which helps to support folk who are going through/have been through treatment for breast cancer in Denbighshire. I was asked to design these socks last year to be part of the fund-raising and so far we’ve sold 9 copies, raising £22.50. I’d love it to be more!

I’m wearing my pair of Bodelwyddan socks today. This is the largest size in the leg, decreasing to the next size down for the foot.

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Next month, which somehow is only a couple of weeks away, I get the rights back for Branwen, the first knit-along shawl I designed for The Knitter. This is one of the gorgeous photos from The Knitter.

Branwen will be going out into the world as a single pattern for the first time. There is likely to be an introductory discount for my newsletter subscribers, so if that sounds appealing, why not sign up for my newsletter?

When I write to you next week, I shall have turned 50! The lead up to this milestone birthday has been very good so far and I’m looking forward to starting my next decade in a much better place than I started the last one. I’m even going to be doing some singing again.

Til then, take care, do stuff that makes you happy and stay safe, K x

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Twisting the Night Away

‘Twisted – a workshop with a twist!’ is being held at Yarn O’clock over 2 sessions: 2nd and 16th November, 6.30-9pm. It’s £50 for the two sessions and includes the yarn to make the cowl.

Contact Anne at Yarn O’clock (01352 – 218082) to book a space on the workshops – please note her shop will be closed from 14th to 24th October!

Skills needed: Ability to use a circular needle, knit, purl and cast off.

Equipment to bring: 80cm circular cable with SHORT 5mm tips – these can be bought at the shop if you don’t have them. 1 x 5.5mm or 6mm needle or double pointed needle (for Twisted 2 only).

Twisted 1 (2nd November)
Understand and learn to create the unique structure of a true moebius ring and how this technique can be used for wonderful neckwear and more. Learn the Moebius cast on. Learn the basic brioche stitches (brk and brp) and how to work brioche in the round. Discover the magic that happens when you work brioche in a moebius ring! This part of the workshop ends with learning a brioche increase.

Twisted 2 (16th November)
Continue the cowl, learn a brioche decrease and repeat the main pattern once more, revising the brioche increase and sharing your progress with the group. Discover what happens as you cast off!

Bodelwyddan, my sock pattern to raise funds for Treasure Chest YGC has sold 7 copies so far. That’s £17.50 raised for the charity, which is a start. I’m hoping it will go above £30 by the end of the month, so do spread the word if you know any sock knitters. The pattern is available on all my platforms. If you can support this good cause, please do!

Progress on Umbriel (the sweater I was knitting in the pub) has gone even better than I anticipated – I’ve finished it! Completely finished, as in all ends woven in and it’s been washed and is now drying. As the design by Sylvia Watts-Cherry was done in the round with sleeves that were picked up from the armholes and worked down to the cuffs, there was not even any sewing up to do. The neckline is particularly lovely.

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I’m knitting 10 rows a day on my Barragán Shawl, my design which is The Knitter‘s current knit-along. If you’re knitting it too, please share your progress with the hashtag #BarragánKAL when posting on social media. You can still order a yarn kit from McIntosh too if you want to use MY Serenity and MY Joy (the same colours I designed the shawl in) in his hand-dyed Bluefaced Leicester 4ply – or subscribe to The Knitter and get the yarn kit as a free gift!

It’s a completely different experience knitting along with everyone else, with only one section to complete per month, rather than the experience of writing the pattern and knitting it to a much shorter deadline. Some folk will think I’m a bit mad knitting the shawl a second time (in the same yarn no less!), but I wanted to be there along with other knitters, able to help out in case of any problems, show them how it should be looking and generally join in the fun. And, as I say, just doing 10 rows per day and photographing the progress for my Instagram and Facebook Stories is really chilled. This is how it looks today, after 70 rows (1 week):

I’ve also started knitting Mum some more bedsocks that she requested.

The pattern is Bob (Friend of Dave) by Rachel Coopey, which I’m glad I printed out as I cannot for the life of me find a link to it anymore, and I’m using CoopKnits Socks Yeah! DK. Having been at Mum’s last week it would have been clever if I’d remembered I was going to be knitting more of these socks soon, and checked the stitch count on her current socks, but no. Fortunately I was able to ask Mum to count the groups of knit stitches around the cuff and tell me over the phone so I could work it out! I have now finally made a note of the stitch count to cast on – 64 on 3mm needles.

I had some very good news yesterday – a submission was accepted, which was lovely. It won’t be out until May next year, and I’ve got until January to complete the sample and write up the pattern. It’s a design on a smaller scale this time, which will make a nice change as many of my recent designs have been on the very large side! There’s also another submission I sent out at the weekend which I’m keeping my fingers crossed for and four (!) yarn shows I’ve applied to (not all in the past week I hasten to add) that I’m waiting to hear back about as well.

Speaking of scale, did I tell you that I’d started working on the pattern for the adult version of Honeybun? This will be published separately from the child’s version and will have 20 sizes, none of which overlap with the child’s version, which only goes up to Age 8. The sizes are UK 4 – 42 and the spreadsheet is quite something. The construction is the same as the child’s one with the body worked in one piece and I’ve got as far with the numbers as the division of the fronts and back and underarm cast-off. I’m currently undecided whether to crunch the numbers for the raglan armhole and neck decreases, or to cast-on for the adult sample (I’m going to make an 18 as that’s the size of my dress-form/mannequin) and knit as far as I’ve got to. I might do a bit of both.

We’ve got a jaunt at the weekend as Sue is reading at the Gloucester Poetry Festival. I’ve not been to Gloucester for decades and I’m really looking forward to it.

With this oddly warm weather, we’ve been out in the garden quite a bit over the past few days, cutting back and tidying the veg patch and deadheading the many roses. Some of the nasturtiums are making a bid for freedom across the patio! If I remember I’ll try to grab a photo of them to show you next week.

That’s all from me for today. You’ll probably have noticed I haven’t mentioned the events in the wider world. That’s because I’m having trouble processing how some people can behave the way they do to other humans. Have a good week if you can and be safe out there. K x

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Launch

There have been some lovely comments about Petulia on social media that was launched with RiverKnits at Yarndale last weekend. I wasn’t there, but I know Becci was wearing the shawl at Yarndale on the Saturday, and she said it was super cosy.

This photograph of Petulia was taken by Anne from Yarn O’clock when she visited Yarndale on Sunday:

Hopefully some knitters now have the means to make their own version of Petulia! I’m itching to knit the smaller version of the shawl myself – and that thought led me to choose some lovely skeins of RiverKnits Chimera and Nene 4Ply this afternoon (at Yarn O’clock)! These skeins are Pumpkin (Chimera) and Zwergpflaume (Nene 4ply) – photographed in evening artificial light so they’re showing up a bit darker than they really are.

The release date for Part One of Barragán shawl (4th October) is drawing closer and there is still just about time to order a yarn kit from McIntosh if you’d like one to arrive by then.

It’s been really interesting seeing people’s reactions to the shawl and the kit on social media – MY Joy and MY Serenity are high contrast colours, with MY Serenity being a vibrant pink/plum colour. Lots of people love it, (even if they don’t usually like pink!) which is wonderful. Sometimes it can be hard to imagine a design in a different colour-way from what is shown, but one of the great things about knitting is that we can take a knitting pattern and make it our own through our colour choices. Someone suggested using two tones of the same shade and I think that could be really beautiful too.

If you love the McIntosh BFL in the colours I used for Barragán, there are a couple of ways you can get a yarn kit:

You can subscribe to The Knitter magazine and select the yarn kit as a free gift (How awesome is that as a free gift!?). There are limited quantities available for this offer so don’t wait around if this appeals to you. You would also need to buy the magazine on October 4th to get Part One as the subscription would start on Nov 1st.

You can order the yarn kit directly from McIntosh (there are four options here; you can also add pattern/needles/both to the yarn/tote bag). (Note – this is an affiliate link; I get a small commission if you order the yarn via this link).

If you don’t love the colours, or already have 150g/600m in each of two colours of 4ply yarn that you’d love to use for Barragán, just buy the magazine each month for the next four months! The first part is in Issue 194 out on October 4th.

I can’t wait to see what combinations people choose to knit this shawl in. Share progress on social media using the hashtag #BarraganKAL

Before Barragán gets going, there’s another pattern being launched! Designs are a bit like buses sometimes…

Bodelwyddan is my new sock design for Treasure Chest YGC – a charity that aims to support and raise funds for patients who have had or are having surgery or treatment for breast cancer in Glan Clywd Hospital, Denbighshire.

Bodelwyddan is a top-down textured design in five sizes with a heel flap and gusset, worked on 2.25mm needles.

I’m donating 50% of the pattern price (that’s £2.50) of every copy sold throughout October to the charity..

I finally have photographs of all five sizes – the largest two sizes are modelled – and the pattern is ready to go live on October 1st. It will be available via my website, Payhip, Lovecrafts and Ravelry.

Bodelwyddan is the village in Denbighshire where Ysbyty Glan Clwyd (Glan Clwyd Hospital) is based and this is the reason for the pattern name.

I’ve now taught three workshops at Shaz’s Shabby Chic now and I’m really enjoying them. This is what my two students last week achieved in just two hours! Three swatches each – impressive!

Tomorrow is Knitting in the Round and there are a few places left. Three more workshops are booked in at Shaz’s Shabby Chic next month, including another Absolute Beginners’ Knitting Workshop. So, if you were thinking about coming to learn to knit and missed out last time, now’s your chance! All workshops are detailed on the “Where I’ll Be” page.

I’m delighted to announce that I’m teaching at The Knit-Tea Retreat again this year. The Retreat takes place at Insole Court in Cardiff on October 28-29 with a social evening in the pub on the Friday night (27th). Booking is open now!

It was great fun last year. There are lots of workshops to choose from – felted landscapes, ‘fun with fibre’ and drop spindling as well as three knitting workshops from me: intarsia, slipped stitches and ‘not basic lace’. There’s a wonderful atmosphere at the retreat, lots of cake, a fab social evening on Saturday and a mini market on Sunday afternoon. I highly recommend it!

In other news, I’ve finally returned to knitting the sleeves of my Umbriel sweater! I hope to have some photos to share with you next week. It will be finished before the end of the year.

Until next week then, take care and I hope you get a chance to do some stuff that makes you happy this week. K x

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The Heart of Love

Calon Cariad is Welsh for ‘the heart of love’.

This Friday is the Show & Tell Zoom for our Calon Cariad Knit-along! It seems to have come around really quickly, even though I moved this final event back a week. There are prizes for contributions on social media and anyone who has completed their shawl gets the chance of winning a fabulous book of shawls; Nordic Shawls by Karen Skriver Lauger. If you click on the photo, you get taken to yesterday’s social media post which has more info.

Yesterday, for the first time in I don’t know how long, I went to a friend’s house for lunch. It seems like such a small thing but, apart from eating at my Mum’s house and my in-laws’, I don’t think I’ve had a meal at someone else’s house since the start of the pandemic. It was lovely! Homemade carrot and spinach soup with sourdough bread and a homemade vegan pear and date crumble.

Another thing that happened yesterday was that I took delivery of a VERY large Kaffe Fassett blanket that needed to have the centre seamed with the four pieces of the border. This was not knitted by me, but by a lovely chap whose hand-knitted, but *literally* moth-eaten, jumpers I rescued a few years ago. I’ve already seamed the four edge pieces together and now just need to insert the middle. That’s about six metres of mattress stitch, possibly more. We couldn’t lay it out flat on my lounge floor as it is just too big, so I may end up spreading it on the bed to line up the edges and secure them with lockable stitch markers before bundling it back up again and just having the area I’m working on over my knees. I’ll get a photograph of it somehow once it’s all sewn together and share it with you all as long as Chris (the knitter and owner of the blanket) doesn’t mind.

There has been some progress on my Gridlock Mitts by Karen Butler. I’ve nearly finished the second one!! Some knitting was done at the dentist last Friday and some this morning. I got a temporary filling at the dentist – my first instinct had been correct and pretty much the entire filling had come out. That led to discovery of another tooth with fractures through it and X-rays which showed a few other things. So, a permanent filling and fixing of the fractures is scheduled for the next available appointment – in May! This seems to be a recurrent theme at present – one thing gets investigated and something else gets picked up along the way. Hurrah for the NHS!

Spring is definitely making its presence felt this week – the bumble bees are giant and the spring flowers are really getting going. I’m even typing this outside in the garden. We planted some red cowslips last year that I’d completely forgotten about until this week when I saw them in flower again. Aren’t they fab?

Do you remember the colour repeats I was trying out with coloured pencils in my journal last week? I thought I had chosen exactly the right one, but 32 rows in I had to admit that it just wasn’t working for me. That meant pulling out (frogging) 24 rows and picking the stitches back up, then returning to my original plan, which (guess what?) actually works. That doesn’t sound too bad does it? 24 rows. Now, think about the fact that each of those rows has 673 stitches in it. Can you see why I stayed in denial for so long, before I admitted I wasn’t happy with how the design was looking?

The rows are very long, but there are several good reasons for that. This is a design that has a lot of stitches in one pattern repeat and it creates a zig-zag effect, so those stitches take up far less width than they would on a straight row. Also, being a zig-zag means that you need fewer rows overall to get the height of the finished item AND by working the pattern along the long edge there are fewer colour changes and therefore fewer ends to weave in. So, whilst it might seem like a silly number of stitches, it will be worth it. And I’ve already re-worked four of the rows I had to rip out. It will be a while until I can share this design with you, but I do love it. Which is why I had to get the colour order/depth exactly right.

Sitting here on the patio I’m looking at the veg patch and thinking it really needs hoeing. That will be one of tomorrow’s jobs I think, as I can’t actually plant the veg seed until the forget-me-nots have made room!

Take care, get out in the sunshine if you can and keep knitting. K x

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Wrapped in Wool

I seem to be increasingly busy lately and I can’t work out whether it’s entirely due to my increased efforts to make my small, one-woman business successful or partly a way of keeping myself away from the news. There are more deadlines certainly – I’ve been submitting designs to publications more frequently and am being accepted more regularly. I’ve even started looking at calls for submissions and thinking “No, I won’t submit to XYZ this time”!

There are self-imposed deadlines too – I mapped out a publications schedule at the beginning of the year with the aim of publishing at least one pattern per month. I’m keeping up with that currently as so far I have (re)published two patterns whose rights have returned to me and published two brand new patterns. The most recent of these was yesterday – Nos Da is now out in the world!

Next month I aim to publish my next Craftucation course (An Introduction to Lace Knitting) and, as that contains a new pattern of mine, I think that will count as my April pattern. This (and the main photo of today’s post) is a screenshot from this morning’s recording, looking at knitted-on edgings.

And June will see two patterns being published by different companies.

I’ve been baking again too. Regular yeasted bread most recently, though I will be returning to the sourdough soon! This was last weekend’s loaf:

Some knitters have recently cast off their Calon Cariad shawls and I joined them last night! It’s lovely to see other people’s shawls and how their yarn choices are working up. Have a look at #CalonCariadKAL on Instagram and Facebook if you want to see them!

Mine ‘just’ needs blocking now. I’m very lucky to have space to do this on blocking mats on the floor, I know. I know people block their shawls on the washing line and weight the lower edge with clothes pegs. Others pin their work out on the bed (I’m sure I’ve even read of the Yarn Harlot doing this on hotel beds in extremis!).

I cast on another project this week too. I know I have about seven on the go already, but the structure of this one was fascinating me and sometimes the only way to really understand something is to do it! It’s the Intro Helmet from Woolly Wormhead, part of her new Introspection collection. The idea is that you can knit any of the six hat styles (Beanie, Beret, Bonnet, Helmet, Pixie and Slouch) with any weight of yarn and in any size! There are loads of crown and brim options for each one too. I’m using some handspun yarn (Colours of Cambria in ‘Mine’, dyed by Katie Weston of Hilltop Cloud) which is working up at about an aran weight. I read through the pattern and the folded brim for the helmet seemed mind-boggling, but once I started making it, it was suddenly started to make sense. I love how the colours are working out too – though that purple band is destined to be on the inside of the hat, unless I wrangle it somehow.

And I’ve dug my colouring pencils out again. I’m playing with options for a knitting design I’m working on. I know the order I want to use the colours in and I’ve been experimenting with the way repeats of the colour sequence might work. It’s a really cool pattern and I’m very excited about it, but you’ll have to wait until September to see this one!

All this making means that some things must have slipped, right? Well, I’m not exactly on top of the dusting and I haven’t yet planted the broad bean or courgette/squash seeds we bought last month, but that’s not a total disaster. Dust only settles behind you as you do it anyway. And there’s still plenty of time for the seeds.

Just don’t ask me to listen to Les Miserables at the moment – that’s more than I can cope with right now. I played some on my laptop accidentally earlier on and had to switch it off, before the keys got wet.

Stay safe and do more of what makes you happy, K x

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Just Because I’m a Woman

Today is International Women’s Day. A good day to celebrate not only the famous women we admire, but also the real life women in our daily lives. The ones who inspire us, impress us, love us and live with us. The theme for International Women’s Day this year is “Break the Bias!” – the link takes you straight to their website where you can find out more about the work they are doing. Go and read it – I’ll still be here when you’re done.

Today’s post title is a great song by Dolly Parton, a woman who knows what it is to be strong, so of course I HAD to use the photo of when Sue and I had a Meet & Greet with the great lady in June 2014 – it would have been rude not to!

When I was born, and my mum realised I was a girl, (her first thought on seeing my long back was that I must be a boy), the first thing she said was, “Poor little thing, she’s got to go through all this.” While my “all this” hasn’t involved childbirth, there have been many things in my life I wouldn’t have had to deal with had her first guess been correct. Then again, I’m sure I’ve had a very different experience in many ways from the one my mum had – although there have been many similarities too. My mum is certainly one of the women I think of today and I have been spending some time working on the embroidery of her. You can just about begin to see the outline appearing now.

A piece of cream linen with patches of tiny black, dark green and dark brown stitches. The fabric is marked off in squares with fine black thread and pale blue thread marks the centre lines. The image of a laughing woman can just be made out in the emerging picture.

I’ve completed two colours (I think I’ve completed them anyway!) and have just started the third – of forty-five…!

I see so many amazing, creative, strong, funny and resilient women sharing their work, brilliance and selves online everyday, even though I don’t see many people in ‘real life’ on a daily basis and it’s hard not to be inspired by them.

The one woman I see more than any others is, of course, my wife. She is astonishing. I am in awe of what she does in her day job, and that she then manages to write such great poetry and be an all round fabulous human too? It’s mind-blowing really. She’s reading some of her poetry tonight actually, at an event with Gloucestershire Poetry Society. It’s online from 7pm-10pm GMT (UTC) and it’s free!

A screenshot from the Gloucestershire Poetry Society's Facebook Page Event listing. The International Women's Day logo is on the left in purple. On the right is a cartoon drawing of three diverse women in the "Break the Bias!" pose of arms crossed with hands upwards and the text "Break the Bias!" above. Under this are the details for the poetry event "'Raised Voices' online in Celebration of International Women's Day" Today from 19:00-22:00. The image is clickable.

And as for me? I have been true to my word this week and started recording again for my Introduction to Lace Knitting course. I’m all set up to record the next section tomorrow as well, all being well.

And what about the knitting, I hear you ask? That has been very busy too! I have:

  • swatched a shawl that I can’t show you
  • worked on a sweater design that I can’t show you
  • started some socks
  • recorded a short video for one section of the Calon Cariad Knitalong &
  • finalised the fancy bits of a pattern that is being released next Monday! Newsletter subscribers, you already have your discount code for this one.

Do you want some photos of the things I can show you? Go on, then.

The front page of a sock pattern lies on a pale gold carpet. On the right side is a photo of the finished socks. On top of the left side of the page lies a toe-up sock in progress on dpns. The yarn is maroon and silver held together at the toe and changing to two colour brioche after the ball of the foot. There’s only about an inch of brioche before the needles.

The socks are Good Riddance socks by Lauroftheblings Designs and I’m using up sock yarn and also other 4-ply leftovers from previous projects and designs.

A hand knitted shawl in progress in neon pink lies on a wooden desk. The bottom part of the knitting has rows of lace hearts, above which is a stocking stitch section. The tips of the needles are in the middle of the shawl (mid-row)by the two central contrasting stitch markers made from bright yellow Lego heads. At the top of the image closed captions in white text read; 'The instructions say "Work to two stitches before'.

The video was to explain and show how the two central stitch markers need to be moved before the final heart motif is worked. I’ll be working on the heart motif later on. This is a screen shot from it.

The front page of Nos Da Pattern. Text top left says "Nos Da A baby blanket" with my logo top right. Underneath is a photograph showing a hand knitted rectangular baby blanket in buttercup yellow laid on a grey weighted blanket. A small stuffed hedgehog toy sits on the bottom right corner of the blanket. The blanket has a wide moss stitch border and features four columns of diamonds outlines worked in moss stitch. Under that is the text: "Meaning ‘Goodnight’ in Welsh, Nos Da is a textured baby blanket that will keep a little one cosy and safe all night. Worked in one piece with an integral moss stitch border, the central columns of diamonds add interest for the knitter, and tactile interest for the recipient! The pattern includes both fully written and charted instructions." At the bottom is my copyright statement.

The new pattern is Nos Da and is out on March 14th. It will be available on Payhip, Lovecrafts and Ravelry AND… if you click on the buttons on my website now (on a computer at least, not yet sure if it works on mobiles) – you NOW GET A PAYHIP POP-UP WINDOW!!! This means you can buy a pattern or kit directly without having to leave my website first. So, yes, I upgraded to the ‘Business’ level plan here on my website and there are lots of new things I get to try out! Look:

A screenshot of my Nevern Throw pattern page on the website, with a Payhip pop-up window superimposed.

The world is still a complicated and confusing place and I’m not running any fund-raising efforts or giving a percentage of sales for Ukraine. Why not? Well, simply because my sales aren’t big enough to make it come to anything worthwhile. Instead, I’ve just made a simple donation to the British Red Cross who can get the money to where it needs to go and support those people who need it.

Take care and keep knitting. I’ll see you next week. K x

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Tread Softly

Today’s blog post title continues the tradition of using song titles for my posts, but it’s also the opening of the final line of the poem (He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W B Yeats) that Of Night and Light is named after; “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”. This seems apt today.

Well, this is the first time in three weeks that I’ve actually written my blog post on a Tuesday. The previous two posts were written in advance as I was going to be at Mum’s and I knew I would be busy there.

But today? Today is Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday. It’s also St David’s Day (the patron saint of Wales). I will be making pancakes – vegan sourdough ones if you’re interested, complete with lemon and sugar. They will be the ‘afters’ to a tofu stir-fry.

Much of this morning was spent reviewing how my business was in February and planning the month ahead. I’m ever more grateful for the writing gig I have on the side now (still very much knitting based), as that is bringing in some regular money which is helping and may even fund upgrading my website, enabling me to add a shopping cart at last!

I relaunched Of Night and Light last week, as I now have the publication rights back and I’ve added in a few extra things that weren’t there when the pattern was originally published in Knit Now Issue 134 last October. The yarn I used is Rowan Felted Tweed and I wanted to make it easier for people to substitute a different yarn without them having to buy far too much of particular colours. So the relaunched pattern includes the yarn lengths required for each of the four colours in each of the nine sizes, in both metres and yards, including a 10% buffer (in case of gauge differences).

For example, the original pattern states that, for the silver grey colour (CC3), one 50g ball of Felted Tweed is needed regardless of which size is made, but the yardage used from that ball varies enormously, from 56m for XS to 130m for 5X! If you are substituting a yarn that comes in 25g balls or 100g balls, or even considering using some left-overs from your stash it is useful to know this!

I’ve also taken on board feedback that was given after I asked knitters about another sweater design, and all measurements are now shown in cm and inches and the table below is now included as one of the images on both Payhip and Ravelry so people can tell in advance whether the sizing works for them.

I have also made a commitment to myself to finish my Introduction to Lace Knitting Craftucation course and get it live on the website by the end of April. My hands are still split on the knuckles, but having recorded a short video yesterday on wrap and turn short rows, it was really encouraging to see that they did not look as bad on screen as I feared. It WILL get completed!

Speaking of short rows, our Calon Cariad KAL (which I did the video for) is going well and people are posting their progress on social media which is very exciting to see. There’s continued to be more interaction in the Facebook group too! This is my Calon Cariad with the short row section completed – can you see how the plain section above the lace border is deeper in the middle than at the edges? That’s what short rows can do. (It’s sitting on top of my Nevern Throw).

I think I’m going to have to extend the KAL for a week and rebook the Show & Tell Zoom for March 25th, instead of March 18th. Last month I broke a tooth (a back molar) and when I was given the first date available at the dentist of course I said yes, not realising it was the same day I’d planned to have our end of KAL Zoom. The last thing I want is to be trying to host a Zoom event with my face still numb from the dentist! I don’t think anyone will mind having an extra week.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to write today, as my little corner of the world seems rather insignificant compared to current world events. However, I decided it wouldn’t be helping anyone by not writing a blog post, and it might be an enjoyable distraction for someone.

Hold your loved ones close and keep knitting, and maybe eat a pancake or two. Also, if you can, please consider making a donation to one of the charities working to support Ukrainians.

‘Til next time, Kx

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Join In

Just over two years ago I created my Facebook group – Kath Andrews Designs group. I wanted it to be a place where knitters could share their projects, talk about yarn and generally hang out.

The group description reads:

This group is for people to share projects, ideas and top tips or just enjoy pics of other people’s yarn and general loveliness.

This is your group – come in and have a chat!

Following the Ravelry update, which had meant a lot of people (including myself) could no longer spend a lot of time there, It had become particularly important for me to create a space where I could interact with other knitters and see what they were making. Especially when they were knitting my patterns!

One of the great features that Ravelry always had is that knitters upload photos of their projects and by adding the pattern name, it gets added to the list of the projects created from that pattern. As a knitter thinking of starting a particular pattern you can look through pictures and notes from everyone else who has uploaded their progress and thoughts and get ideas about alternative yarns, modifications people have made, issues and solutions. It was brilliant, but after the Ravelry update I have to limit the time I spend on the website, or I will get a migraine. So, as an alternative, a Facebook group seemed like just the ticket.

But new things take time, don’t they? Just because I was ready to have a Facebook group and get chatting with other knitters there, didn’t mean they were ready at the same time! People have responded well to my posts with reactions and comments and the membership of the group has grown slowly but steadily. It is now just over 100. In the world of social media I know that is nothing, but if you think about having 100 actual real people (which of course they are) all part of one group, that’s pretty cool.

And lately, more things are starting to happen. Some members have started to add their own posts, rather than just reply to mine. This is SO exciting! And I have to admit I got a little teary when I first saw one member of the group comment on another member’s post – exactly the kind of interactions I have been wanting people to start having.

Our current knit-along is the perfect opportunity for people to join the group, join in and get more active, if they use Facebook. And if they don’t? Well, the KAL hashtag, #CalonCariadKAL, can be used on Instagram and Twitter as well as Facebook, so I will be able to see it and celebrate progress, as will anyone else following the hashtag.

Why not pop over to Facebook, join the group and join in? We’d love to have you!