Tag: Knitting Tutor

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Consider Yourself ‘Wool-In’!

I’m sorry about the corniness of today’s post title, but I just couldn’t resist it. After rehearsing ‘Consider Yourself’ with Shelby’s Singers (our local community choir) last Wednesday, and now being at Welwyn Garden City for the week long wool festival that is Wool-in Garden City, that twist on the lyrics just won’t leave my head!

How are you after Storm Isha? It sounded pretty scary outside to me, but there didn’t seem to be any major damage where we are.

I’m having such a lovely time at Wool-in Garden City. I’ve met a whole new bunch of fab yarnie people, given a talk about my work as a designer (!) and taught 8 people how to knit two-colour brioche. The folk standing around the edge might have picked up a tip or two as well!

The mayor of Welwyn Garden City opened the event on Saturday morning, cutting the obligatory ribbon, and he and his wife spent time talking to every exhibitor as well.

A week long show as a pop up shop is a big undertaking, especially for the organisers, and I can’t thank Helen and Naomi and their extra volunteers enough. They’ve been helpful, kind, friendly and encouraging throughout. We have the opportunity to take time out from the event, at which point folk can pay for items from our stands at the central cash desk. As some of the exhibitors also have full time a Monday to Friday jobs this means they can continue with their regular lives and have their work on display and on sale at the same time – a brilliant idea.

I got very excited about having some of my designs in the window of the shop too…

As a result of a conversation I had at the weekend, I took my courage in my hands and wrote an email I’m now nervously awaiting a reply for. It could be very exciting.

As well as all this, there has been some knitting!

The sleeves for the adult version of Honeybun are gradually growing and I’m getting closer to the armhole shaping. this is one of the two sleeves – I’m doing them both at the same time on the same needle, but photographing them both together is proving to be tricky!

My small Petulia grew by 40 rows at the weekend.

And I finally swatched for and started (twice) my chunky version of Fiery Dragon Skin Cowl.

This will be added to the original pattern once I’ve got all the details down and photos of the finished sample. This is using my handspun yarn that I made last year from Velvet Sixpence in Polwarth wool. I have to say I was impressed that it coped so well with being frogged twice and re-knitted. I usually keep my swatches, but as I only have this one ball of yarn and I didn’t know how much I would need for the cowl, I decided not to risk it.

By the end of Monday it was nearly finished!

And I did finish the socks before going to Wool-in Garden City!

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the event this week and I will take lots more photos of everyone else’s stands to share on social media and to show you next week.

We were woken up by an owl this morning – another addition to the list of wildlife we’ve seen or heard in the area.

Until next week, take care and try not to get blown away by Storm Jocelyn! K x

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May Day!

I wish I could share a pic of my desk with you right now. It’s rather overflowing with work! However, I can’t show you, because one of the things on it is the finished child’s cardigan that no-one will see until August, and there’s also piles of pattern printouts and schematics with various measurements relating to that. On the right side of the desk is a stack of stitch dictionaries with a small heap of knitted and blocked swatches on top, ready for the next design! I’ve even started using the top of my printer as a desk extension, which probably isn’t very good for it…

Now that it’s May we finally have some warmth here. I walked to the post office earlier with sandals on! I have good news on the seedlings too – they are sprouting well. As long as they survive we should have some homegrown broad beans, dwarf French beans, mange tout, coriander, and courgettes so far. I’m having to do regular sweeps of our click-together plastic-covered greenhouse to check for slugs and snails; I just lob them into the patch of ground elder and tell them to munch on the new shoots of that instead. Pics soon!

The cardigan is done and even has its buttons sewn on (pics in July when it’s published). I have recovered from the shock I had at the weekend end when I opened the pattern file only to discover several pages were missing! Fortunately I had printed the pattern out as I was working on it. I also discovered an older version saved in the back ups on ‘Time Machine’ from two weeks ago that mysteriously had more of the pattern than the current version and I was able to recover that, which saved quite a bit of re-typing.

I can’t imagine how five pages of a Word doc vanished, unless something went very wonky when I was using my new iPad and I accidentally deleted them without even realising? Something similar happened with my Excel spreadsheet file for the same design a few weeks ago too – maybe there’s something I’m leaning on on the screen? Losing work is NOT something I want to experience on a regular basis!

This afternoon I’ve been chomping through the numbers, double checking they all work and make sense – and result in a garment of the proportions intended for all sizes! I’m really pleased with the sample. It’s made using West Yorkshire Spinners Elements DK and includes two of the new seasons’ colours.

If you’ve been following my social media over the past week or so, you’ll know that I’ve been knitting my own version of Tiffany, one of the shawls I designed for RiverKnits. It uses their Nene 4ply Shadow Rainbow minis set and the colours are so rich and saturated that you could just sit and look at the yarn for hours. However, I had a shawl to knit – with the aim of having it ready to display at Buxton Wool Gathering, which is now only 5 days away!

This morning I finished the shawl and photographed it before I went on to block it.

I videoed the blocking process. It’s quite an ‘aggressive’ block and it tends to make my blocking mats lift up at the edges. You also need to put the pins into the mats at a steep angle to stop them pinging out. You’ll see in the vid that I end up weighing the edges of the blocking mats down. The end of the video is cut off as my phone ran out of space – the video was 37 minutes long at that point! Don’t worry though – I’ve edited it and sped it up A LOT so it now takes less than 90 seconds!

Blocking Tiffany

Yes, I really do measure each point of the shawl from the cast-on tab at the centre top of the shawl. This makes sure it’s a semicircle. The finished blocking is a heck of a lot larger than when the shawl comes off the needles, and you need to leave it pinned until it is completely dry. It will pull back in by about 3.5cm on the radius once the pins are removed and I think it will look stunning at the show.

Speaking of Buxton Wool Gathering, here’s a reminder of the details. It’s being held at Buxton Pavilion Gardens, St. John’s Road, Buxton, Derbyshire, SK17 6BE. There’s a pay and display car park and food and drink available both at the venue and in the town which is only a short stroll.

Please note that the show is on Sunday and Monday (as Saturday is the Coronation). Tickets bought in advance allow entry from 10am, tickets bought on the door allow entry from 11am.

Buxton is closely followed by Wool @J13 on May 13th and 14th!

My Moebius Knitting Workshop at Yarn O’clock on May 18th (£35, 6.30-9pm) still has a couple of places on it. If you want to 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, this is the class for you! Learn two Moebius cast-ons and create a simple headband. Ring Anne at Yarn O’clock (01352 218082) to book a place!

I’ve also recently been invited to have a stall at the Cheshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Friendship Day the following weekend, which was a lovely surprise! If you’re a member of the guild or one of the other local guilds they invite to join them, you’ll see me there!

I think this is my busiest month yet in terms of events – everything is on my ‘where I’ll be‘ page on the website.

I’ll tell you all about how things went at Buxton next week! Til then, take care, enjoy the sunshine if you can, and do some stuff that makes you happy, K x

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Reader, I frogged it.

Despite the cold mornings over the past couple of days, spring is really here. The daffodils are looking wonderful. We went a bit mad on bulbs last year (we got ours from Scamps in Cornwall) and there are 10 or so different varieties in flower at the moment, of all shades, shapes and sizes. One is so frilly and multi-layered, it almost doesn’t look like a daffodil at all!

The rhubarb is coming up a treat too, and I think I will be making rhubarb and ginger jam again very soon. I last made it on 6th April 2021 – and I noted on the jam labels that it had been snowing that day. Hopefully we won’t get any more snow this year – last month’s was quite enough for a while.

I’m managing to gradually wake my sourdough starter (Audrey 2) up, though she is still very sluggish. It’s taking about 24 hours for it to nearly double in size and it should be a lot quicker than that. I think it is time to consult one of my “Sourdough Whisperer” books by Elaine Boddy. She is an absolute whizz with sourdough, has a very no-nonsense approach, and has advice on almost any possible scenario from getting a happy active starter, to trouble-shooting loaves that haven’t turned out as expected.

On the yarn-based side of things I’ve been quite busy as ever. The adult cardigan has been delivered to its destination and the pattern emailed. No pics allowed yet – it’ll be published in July. The child’s cardigan (next commission) has a healthy looking spreadsheet and I cast that one on last night. Again, no pics – that one will be published in August.

In a couple of weeks I will be giving a workshop on Finishing Techniques. This is the one workshop that involves a lot of knitting prep, as I like to give the knitters the blocked swatches they will be working with. The first time I ran this workshop knitters were asked to bring their own blocked swatches and they were…quite varied. Some people did not know how to block, so hadn’t. That’s fair enough – that’s all part of finishing. It is far easier to seam something once it’s been blocked (as long as it’s done properly!).

So, now knitters are given two swatches and then the one remaining swatch that hasn’t been blocked is given a wet block there and then to show them how easy it is – and what to avoid doing. They will have squares of two colours, pick up stitches along one of them (in a third colour) to knit a shaped flap with a buttonhole, and then seam the two squares together to make a small purse. There are a lot of skills involved in this – picking up stitches, directional decreases (choosing and positioning them well), different types of buttonholes, working mattress stitch seams down the side of a knitted piece and on a cast-on edge, weaving in yarn ends. And how to block.

There are a couple of places left on this workshop (18th April, 6.30-9pm, £35 at Yarn O’clock in Mold), and if you’d like to brush up on your finishing techniques contact Anne at the shop (01352 218082) to book a place.

Pikachu – the crochet kit I bought after Christmas – is coming on well. He has a body/head, two stripes and a double thickness tail. I’ll be making the feet later today, which just leaves the ears and arms. You never know – it might even be complete by next week!

The first sleeve of my Umbriel sweater was sailing along. Until today when I tried it on. You may remember I said that I’d picked up extra stitches than stated in the pattern as I need generously sized sleeves. It turns out I’d overdone it. As I was working the short rows there were a couple of points on around the armhole where it was looking a bit ‘pleated’, but I thought it would be ok once on and my arm would smooth the fabric out. Once I transferred the stitches to a long needle so I could try it on I realised just how unlikely that would be!

So, dear reader, I frogged the sleeve worked so far (‘frog’ as in ‘rip it, rip it’) and I’m back to square one. The moral of this tale is to listen to nagging doubts – it won’t always block out – and try on as you go when you can. I’m so glad I hadn’t completed the first sleeve before trying it on. Frogging your knitting is almost as much an act of faith as knitting it in the first place. You’re saying ‘I can do this differently, better’. Also, although some people will look at you pulling out what to them look like several evenings worth of perfectly good knitted stitches, if you know that you won’t wear it as it is, there’s no point in leaving it as it is. It’s quite liberating actually.

Good points I noted when I tried it on: the sweater does have a wonderfully soft and warm fabric, I was right to shorten the length as much as I did, and the body fits beautifully – even over a t-shirt and woollen dress.

This is the armhole after the sleeve was frogged. Ready to go again!

I’ve got my ticket for Wonderwool Wales (which is less than three weeks away now!) and then before you know it I’ll be exhibiting at Buxton Wool Gathering (May 7-8) and Wool @J13 (May 13-14). Full details and links for how to buy tickets for these are on the “Where I’ll Be” page and I’ll be writing more about upcoming shows in the next week or two.

I hope you have a good week, and are able to do some stuff you enjoy. Take care one and all, K x

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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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All Are Welcome

A cross-stitch montage of a wide variety of pride flags and skin tones for a brightly coloured square. Within that the words "Welcome All Races, All Religions, All Sexualities, All Genders, All Nationalities, All Disabilities, All People". A white mount surrounds the stitching with a narrow red frame. The background is a pale gold carpet.

I picked up the Safe Space cross stitch from the framers today! We go to P G Framing in Mold and Paul did a fabulous job as always. I had to request a perspex front because it’s going to be hung in a school and glass isn’t allowed. Taking pictures of things behind a shiny surface is always tricky, so you have a faint reflection of me in the pic too!

On Thursday (that’s the 19th, in two days), the new issue (185) of The Knitter comes out. If everything has gone to plan there should be a pattern in there from me and… an interview! I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m beyond excited. Do let me know if you get a copy!

Do you remember those brownies I hadn’t had time to make last week? They got made on Wednesday and lasted until yesterday! Very squidgy in the middle and particularly delicious with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice-cream. Pictured is the whole bake before cutting and a small corner cut off as soon as it was cool enough (essential for quality control).

Am Byth MKAL began on Friday and I get so excited seeing people share their progress on social media. Part One is fairly quick – I had to put anything that could tell knitters what they were making into Part Two, but it looks cool none the less! It’s also amazing when people say they’ve learnt a new cast-on, a new increase, done some cool baby cables and they’re loving it even though they have no idea what it will be! (Thanks @RobandThread!). Of course, now there’s a fairly long wait until Part Two is released – a whole extra ten days from now!

Here’s a little bit (but not all by any means) of Am Byth Part One, next to the image I designed as the pattern placeholder – can you see a connection? I’ll share my completed Part One next week.

Llandudno Promenade got blocked today. Because of the crocking (excess dye that had transferred to the cream yarn) I didn’t take my usual approach and leave it to soak for 15 minutes (or longer – I have a tendency to forget things if they’re in a different room!). Instead, I immersed it in hand warm water and gave it a good squeeze – to encourage the excess dye molecules into the water – and then repeated this twice more, the last time in colder water and holding the cream sections under the running water. It seems to have done the trick as the blocking photo looks to be less blue in the sections that shouldn’t be blue than the pre-blocking photo did!

Trying to minimise the amount of floor space taken up with blocking (this shawl wasn’t a suitable candidate to try the hap stretcher out on because of the straight edges), I ended up blocking it right side down. It’s not an aggressive block at all – just a case of getting the right angles sides straight and easing out the hypotenuse. Here are the before and after blocking pics:

A series of Knitting for Beginners classes has been booked at Caffi Isa on Monday afternoons (1-3pm), on Feb 6th, 13th and 27th. (Not the 20th as that’s half-term). I did a post about them on Instagram and Facebook on Saturday. If you know anyone who would like to learn to knit, is in Flintshire or Cheshire and is able to come to an afternoon class, please point them in my direction!

I’m also hoping to arrange a series of the same classes on an evening (in Mold) as I know afternoons don’t work for a lot of people.

That’s all from me for today. Have a good week, wrap up warm (Oh, I didn’t even mention the snow!), and do stuff that makes you happy. K x

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Slowly Does It

A flatfish sourdough loaf is held in the right hand above the bread board. It has been cut and the crumb (cut side) is held up to show the camera.

I’ve done three hours of knitting today and I can’t show it to you (it’s for the next MKAL!), but there are some other things making some (albeit slow) progress that I can share with you.

Over the past couple of days I’ve made my first sourdough loaf in quite a while. The dough was still very soft when it went into the fridge overnight and spread a lot when I tipped it out of the banneton this morning. It’s a little on the flat side, but nothing like the frisbees that I have been known to create in the past. And, regardless of how it looks, it tastes amazing.

I’m pleased with the crumb – not too many large holes. Next time I will try reducing the quantity of water as I think in the past that has helped create a dough that holds together more before baking. Lots of sourdough bakers keep a journal of all their bakes with details of temperature, timings and quantities of everything. I could do that, but I’m not sure I’d remember!

My sock is growing. If you remember I’m using RiverKnits Open Day 2022 Show yarn in 100% Cormo wool. It’s not a breed I’ve come across before, but it’s knitting up really nicely. I paused a little with this over the weekend as I wasn’t sure if I’d made the leg too long. I knew the answer was to try it on and if the top of the cuff was tight on my calf I would need to rip out the foot, gusset, heel turn and heel flap and a little of the leg. You can probably tell from that list that I was not keen on this option, but I knew that if the socks were tight at the top they would either sag down my legs or stay in the drawer unworn. So, I was putting off the moment of finding out. Eventually I plucked up the courage and tried it on – it fits! Phew!

I don’t often knit ‘regular’ socks for myself, but when I do I knit them top down with 80 stitches on 2.25mm needles. I do a slip stitch heel flap and reduce the foot down to either 72 or 68 stitches over the gusset. I’m hoping to finish the pair by the end of the month, but then I’ve also challenged myself to finish my ‘Safe Space’ embroidery this month as well, so we shall see – I may have been somewhat over optimistic when I set my monthly goals as I do actually need to do some work as well!

Speaking of which! The Safe Space embroidery is coming on – the big flag at the bottom left that I posted about yesterday is now more than half finished.

I was able to do some of it in front of the telly last night with the aid of my little Serious Readers lamp that came as a freebie (!) with my desk lamp. They are both great and the little one is charged by USB which has proved handy in power cuts (while the battery lasts!).

I’m going to set up a new page on the website of “Where I’ll be” as I’m doing more workshops and other events now. In the meantime, there is an Introduction to Two Colour Brioche Knitting workshop coming up on December 8th (Thursday) at Yarn O’clock that has a couple of spaces remaining. Contact Anne at Yarn O’clock if you would like to book a place.

I’m trying out Mastodon as a new social media platform and am gently finding my way around. If you are on there you can find me as @KathAndrews@toot.wales – it’s also encouraged me to have a go at learning Welsh and I’m on Day 3 of my adventures with Duolingo. So I now know how to say “Noswaith dda, Kath dw i. Sut dych chi? Dw i wedi blino!” That’s “Good evening, I’m Kath. How are you? I’m tired!”

So, as ‘dw i wedi blino’, I’m going to stop here, make dinner (bread plus curry made yesterday!), have a cup of tea and put my feet up for a little while before watching ‘quiz night’ on BBC2. Take care one and all. Hwyl! K x

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Home again, home again

A collection of stacked stitches knitted swatches all in different 3-colour combinations grouped together on a white table

Market (and retreat) are done.

The Knit-Tea Retreat at Insole Court in Llandaff, Cardiff, was wonderful. The organisers, Zoë and Jennie, were so kind and helpful (and organised!) and the attendees were such a great bunch of people that it made the weekend feel like a real pleasure even though I was working. It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

Everyone did so well in both workshops, learning new and unusual knitting techniques. Here are some pictures of what they achieved in the Stacked Stitches and Moebius Knitting workshops.

Two days before the retreat started (on my birthday) I decided to design a new stacked stitches sample to include in the class. (This is a very *me* thing to do). I like it – it’s similar to Hungarian Point Bargello tapestry stitch and also reminds me of geometric 60s wallpaper! I also like the fact you can work the 12-row repeat as often as you want until you decide to cast off.

Zigzag Stacked Stitches

This swatch was knitted using leftover ColourLab DK. While I was at the Sunday afternoon marketplace I had a look at the Cartref Yarn stand (run by Zoë and Jennie, the retreat organisers) and bought these three skeins of gorgeous 4-ply:

Cartref Yarn in purple, yellow and orange

The plan is to develop the zigzag swatch into a design that can be made using either 4-ply or DK (there will be two versions of the pattern depending on the yarn used). The DK version will be made using three very beautiful skeins of Black and Blue Welsh Wool from Midwinter Yarns – so it will be a design fully created in Wales with Welsh materials.

The zigzag swatch replaced the little mat/coaster in the workshop – the sample on the right of the picture below – that had been based on a section of Xandy Peters’ Ribbon Candy Scarf.

Stacked Stitches Swatches

The scarf is fabulous by the way and the pattern can be found at knitty.com.

Ribbon Candy Scarf by Xandy Peters

As well as the two workshops on Saturday, there was a social evening with a bring-and-take table, a raffle and a great mass ordering of take-aways – the combined aromas of pizza, Chinese and curry was surprisingly lovely!

Even though I hadn’t taken anything for the bring-and-take table because I hadn’t known about it, I was encouraged to have a look and found this little gem of sock yarn. It’s a 50g skein from Pixel Atlantis, a dyer from Edinburgh. 50g is enough for 1 sock, and I plan to find another 50g skein in one of the colours from this variegated one and combine them to make a ‘same but different’ not quite matching pair! The colourway is called “The Ghost of Christmas Past”.

Pixel Atlantis sock yarn

Then there was the raffle – there were some amazing prizes on offer here. I had donated a printed copy of The Little Orme Collection (hat, mitts and cowl) and there was also a whole yarn advent calendar, a project bag and lots of wonderful yarn. When my number was called I chose a skein of yarn that reminds me of raspberry sorbet. It was dyed by Owl About Yarn (that’s Jennie’s other yarn business!) for one of the past retreats. Isn’t it lush?!

Owl About Yarn skein

You may think that after lots of workshops folk would have had enough of knitting, but no! In each tea and cake break in the middle of the workshops we returned to the Carriage House Hall where refreshments were had and where everyone picked up their own knitting again for half an hour. The same was true at lunchtime and in the evening. I made quite a bit of progress on my sock using RiverKnits’ Open Day Special yarn.

Sock using RiverKnits’ yarn

I even worked on a jumper (I cast on at the Travelodge on Friday night) with yarn I had bought back in March or April!

Umbriel 1

For me Sunday was all about the marketplace. Retreat attendees mostly spent the morning either lino printing or doing yoga for crafters. I was very grateful the weather was not stormy as forecast and was able to bring the contents of my Yaris into the hall without getting soaked, ready to set up just before lunch. (Packing up was another story as the rain had begun again by then. I was VERY grateful to have lots of help taking everything back to the car).

The 6 foot clothes rail works really well and I was so relieved that I could remember how it fitted together!

Knit-Tea Retreat Marketplace Stand Kath Andrews Designs

I had *everything* with me and put out just over half of it. It was particularly wonderful seeing several of the knitters who had been in my moebius knitting workshop the day before buying moebius patterns!

Since getting home I have been taking it easy and yesterday I caught up with the Doctor Who special whilst continuing with my Morph hat by Woolly Wormhead. I really like the construction and I’m interested to see how the brim decreases work on the next/final round of squares – it’ll reduce the circumference by a third.

Morph body nearly complete

What have you been up to over the past couple of days?

Take care one and all, K x

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Antici…pation!

I’ve got to that stage of preparing for an event where I’m both excited and impatient for it to start whilst also wanting just that extra bit of time to go over everything once more.

I’m talking about The Knit-Tea Retreat happening this weekend at Insole Court, Llandaff, Cardiff. I’ll be teaching two workshops on Saturday; Stacked Stitches in the morning and Moebius Knitting in the afternoon. Then on Sunday afternoon it’s the Marketplace! My workshop notes are complete and printed out (which is designed to stop me ‘tweaking’ the workshops any further), my patterns are all printed and most things are ready to go in the car on Friday, although the study does look a little too full right now!

The Stacked Stitches workshop is really cool and I’m pleased with the new sample I’ve devised for knitters to develop their understanding and use of the technique (on the right). Following that we move on to knitting a small coaster/mat that is based on a small part of the Ribbon Candy Scarf by Xandy Peters (on the left).

Stacked Stitches Samples

Once knitters are confident with the technique they will be able to put it into practice in full size projects. This is a close-up of part of the Fox Paws scarf, designed by Xandy Peters, that I made as my first ever piece of stacked stitches knitting. It was a real challenge and so satisfying to see the patterns come together as the extreme increases and decreases were completed.

Fox Paws close-up (design by Xandy Peters)

The Moebius Knitting workshop shows two ways to create this mind-bending 3D impossibility without having to simply knit a flat strip and add a twist before seaming it. I have two designs so far that are Moebius cowls and I’m hoping that knitters who take this workshop may want to try one of them after Saturday afternoon!

This is what they will be making:

Moebius Headband

which on a larger scale can become this cowl:

Striped Moebius Cowl

These two Moebius cowl designs include lace. Mirror Mirror Moebius is on the left and Forest Ferns Moebius is on the right. Both pictures show them laid flat as for blocking.

Mirror Mirror Moebius by Kath Andrews
Forest Ferns Moebius by Kath Andrews, blocking

But in use they look like this!

Mirror Mirror Moebius by Kath Andrews, photo © KnitPicks
Forest Ferns Moebius by Kath Andrews

Last week I showed you the progress being made on the Nevern Throw Expansion Pack and my Morph hat from Woolly Wormhead’s new collection, Cuboidal. What I forgot to show you was Cleo, in full attention seeking mode. She doesn’t like it if I sit on Mum’s sofa without being available for cuddles and she had the perfect way to stop me knitting – by sitting on it!

Cleo on the Nevern Throw Expansion Pack

It is now complete and I am very pleased with the overall result. All that now needs to be done is for me to put the charts and main basic info together in a single file. As it is the expansion pack, you will need the main Nevern Throw pattern as well for the information about putting the squares together. I hope to get this up on all my platforms in the next couple of weeks.

Nevern Throw Expansion Pack sampler by Kath Andrews
Nevern Throw Expansion Pack by Kath Andrews folded to show back as well as front

The light must be very different at my house to Mum’s as the colours of this have come out very differently from last week’s photos!

And Morph has grown a lot – but there is still quite a way to go. It is one BIG hat!! The top corners will be folded in once finished as it is an envelope slouch – I’ve tried to give a sense of how that works in the right hand image below. Being made entirely from mitred squares I had been concerned there would be lots of ends to weave in, but as you can see from the inside of the hat in the right hand photo that isn’t the case at all. You only break the yarn when moving from one round of squares to the next.

Morph Hat in progress (design by Woolly Wormhead)
Inside of Morph Hat in progress (design by Woolly Wormhead)

I also finally got back to my Safe Space embroidery by Peppermint Purple this morning. This is growing more slowly, probably because I chose to make the cross-stitch version rather than the blackwork version, but I wanted it to be bold and vibrant and I think it is definitely that.

Safe Space cross stitch in progress (design by Peppermint Purple)

I’m looking forward to being amongst knitters all weekend and I’m really honoured to have been invited by Zoë and Jennie who organise The Knit-Tea Retreats to be one of their tutors this time around and to share my knowledge of two slightly less well known knitting techniques. I also feel the responsibility to ensure the knitters attending my workshops have a good time as well as learn new things. I’ll never forget a workshop I attended at Knit Camp in Stirling where one tutor told us off for talking and helping each other! Apparently she was the only one qualified to give advice, even though there were so many of us she couldn’t get round us all… Some things stay with you, don’t they?

If you are near Cardiff on Sunday afternoon – do pop over to the marketplace at Insole Court and say hello. It’s open to the public and entry is free! And I’ll tell you all about how it went next week.

Take care one and all, K x

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Did You Miss Me?

A close-up of lace knitting in light green

I’m a day late! Sorry, folks. It’s been a *really* busy couple of days – including at least six hours on the road – and I didn’t plan ahead very well to get my post drafted in advance.

The image at the top of this post is part of my Leaf & Vine Cardigan, published in Haven: Knit Lace Patterns published by Knit Picks. I will be running a give-away of one printed copy of the whole collection in my Facebook Group this month – if you want to be in with a chance of winning a copy of this, join the group!

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I made the rookie error of going away and only taking one knitting project with me. I wrote about it in the post “Coming Together“. So, in an attempt to avoid a repeat of this shocking state of affairs, I made sure that I wouldn’t be without knitting on this trip to Mum’s. I took this little lot:

That’s five projects (one is hiding in the project bag – I’m working on the next MKAL!) that I took with me. Six to do there if you remember the cowl I did some knitting on for Mum last time I was there and is being kept now as back-up knitting for me!

Guess how many I worked on while I was away? One (the MKAL). But at least I didn’t run out of knitting – just time.

My Nevern Throw Expansion Pack is nearly complete! I have one more square to knit up, then the borders and joining to do. These are three of the new six:

Remember this is an addition to the original Nevern Throw, doubling the original number of designs. The gauge, yarn, needles and making up instructions are all in the original pattern and the expansion pack will just include the six new charts. All of the designs are drawn from the Nevern Cross in Pembrokeshire:

As each of the squares has the same number of stitches and rows they are all interchangeable, meaning you can choose how many different squares you include in your throw.

I did mention I’ve been working on the next MKAL, but it’s a *mystery*, so I can’t show you! You’ll just have to join in with us if you want to see it as soon as possible.

I’ve also been revising and updating the notes for my Cast-On/Cast-Off workshop, which I will be teaching at Yarn O’clock on October 18th (6.30-9pm) and at The Knit-Tea Retreat at Insole Court, Llandaff, Cardiff, October 22nd-23rd.

There are six small swatches that students will make, each with a different cast-on and cast-off and appropriate stitch pattern:

The workshop notes are now laid out with a page per swatch with a space at the bottom of the page to attach the swatch itself, thus building a library of cast-on and cast-off techniques. I’m ridiculously pleased with this layout as previously the notes were organised in two sections: Cast-Ons and Cast-Offs. This pairs relevant ones together and makes a lot more sense to me – and hopefully it will to the students as well!

Speaking of The Knit-Tea Retreat, did you know that as well as teaching three workshops there (the Cast-On/Cast-Off workshop is just one of them!), I will also have a stand at the Sunday afternoon marketplace which is open to the public, not just the retreat attendees. If you’re near Llandaff on October 23rd, 2-5pm, come and say hello!

I’ve made a little pledge with myself to spin a little each day when I’m at home this month as I didn’t get to my wheel at all in September! So far (out of three possible days) I haven’t actually done any, but tomorrow is another day and I am determined to do some spinning! On the other hand I did get to spend some time with a knitting friend this afternoon which was lovely.

I’m away again next week but, as I won’t be travelling on Tuesday, I’m hoping to get my blog out on time! Take care one and all, K x

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Yarndale!

Last weekend at Yarndale was great fun and I had a lovely time hanging out on the RiverKnits stand with Becci and Markus (and Bryn). I was very lucky that, as well as it being the launch of Agnes and Tiffany (the two new shawls), they had also invited me to bring some of my other patterns and samples with me – so I had half a table and a long clothes rail to display my stuff on.

This is the fab video that Becci took of the stand just before everything got going on Day 1 – clicking play will take you to Instagram to see the video, but that’s ok – I’ll wait for you to come back!

It was the first two-day event I’ve been at for the whole time, and folk are right – that concrete floor gets mightily cold! However, the marching band that came around regularly on the Saturday helped warm us up and get the blood moving as you couldn’t help but dance to the beat.

There was no band on Sunday, but instead some rather large sheep did the rounds – pursued by a very friendly sheepdog! Unfortunately, my pic of the sheepdog is rather out of focus as I was laughing so much when I took it – the dog kept pausing to wag its tail!

It was wonderful to talk to people about yarn all weekend – and so lovely to see reactions to Agnes and Tiffany as people came towards the stand. I certainly got a big boost from hearing all the comments and from talking to people about their plans for knitting them.

Another bonus was being able to look round the rest of the show, especially on Sunday morning shortly before opening. Getting a chance to chat to some of the other vendors (including some who had been at Yarn Gathering the weekend before – hello Tanya from The Woolly Tangle and Lyn from Gwennol Designs!!) was great too.

So, Yarndale is done, and Agnes and Tiffany are launched. What’s next?

There will be a “Cast-on/Cast-off; Beginning and Ending Well” workshop at Yarn O’clock on October 18th, 6.30-9pm. There are only going to be 4 spaces, so book early! (I know there have been some requests for another brioche workshop and that will be coming, but not until at least November).

I’ll be teaching three workshops at The Knit-Tea Retreat in Cardiff on October 22nd-23rd: Moebius Knitting, Stacked Stitches (learning to use the techniques used so spectacularly by Xandy Peters in their designs), and Cast-on/Cast-off. I’ll also have a stand at their marketplace on the Sunday afternoon.

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I’m working on plans for the next MKAL with Yarn O’clock (you’re not getting any clues as to what it’ll be yet!) that we’re aiming to run in January. In fact, swatching for this is taking place this week!

AND, there will be a third RiverKnits shawl joining Agnes and Tiffany! I got to choose the yarn and discuss ideas for it at the weekend. Here’s a real teaser in the form of a black and white photo so you can’t even tell what the yarn colours are:

Phew! I think I’m going to have to make the spaces bigger in my forward planning section of my next bullet journal as the pace of things is definitely picking up.

What are you up to at the moment? What are you working on or planning to make next?

I heard a wonderful quote this morning, apparently from Albert Einstein:

“Creativity is intelligence having fun”.

Albert Einstein

And we all need all the fun we can get, right? It’s been shown (not sure where, so I can’t give you the citation) that even forty minutes of making/crafting is truly beneficial to your brain chemicals. So, go make something. And take care out there, K x