Pictured today is a shot of three dark pink peonies in the front garden, surrounded by cowslips that have gone over, some pink primroses and lots of weeds and grass that shouldn’t be in the border. We haven’t done the ‘big weed’ of the front garden yet (the back garden has been mostly tidied up), and this very ‘real’ pic seemed appropriate to the title of today’s post!

There have been a number of news stories and social media posts about AI recently and I felt I wanted to put down my thoughts and feelings around the subject.

There are certain phrases and structures that are beginning to stand out as massive AI indicators in writing, such as three short phrases each on a new line, “It’s not X, it’s Y, and that makes all the difference”, “and honestly?” and pretty much anything described as “quietly” when it has absolutely nothing to do with volume.

I’m now noticing it in so many things I read; newsletters, articles, social media – even BBC news articles seem to use some of these structures and patterns. Quite often I’ll be reading for a while and then spot one of these things and increasingly it just puts me right off reading any further.

What’s the reason for my antipathy towards AI? There are several! It uses massive amounts of water to run the data centres where it takes place. AI is literally costing human jobs – 8000 Meta employees lost their jobs recently as a way of funding the AI part of the business. It’s also built on the theft of real people’s creativity. Articles, books, poetry, art have all been fed into these machines to ‘teach’ them how to ‘create’ the responses you ask for, often without the permission or even knowledge of the original artists. And it all looks and sounds so much the same after a while. More ‘generic’ AI than ‘generative’.

Woolly Wormhead wrote an excellent post on May 11th on social media, asking people not to input their knitting patterns into ChatGPT or other AI systems when looking for help or translation. I second this plea wholeheartedly. If people need help with a pattern there are videos available, tutorials and groups with lots of people (over a thousand people in Woolly’s case) on Facebook very willing to explain things.

There are also apps that people feed their patterns into in order to mark their progress. This worries me too, as I’m not sure what the companies behind the apps are doing with that data. Please don’t feed the machine!

With my patterns, if you do need help, please just get in touch with me directly via the website and I will answer your questions. I’ve been known to draw diagrams to help explain things and even record videos with little demos of how to do something.

The news that Google search is becoming more AI driven is also a concern, especially since the answers given in the AI overview aren’t always accurate. For example, I just typed into Google “What is Kath Andrews’ most popular knitting pattern?” The AI overview came back:

“Kath Andrews’ most popular designs include the Nevern Throw (a stranded colourwork Celtic knot blanket), the Meg March Shawl (a cozy, large two-colour brioche wrap), and Caramel Slice (an approachable child’s slip-stitch cardigan).”

Me being me, I just did a bit of sales analysis to check this out. Now, the first one is correct as I thought – Nevern Throw is my best selling pattern, by quite some distance. I’ve sold 820 copies of this pattern, with 643 of these being online sales (that number took me a bit by surprise!). Meg March Shawl is well admired and has sold 152 copies, with 60 of those being online sales, but there are several other patterns in between Nevern Throw and Meg in terms of sales. But Caramel Slice? I’ve only ever sold 12 copies of that, and only one of those was an online sale. Although I think it’s a good design, it’s hardly one of my most popular! So, that rather throws the AI answer out of the window.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about AI today. What are your views on the subject?

On the more practical side of things, I am launching Making Tracks as an individual pattern tomorrow!
As always, if you’d like a subscriber discount for the pattern, please do sign up to my newsletter (always written entirely by me, occasional typos and all!). The jumper has finished chest measurements of 101.5-174.5cm (40-68.75 inches) with adjustable body and sleeve lengths.

If the weather cools down enough later I will also photograph my grey 4ply What Do Points Make?. That’s likely to be past 9pm though!

Unfortunately, my Steeking workshop at Ewe Felty Thing that should have been taking place this coming Saturday (May 30th) is being postponed until the autumn, as not enough people wanted to learn how to cut their knitting open safely (that’s what steeking is!) to run the workshop this weekend.

I should be teaching Stacked Stitches and Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche workshops at Ewe Felty Thing on June 20th – there are plenty of spaces. Please do come. Both these workshops are a lot of fun. Stacked Stitches opens up a whole world of amazing designs, mostly created by Xandy Peters, who is a genius! If you have some experience in basic two-colour brioche knitting (straight stripes is sufficient) then you will be able to do the Next Steps workshop and create a little coaster/mat. Again, this workshop will open up a huge range of possibilities for you in brioche knitting patterns.

Before then, the next yarn show we’ll be at is The Wool Monty, at Magna just outside Sheffield, on June 13th and 14th. I’ve never been to this show before, but I’ve heard some wonderful things about it. I’ll have printed copies of the new version of Ice Diamond Mitts, Making Tracks and many many more, as well as kits and postcards. Do come and say hello if you visit the show! I’m teaching my Intro to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting workshop on Sunday morning – and it’s sold out!

I cast off my super secret knit recently which means I’ll be able to show you things that I’m knitting again soon!

That’s all from me for today. It is very hot (it’s 26.2 celsius in the house and apparently ’26 feeling like 31′ celsius outside which is hot as anything for our corner of North Wales in May!). We live only about 5 miles from the place that had Wales’ highest recorded temperature yesterday. I’ve stayed inside so far today in the shade, and I’m trying to remember to drink plenty of water. I may or may not attempt digging up the final mini sycamore tree in the border this evening. Make sure you stay hydrated wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Take care one and all, K x

I had to check the calendar this week as it’s been so cold! Even though it is nearly mid-May I’m back in my woollen dress and tights, especially important while doing exam invigilation in a very cool hall. The last thing the exam candidates need to be distracted by would be my teeth chattering!

Are you one of those people who doesn’t knit in the summer? I’m an all-year-round knitter as you might have guessed – and quite often I’m knitting quite thick autumn/winter items during the spring and summer months because of the way deadlines for magazines go, so in that respect the current coolness is not a problem, not when I’m at home knitting with a pile of wool in my lap anyway. It is slightly different when I’m out and about!

The rhubarb that we planted and that seemed to be settling in so well is sulking a bit, but I think that might be the lack of decent rain. We are due some more this week, but if it turns out to be more of a drizzle than a soak I might have to do some watering. The rain we did have recently made the chickweed and goose grass grow like mad, but not the things we actually want to flourish!

It is nice to see the aquilegias in flower again though. Did you know I have a shawl inspired by the colours of aquilegias? That’s the shawl in the main photo for today’s post. Aquilegia Shawl uses a Fibonacci sequence for the zig-zag stripes and is very adaptable in terms of both width and length.

You can tell it’s one of my older designs as my hair isn’t blue in the picture!

On Friday the updated version of Into the Vortex was released, now including all the information you need to knit a version of the shawl using 2 x 100g DK yarn as well as the original two sizes for 4 ply.

I’m planning to relaunch Ice Diamond Mitts next week now as this week has turned out to be quite busy!

If you are hoping to learn two-colour brioche knitting with me at a yarn show this year, there are still spaces at the Midlands Wool Festival (3 on Saturday, 8 on Sunday) and some at the Stafford Wool Gathering. The workshop at North East Wool Show in Newcastle is now sold out. I may put a Zoom workshop on in the summer if there are people interested who cannot attend an in-person workshop. Do let me know if this would interest you!

I finally got my grey 4ply What Do Points Make? blocked yesterday. It was not as easy as expected. Not because of the measurements, but because I got hiccups just as I started to pin it out! It’s not terribly easy to pin out knitting with straight edges when your diaphragm is kicking at you! It is done however, and the measurements are the same as the lace weight version! Do you remember when I knitted my multi-coloured 4ply one in Size 4 and it came out bigger than the lace version? I think that was definitely due to the yarn being a ‘thicker’ 4ply, at 365m per 100g whereas the grey is 440m per 100g. That’s quite a difference really and yet they still both count as 4ply yarn!

Now that I know what type of 4ply yarn maintains the original measurements I can update the pattern – and maybe include a note that if you want to use 365m/100g 4ply then it will come out bigger than stated!

I ended last week’s post saying that I was off to ask for some help with something. I did and got a very kind and helpful response.

That’s all for today as I can’t show you what I’ve spent most of my knitting hours on this week as it’s a commission using yarn that isn’t even publicly available yet! I do like how it’s coming out and hope everyone else will too once it’s published!

Take care one and all and I hope you get time to do something that makes you happy this week. K x

We had a wonderful weekend at Wonderwool Wales. It was the 20th anniversary of the show and our third time of being there. We were in the same spot as usual, W16 in Hall 3, and I love the fact that it felt easier to unload and set up this time – partly due to familiarity with the process and being in the same space. I think our stand looked the best it has done so far at Wonderwool, what do you think?

Here’s 2024:

And 2025:

And now 2026!

I think you can see that the pull up pattern display stands have been increasing in number! We also vastly increased the number of designs we brought with us – it was 66 this year!

We sold out completely of Lichfield before lunchtime on Sunday and only had one Nevern Throw left by the end of the show. These designs have been reliable best-sellers ever since they came out. It was also lovely to see some of the designs that don’t come out very often, such as the Lighthouse Blanket, get some attention too.

We had a lot of fun during the weekend as well as working hard and it was great to be able to chat with fellow exhibitors, even if that was mostly during set-up, break-down or occasional trips to the loo! Familiar faces of friends visiting the show and knitters who have visited our stand in previous years added to the camaraderie and fun. We laughed a lot during the three days we were there and the main pic to this post, when Sue was playing peek-a-boo, gives you a sense of the mood!

It really helps that the show is very well organised and as well as the main organisers, there are loads of volunteers around in high vis tops offering comfort breaks to anyone on their own and always ready to point people in the right direction.

Sue managed the stand on her own for a couple of hours each day while I went off to unravel some of the mysteries of two-colour brioche knitting with some fab knitters. They did really well and made excellent progress in two hours with a technique that was new to them and uses some unfamiliar terminology too!

I was absolutely delighted to see another Tiffany in the wild. This one was knitted by Kay who was with one of the guilds and popped over to show me her shawl. It’s a fabulous bright version with some extra colour changes added in!

Apologies for the magazine in shot as well – I had my latest designs that are out in magazines on display just underneath where we laid this shawl for the photo.

Sue has a new plan for a series of videos/reels with the theme of ‘swish or waft?’ and I was the guinea pig that had to try it out first. I’m always shy to be in front of the camera for things like this but I think her final video is fun. If you are a stall holder, you are quite likely to be asked the same question quite soon!

This coming Saturday I will be at Yarnies at the Flaxmill at the Flaxmill Maltings in Shrewsbury. I’m actually going to be flying solo for this one. If you are coming to the show, please stop by and say hello. Between now and then I need to go through all the sample bags and pattern cases and put together the patterns and samples I need as I won’t have 66 designs with me as the space is a more modest 4m x 2m. I think we’ve whittled it down to 48. I also need to reprint a few things!

We came home to a riot of yellow in the garden that wasn’t out when we left. Fortunately not all dandelions (though there are some of those too), but lots and lots of yellow poppies. We’ve never planted these, they’ve just self-seeded and spread themselves during the 22 years we’ve lived here, and I love them. The aquilegias are starting to come into flower as well. I will get some photos of them to share with you next week. Until then, take care and do something that makes you happy. K x