Tag: Knitting Workshops

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And Then There Were Two…

You know I enjoyed the sewing workshop last week, when I made the zipped pouch with Jo Paloma Makes at Amanda’s Fabrics? Well, I enjoyed it so much I made another! There will be more…

Are these boxy little bags something you’d like to see on my stand at yarn shows?

I’ve also finished, blocked and photographed my new sample of Amy March Shawl (though I haven’t updated the pics on the webpage yet), so I shall have the new sample and printed patterns with me at the Pop Up Wool Show on Saturday at Hulme Hall. In fact, I’ll have Amy March AND the updated version of Marianne Half Hap – as well as all my other patterns of course!

This week has also seen the completion of the second sock of the largest size in my new design that will be out in October. The pic shows it just after turning the heel. That’s five socks I’ve knitted using this pattern now. I’m going to make one of each of the second and third sizes as well, in different yarns, so folk can see how the pattern works well with striped, semi-solid, variegated and speckled yarns. The pattern still needs a name, but I have a few ideas now, so it won’t be nameless for too much longer.

My Mystical Lanterns Blanket, designed by Janie Crow, now has a fifth row. It’s interesting to see how, despite the random colour selection process, some colours are grouping together in the same area of a row each time. I think I shall have to give the bag a good shake after I put the yarn balls back in next time.

There’s even been some spinning! Having been working hard at getting thicker yarns more consistently I decided to ring the changes and explore the higher ‘gears’ or ratios on my spinning wheel. That just involves moving the elastic band that links the big wheel turned by my feet to the small wheel that spins the bobbin where the yarn goes.

The higher the ratio, the faster the top wheel spins and the faster the yarn goes on to the bobbin. While I’ve been getting used to it I’ve actually slowed my feet down dramatically, just so the fibre doesn’t fly out of my hands before I’ve put enough twist in it to hold together. But it’s certainly more successful than the last time I ventured onto the fastest end of my wheel and this time there was no swearing!

My week hasn’t been all yarn and fabric based. I’ve been busy designing and editing the flyers for my knitting workshops taking place at Shaz’s Shabby Chic and advertising them on social media.

If you know someone who would like to learn to knit from scratch or develop their skills further with slip stitch knitting or knitting in the round, please send them in my direction! You can even scan the QR code in the image above with your phone’s camera, which will take you straight to Ticketsource where you’ll find all the details for each class and be able to book tickets (or click the link!).

The final preparations for the Pop Up Wool Show are taking place, with printing of patterns, checking of kits and wooden items, clarifying my display set-up etc.

I know that I’ve got a space against a wall this year, which is good for me, and I hope you’ll come and say hello to me and my lovely wife if you get the chance.

I couldn’t leave you without mentioning Yarn Gathering.

We’ve got 12 lovely vendors lined up for you this year. There are a few more folk to add to the webpage, but do have a look and see who’s coming. There will be some cafes open in Mold, parking is free on a Sunday (as is entry to Yarn Gathering), and of course, the Mold Food and Drink Festival will be taking place as well, so there is a lot to come and enjoy on September 17th!

What have you been up to this week? Take care and I hope to see some of you on Saturday! Kx

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Signs of Life

I’m sitting at my desk watching the sunshine on the garden and enjoying the range of colour that has emerged over the past few weeks. The blackcurrant bush is now in full leaf and the redcurrant isn’t far behind. The daffodils are looking mightily impressive and the camellias are both absolutely covered in flowers. Even the hellebores are still looking good – though I may need to deadhead them soon to avoid the garden becoming covered with seeds!

The birds are pairing up – there’s been a very attentive wood pigeon bowing to another on the fence most days and there are two robins in the garden. They must be a pair as robins are far too territorial to allow another ‘random’ robin into their space.

I finally sowed the veg seed just over a week ago – with the weather being so variable I wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to snow again! Nothing is showing yet, but I’m keeping everything crossed. It’s last year’s seed, but it should still be good for this year. If we’re lucky we’ll get some broad beans, edamame beans, French beans, cucamelon, courgettes of various sorts and mange tout. If we’re not lucky we should at least have the fruit from the fruit bushes!

I’ve started knitting my own Tiffany shawl! RiverKnits have the original version, and they have very kindly provided a Shadow Rainbow mini set of Nene 4-ply for me to knit my own. This is great as the pattern rights have now returned to me and it will be wonderful to have the shawl in person when selling the design at shows. I have a long train journey tomorrow – more on this next week! – and I’m hoping to get a good chunk of Tiffany done during the ride.

Speaking of shows, I’m looking forward to going to Wonderwool on Sunday – it’s a great day out in mid Wales and it will be lovely to say hello to some familiar faces. If you’re there and you see me, do say hi – and please tell me who you are! It is of course also the day that the new national ’emergency alert’ system is going to be tested, sending a loud sound and message to all smartphones. I’m glad we know what time it will be (3pm) as those of us who would prefer not to be in a big shed with thousands of other phones going off at once will have a chance to pop outside beforehand.

Going to yarn shows as a ‘punter’ is a very different experience from being at one as an exhibitor and I find it always gives me ideas for new ways I could display samples or patterns. I better not have too many new ideas though as Buxton Wool Gathering is only two weeks after Wonderwool and Wool@J13 is the week after Buxton!

Something new I have done recently is to sign up to Ko-fi.com. You’ll notice a floating button on my website now with a pic of a coffee cup that says “Support me”. I may change the text to “buy me a cuppa” or something else. (Ironically I don’t actually drink coffee – it gives me migraines!)

I’ve done this so folk who like what I do and want to support me, but don’t currently need a knitting pattern, knitting kit or wooden treat, can now do so. I’ve had non-knitting friends buy a knitting pattern in the past as they’ve wanted to support what I do and Ko-fi seems a practical approach to this.

I’m not planning on doing ‘memberships’ as I can’t promise regular exclusive content when I’m already writing a weekly blog and doing daily social media posts across four platforms. It is only me running this business after all.

It’s appropriate that tonight is my Finishing Techniques workshop, as this morning I have been weaving in ends and seaming half of the child’s cardigan I’m designing (remember I was about to cast on the first sleeve just after last week’s post?). I still have one sleeve to weave in the ends of and seam, before I join it to the body. Then it’s just the button band to knit, and that runs all around the edge of the body. And that reminds me that I need to buy some buttons! I may take some of the cardi along with me this evening to show how much of a difference it makes when you match up the increases or decreases on each side of a seam.

When I get to this stage of a project that my brain starts turning to the next design (or two). I’ve pulled my favourite stitch dictionaries off the shelf and onto my desk, and the pages of my bullet journal are starting to be filled with sketches and charts once more as well as daily lists of things to do. Again it’s a design that I won’t be able show you for quite a few months, but I am very excited to start working with this yarn – the colours are delicious:

I’m still going with song titles where I can for blog titles – today’s is a song by Pink Floyd from the album ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason’, the first ‘proper’ band I got into when I was 14. It’s quite surreal.

Take care of yourselves, I’ll be back next week! Kx

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Ta-da!

The most exciting news for me this week has to be the publication of The Knitter, issue 185 last Thursday. See that shawl on the cover? That’s Branwen, my design, and it’s a five part knit-along that is begin run during this and the next four issues! Part One is in this month’s magazine. It’s the top centre section of the shawl (in green). It’s a DK weight shawl, using West Yorkshire Spinners Fleece (2 skeins of cream and 3 skeins of green) and it’s sooo soft and cosy! Once I’d bought my copy of the mag in WHSmith’s I wanted to go round the town showing it to everyone and saying – look! I made that!

But not only that, this video shows you a glimpse of the (three page!) interview with lots of pics of my designs and lots about me, my designing, inspiration etc. If you ever wanted to know where it all began, this article will tell you!

Speaking of knit-alongs, this is the completed Part One of Am Byth MKAL. Also, a DK weight project, this one only uses one skein. You can see the design taking shape now, but can you work out what the project is going to be yet? All will be revealed on Friday, when Part Two is released.

I’ve had a burst of activity with my spinning in the past week. I finished spinning the braid into singles on Sunday, and today I chain plied the whole lot! The thing about chain plying is that as you are making a big loop in one hand to catch and pull the strand of yarn from the bobbin through (to form the next big loop – it’s like really fast giant finger knitting), you’re using the other hand to control the twist and your feet are working the treadles. I tend to find that the singles yarn tries to turn and twist back on itself when I’m getting going, until I get a regular rhythm going, at which point I don’t want to stop and have it all tangle up again!. This is partly because the singles are spun (twisted) in one direction and this makes the yarn unbalanced. Plying twists the yarn in the opposite direction which balances the twist and gives you a yarn that doesn’t want to turn into nightmare corkscrews.

I’m pleased with how the chain plied yarn has come out. The clear shift from one colour to the next has been maintained which I wanted, with a subtle blending of colours in places. It’s a little thicker than I was hoping for, but considering it is a 3-ply structure it’s pretty good. About a sock weight I think, but I’ll check it later once it’s been washed. I absolutely love the colours – the fibre was dyed by Sealy MacWheely.

Finally, there is some progress on mum’s picture embroidery that you can actually see! I’ve done (nearly) all of the column on the right hand side which was half a page wide (20 stitches) and three and a bit pages long (190 stitches) and I’ve made a start on the next full page width to the left. The sections where there are more colours, such as the bottom right corner, are much more interesting, but take so much more concentration – and there are about 40 different colours in that section, so it’s quite hard to keep track of as well.

I baked my first sourdough loaf of the year today as well. Audrey 2 (my starter), was living up to her name after going into semi-hibernation over Christmas, and it took a lot of feeding to get her active again! It’s a good loaf, although I dived into it for lunch before I took any pics (don’t worry, it isn’t all gone!). I shall have to remember to photograph the next one before slicing it.

There are still spaces available on my Knitting for Beginners workshops!

These are due to start on Feb 6th 1-3pm at Caffi Isa in Mynydd Isa, near Mold, Flintshire. If you or anyone you know fancies learning to knit in a small group, in a relaxed setting with access to tea/coffee and cake, contact me to book a space!

This is what we’ll be making (these are Knitting for Beginners workshops 1, 2 & 3 on my Group Workshops Tuition page):

There are also some spaces on the workshops I am giving at Yarn O’clock, but they are booking up fast! In brief they are:

  • Introduction to Socking Knitting, 16th February, 6.30-9pm
  • Stranded Colourwork, 7th March, 6.30-9pm
  • Finishing Techniques, 18th April, 6.30-9pm
  • Moebius Knitting, 18th May, 6.30-9pm

Full details are on my “Where I’ll Be” page and also on Yarn O’clock‘s website. Contact Anne to book a space on one of these.

Just before I sign off I want to tell you that I am sitting here typing this in the dark, running the laptop from the battery. There’s no problem; we’ve signed up to take part in the energy reduction trials that are happening. There was one from 5-6pm yesterday, today is 4.30-6pm. It’s amazing how many things are on or on standby all the time even when we only use them for a small part of the day. Or rather, I should say how many things were on or on standby. They’re not now – I’ve been going round unplugging stuff or switching it off at the wall! (Just like my dad – but then he used to unplug the tv aerial every night as well) The multi-sockets that each have their own switch are proving handy too. It’s also striking how much quieter the house is, which is interesting as I never really considered ‘things plugged in’ to have a noise, but I suppose they must!

Anyway, take care, stay warm. Dw i eisiau un deg un paned! (I want eleven cups of tea). Tell me what you’ve been making lately. 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

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Falling into Place

A Canada goose, with five goslings swimming in a line behind her, approach the edge of a large pond. There are some yellow flag irises growing in the bank in the foreground.

I’d wanted to make a joke about getting all your ducks in a row, but since this photo is of goslings, that doesn’t really work, does it?! These little beauties in the main pic were following in their mama goose’s wake in the pond on our town common on Sunday. Just as they are lining up neatly behind her, so things this week seem to be working out well for me so far (sshhh!!!).

Yesterday morning I was waiting for a phone call. An old college friend (who was also our best man back in 2005) had texted the day before to ask if I would be at home for a call about 9.30am. I thought it must be fairly important if he needed to ‘book’ the call in advance. By 10am I was beginning to wonder if I’d got the day wrong, or if something had come up that was preventing him ringing.

And then there was a knock on the door. I answered it, imagining it to be the postie – there have been a fair few parcel deliveries in the past week. But no. It was my friend, on our doorstep, a total surprise!! Especially when you realise that he lives in Kent and we are in North Wales! Turns out he’d been on retreat nearby and was ‘calling’ in on his way home.

It’s the sign of a good friend that, even when you haven’t seen them for years, don’t talk that often on the phone, you can pick up as though no time had passed since you last saw them. It must have been pre-Covid when we last met up. Cups of tea (coffee for him) were drunk, news and gossip and hugs were exchanged and then, less than an hour later, he was on his way. It was a truly lovely surprise – a little gift of someone else’s time.

Speaking of gifts of time, the embroidery is coming on. I had worried on Sunday that I wouldn’t be able to finish it in time for my wonderful wife’s birthday on Friday as I was going to run out of green thread, but Sewcraft Swindon came to the rescue. I ordered some yesterday morning and today, it arrived! So, there is still a good chance of it being finished. It won’t be framed, but it will be ‘done’.

A partly completed blackwork and cross stitch embroidery in 4 colours (green, black & 2 shades of brown). A geometric design with nested offset squares.

It’s proved to be so much quicker to do than the embroidery of Mum’s photo, partly because it’s working at a larger scale – each square on the chart is over two threads in each direction, not just one – which means I can more easily see what I am doing! Always useful! The main reason though is linked to this design being geometric – there are patterns that are repeated and can be memorised, so I don’t have to refer to the chart for every stitch. In fact there are whole sections now where I don’t need to look at the chart at all, just do a quick check with one of the sections I’ve already completed. The photo embroidery by its very nature is rather random in the placement of each colour (and there are 46, I think), so there is no getting away from the chart (all 16 pages of it) even for a moment.

And I do like patterns. I’m good at spotting patterns – and errors in/interruptions to repeated patterns as well. Patterns that can be repeated and memorised make knitting a joy, and they are pleasing to the eye as well.

The Wensleydale yarn (Aysgarth) from RiverKnits that I showed you last week has started to be knitted up in a new design with some delightful repeated patterns. I’m not going to show you the whole design until it is published (probably in September), but I can share little snippets with you. It’s an unusual yarn as it doesn’t have the elasticity that I associate with wool when in the skein or being knitted, but once it is part of a knitted fabric it has a wonderful softness. I love this colour too – it’s called ‘Sloe Gin’ and has a gorgeous range of purples in it! (See, I haven’t *just* been stitching this week).

A curled up piece of knitting in progress. The yarn is deep purple, on a circular needle with a couple of stitch markers visible. The rest of the ball of yarn is under the knitting. The background is a pale gold carpet.

And, when blocked, the way the pattern opens up is astounding – it’s almost like linen with added fuzziness and shine!

A close-up shot of a small blocked swatch using the purple Wensleydale yarn. It is draped over the thumb and back of my left hand. The background is a pale gold carpet.

I shall also be able to finish Mum’s socks now too. I’ve been waiting for her to measure either the length of her foot or the length of her favourite bed sock so I can be sure the new socks will fit well. 10″ for both, apparently, so on we go! These are Raggsocks from Midwinter Yarns.

A sock in progress on double pointed needles. The yarn is a marled/barberpole purple and white. Worked from the top down the leg and heel of the sock have been worked along with half the foot. The rest of the ball lies next to the sock. The background is a pale gold carpet.

There’s no date as yet for “An Introduction to Lace Knitting” Craftucation course going live. The accompanying PDF is having some formatting issues (e.g. image captions appearing on a different page from the image itself) which require the brain of a clever tech bod (thanks in advance Graeme!). Hopefully it won’t take too long.

On our second (yes, really!) walk into town today, I decided to photograph the postbox topper that’s been outside the Spar for a good couple of weeks. I’m not sure which group made it, but it looks very splendid. Even if the Jubilee isn’t your thing, it’s nice to see something cheering the place up and being left in place undamaged too!

A knitted postbox topper of a large gold and purple stuffed crown with red, white and blue knitted 'jewels'. It is attached to a green crocheted base that also has red and white knitted flowers and red, white and blue knitted bunting around the edge. The background is the corner of the Spar shop and the sign for the Post Office.

There’s been a definite purple theme to the knitting in this week’s post hasn’t there?! Not at all consciously – just one of those things.

In the meantime I have another live workshop with Yarn O’clock next week – Crochet for Beginners! Being left-handed I am most used to crocheting left-handed, but I can also do it right-handed, which is really useful. I’m looking forward to helping the students develop skills and confidence over the course of the two hour class. As the workshop is on Tuesday that means next week’s blog will be on Wednesday – and then I can tell you all about it and show you how they got on.

In the meantime, take care, make stuff and hold your favourite folk as close as you can. K x

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Cover Story

The upper part of the front cover of the new issue of The Knitter. There is text around the model detailing some of the things in the magazine. The model is wearing a lace wrap which is held in place with a wooden shawl pin. She has short Afro hair and is looking directly into the camera.

If you saw my newsletter yesterday, you will have seen that it is ten years (almost – it was June 2012) since my first pattern was published in a magazine and it made the front cover. That was Knit Now, Issue 11, with New York Nights.

On Thursday 12th May, the Issue 176 of The Knitter will hit the shops and the pattern on the front cover is one of mine!! It’s the first pattern I’ve had published in this magazine and this is something that has been a goal of mine for a little while. The styling is beautiful and it suits the model so well.

As you can imagine I’ve been very excited about this design and to finally see it yesterday when the magazine came through my door was a bit of a dream! I’ll be writing more about this and the wonderful yarn I got to knit it with from Thursday.

To celebrate, I treated myself to a pair of earrings from a local shop. Shaz’s Shabby Chic has recently moved to new, bigger premises, and it was my first time visiting the new shop yesterday. I found these gorgeous silver earrings with a Celtic knot engraved into them, made by a local jewellery maker, and I love them.

The cold has very nearly gone by the way – it was ‘just’ a cold, thank goodness, but it was still a bit grotty. I am very glad to be able to go about my day again without having to cough or blow my nose every few minutes!

I promised you a round-up of the finished Calon Cariad shawls from our KAL, and I am aware that I have not yet delivered – this is something I definitely will include next week. If you were taking part in the #CalonCariadKAL, please do send me a pic of your finished shawl (or as far as you’ve got with it) as I’d love to show them all together.

New workshops are now available to book via Anne at Yarn O’clock! Spaces are limited, so if you want to come, book a place soon.

May 24th, 6.30-9pm – Two-Colour Brioche Knitting, £35

June 7th, 7-9pm – Beginners Crochet, £30

June 7th, 7-9pm – Beginners Crochet, £30

June 21st, 6.30-9pm – Closed Ring Cables, £35

The workshops will be held in the Cafe of the Daniel Owen Centre, Mold. Full details are on the Yarn O’clock website.

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And, breathe…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yvonne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Getting Ready

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

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

Photo © David Dixon

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

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

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

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

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