TexStyle is a new fibre and textile festival in the north of England. We’re bringing together independent stitch craft creators under one roof and I am delighted to be part of it!
Join us at Manchester Central to celebrate all the fibre crafts you love. We’ll have a hall full of knitting and crochet, sewing and quilting, weaving, and more.
I will have a ‘designer stand’ at this event, so I will have patterns and samples only with me, no kits or other items.
Yarn O’clock & Kath Andrews Designs are delighted to be hosting Yarn Gathering once again for its fourth year at the Daniel Owen Centre in Mold.
Entry is FREE!!
As well as being one of the organisers I am also exhibiting and selling my kits and designs at Yarn Gathering.
We have a lovely range vendors with us this year, all within an hour or so of Mold, showcasing their wonderful talents and products. Because the show is larger we are using three rooms in the Daniel Owen Centre; the cafe, the main hall and Room 4 upstairs.
See the main Yarn Gathering page for the full details.
Do you like my roses and carnations? They were a gift from my lovely wife to celebrate the launch of “Of Night and Light” in Knit Now last week. After all the excitement of the magazine release last Thursday, I have been getting on with some new projects and returning to some not so new ones.
My advent sweater is dry so now I have the ends to weave in – approximately 50 of them! I might take a similar approach to the one I used to use for writing school reports; decide when I want it finished by, work out how many I need to do each day and get that day’s ‘portion’ done in the morning while the light is good in the front room. If I take next Wednesday as my deadline, then if I do about 7 each day it will be ready – that doesn’t sound half so intimidating as 50!
When I finished spinning my Merino d’Arles, dyed by Anne Murray, back in March, I knew what pattern I wanted to use it for. My Fiery Dragon Skin Cowl seemed ideal for the colours of the yarn and the fact it is very textural meant that irregularities in the yarn wouldn’t matter so much. It’s coming along really well and I am so pleased with the effect. It’s slightly thicker than the yarn I designed the pattern for originally (Painted Desert by Knitting Fever), but that’s ok. It’ll be a little warmer. This is the first time I’ve used my hand-spun yarn for a knitting project, as opposed to a swatch and it’s so satisfying.
Another new project is the embroidery of Mum’s photo – I’ve actually started it! It doesn’t look like much yet and it will take a good while before the picture takes shape, but it has at least begun. The embroidery hoop is helping enormously as is the re-printed chart. The first one had 70 x 100 squares per page (4 pages) and it was just too small to keep track of with 40+ different symbols. Now the chart has 50 x 75 squares per page (9 pages) and I can actually see the symbols without them swimming about. Thumb for scale!
There are a LOT of colours involved too. I love the fact that I can use this box mum finished making recently (after starting it well over 10 years ago) to store them in:
The sweater design I’ve been working on for a while now has completed Back and Front sections, all written up. The sleeves have been charted with all the shaping and I’ve started writing them up. I redid the front of the round neckline with my coloured pens and graph paper and now I’m really happy with how the nine different sizes relate to each other as well as all having a pleasing curve. The really tricky part was working out the most logical way to write it out – that was yesterday’s task and fortunately was a success!
Glancing out of the window I see it is raining. Again. I’m so glad I had a walk before lunch, but it does put me off doing much in the veg patch today. Maybe it’ll be dry again later in the week. One of our tomatoes has ripened – I can see it from here! So, it was worth tying them up to get some sunlight. I think I should probably get them in soon and finish ripening them on the window sill.
Audrey2 (my sourdough starter) is getting all grown up now. I’ve made three good loaves with her (after one dodgy one and some flat-as-pancake rolls) and she’s doubling in size and then some when fed. Not wishing to be caught out with fruit flies again like I was with Audrey I have dried some starter and the shards are now safely in a jam jar should they ever be needed. When I read about drying out sourdough starter and seeing that it would take 2-3 days I thought it must be a typo since any starter left on a spoon or spatula goes rock solid so quickly, but no. It really took 3 days. Hurrah for a silicone rolling mat and pop up food cover that could be moved around as necessary.
Do you remember I said I was going to plan a new workshop last week? Well, it’s done! Great project, loads of skills and if I can complete it in one hour (taking my time and not rushing), then knitters taking the workshop will be able to complete it in two and a half. More details coming soon. It’s also given me a really rather fab idea for a kit to launch next year…!
That’s all from me for today. Stay safe and do what makes you happy, Kx
P.S. Keep your fingers crossed for me on Friday – that’s when I find out about the latest design I submitted!
Little strikes fear in the heart of a crafter as much as unexplained pain in the hands (ok, maybe moths). Both spinning and knitting are on my list for today, but I’m not quite sure if I’ll be able to do much of either. I have managed to mow the lawns, grabbing the opportunity of dry weather while I can. Hopefully the paracetamol will kick in soon, but forgive me if today’s blog post is a little shorter than usual.
This week my thoughts have been focused around knitting kits – specifically, when do people buy them, who do they buy them for (themselves or as gifts) and what patterns make the best kits. Currently a dozen of my 39 designs are available in kit form, but they don’t sell online as well as they could. Before Covid I had regular stalls at fairs and pop-up shops and kits always did well there. Maybe it’s the tactile nature of yarn that when people can see the items ‘in the flesh’ and touch the fibres they are more inclined to part with their hard-earned cash?
My kits always include a printed colour copy of the pattern, a cotton project bag, quality yarn in natural fibres in a choice of colour-ways and stitch markers (and for Calon Cariad, which needs 22 stitch markers, that’s how many you get!) and ribbon if required. So all you need to supply are the needles. If you were buying a knitting kit for yourself or someone else would the presence of needles make a difference? Even though it would increase the cost of the kit? Optional needles?
I would genuinely love people’s thoughts on this – please leave a comment here and, while you’re here, why not have a look at my kits!
Keep knitting, K x
P.S. While I’ve been writing this I’ve been listening to First Aid Kit – if you’ve not come across them before, check them out; they are fab.
Some days and weeks you get all the fun stuff, some give you the sticky end of the lollipop and some are a real pick and mix. We’re halfway through the Welsh ‘fire-break’ and, as I work from home and haven’t been going out much anyway, I haven’t noticed a big difference in the day-to-day, apart from not being able to visit the lovely Anne at Yarn O’clock.
Very early on Friday morning I had the email no designer wants to see, the “Thank you for your submission; unfortunately…” Quite why I decided to check my email when I woke up at 5.30am I’m not sure, but it’s not a habit I recommend! So, I’ve come to terms with that disappointment over the past few days and I’m now thinking about where else I could submit the design, because, heck – it’s a really good one! Advanced Lace Stole/Wrap anyone?
On the up side of things I’ve been in communication with a really great blogger (hi, Hanna!) and my work preparing my first online course with Craftucation moves on apace. All my videos for it are uploaded, some of the notes are too. It’s aimed at total and complete beginners to knitting. My wife (a non-knitter) has watched it and said that she would be able to follow the course which is really encouraging.
I’m totally in love with my spinning wheel still and I’ve been doing fancy stuff like experimenting with the drive ratios (get me!). This is basically moving the big elastic band that links the wheel to the bobbin so it spins faster or slower – like changing gears on a bike, but imagine manually moving the bike chain every time you want to change gear. Fortunately, it’s not something that needs to change mid-spin. I do seem to be spinning telephone cord (remember the twirly ones?) when it’s on the higher ratios, so I’ll stick to the slow one for now.
If you are a knitter of mitts (or know someone who is) you might be interested in the multi-buy pattern offer I’m running at the moment. If you buy my Ice Diamond Mitts pattern you can get any (or all) of my other three mitts patterns for 20% off. This offer works on my Payhip store and on Ravelry and applies to past purchases of Ice Diamond Mitts too (though on Payhip you’d need to contact me for a special code). I’m not linking to Rav because of the vision problems it is still causing some people since the new look was launched in June and I don’t want to cause anyone a migraine, but if you know you can use it safely the offer’s there too.
I have two sweaters, blocked and ready to photograph which I love and which fit me perfectly. The one in the pic is in Rowan Felted Tweed made completely out of leftovers which has pleased me no end. The pattern is On the Beach by Isabell Kraemer (link goes to Pinterest) and it was used as the ‘base’ pattern for my last live workshop (in February…!) called ‘Making Your Sweater Your Own’. Newly on the needles are some lush DK bed socks (pattern is Bob, friend of Dave by Rachel Coopey) – After doing lots of big projects it’s really nice to settle in with something where you can get half a sock done in two evenings.
Audiobooks are still keeping me company and I have just started re-listening to the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaranovitch and beautifully read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I’ve also treated myself to the excellent Outlander Knitting book, edited by Kate Atherley. I’ll tell you more about that next week once I’ve had a chance to fully immerse myself in it.
This week I finally got to grips with a craft I have wanted to do for a very long time. For my birthday (last week, remember?) I got a spinning wheel. It’s an Ashford Joy 2 which is portable (it even has it’s own backpack!), beautiful and goes like a dream. Because it really is a fancy-pants wheel I’m also getting contributions towards it from family for Christmas.
Sometime back in 2019 when we could do such things I went to an event at Ewe Felty Thing in Llandudno where I had my first go on a spinning wheel. I’d been looking at them at yarn shows for years, hypnotised by the movement of the spinners and wanting so badly to try, but too shy to ask. Fortunately the amazing Nikki Small at Ewe Felty Thing encouraged me that day last year and showed me the ropes. But then that was it. I didn’t believe I could justify buying a wheel; I thought it would take up too much space; I didn’t think I had time for another craft.
Until a few weeks ago when an old friend of mine (hello Helena Thomas!) advertised her wheel on Facebook. It was virtually unused. It was a bargain. Barely 20 minutes after spotting the ad and talking to Sue about it I’d messaged Helena – only to find she already had a potential buyer! But the fire had been reignited and would not die down. I did some online research and discovered that the wheel I really wanted (not actually the model from the Facebook advert) was out of stock in most shops. Apart from one – Fibrehut, which just happens to be based in the town where I grew up!! Serendipity? I think so.
So, this past week there has only been one day when I haven’t done some spinning. I’ve spun, plied, washed and skeined my very first yarn (pictured) and the second one is currently drying over the bath. Oddly enough, there is room for it in our little house – it takes up no more floorspace when in its bag than a multi-pack of loo-roll. I have found time for another craft – and I haven’t been ignoring the knitting! I uploaded my design submission four days before the deadline and I’m well on the way to finishing another wip (work in progress) that’s been languishing in the basket for a while.
The deadline for the design submission was yesterday and feedback is due by the end of the week. I’m really pleased with the finished design, but I can’t show it to you yet. I hope they say yes. The waiting is hard – but there’s plenty here to distract me!
