Tag: Knitwear Design from Wales

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Melting

The centre square of Elinor is nearly halfway done! The yarn is working up nicely, although I had to switch from using the yarn from the centre of the ‘cake’ to the outside as it kept snarling up and getting in a massive tangle as I pulled the strand of yarn from the centre. 

There has been slower progress in the last couple of days – I’ve only done 4 rows – as we’re down at Mum’s doing the most enormous sort through of some of her stuff; fabric, garden tools and clearing out cupboards in the garage that haven’t been opened in years. That hasn’t left much time or energy left for lace knitting, especially as it’s so hot it feels like we’re melting! I’m typing on the iPad today, so I’ll add links into the post in a couple of days when I’m back with my laptop.

If you’re on social media, you may have seen that on Saturday I launched a YouTube channel! There are currently 10 videos on there that are also on my website as free tutorial videos – and I’m hoping that, as YouTube is the go-to place for many people, these videos will have the opportunity to reach a wider audience than if they are just on my own website. There will be more added to the channel, including a look at my design process and introductions to some of my designs.

Bargello Aurora Wrap, Cowl & Scarf is now live! Yesterday I did a post about why you might choose to knit the wrap and there will be posts later in the week about the benefits of choosing to knit the cowl or the scarf.

My complete pattern for Barragán is very nearly ready. It was originally published as a four part knit-along in The Knitter between September and December last year, using two colours of McIntosh BFL 4ply.

I’m adding in the needle size that the wrap/shawl was originally designed with (3.25mm), which uses 161g of each of the two colours of 4ply yarn. When the pattern was published in the magazine it was accompanied by a subscription offer of 150g of each colour of the yarn for the shawl, so I had to reduce the needle size to 3mm to reduce the tension and therefore the quantity of yarn required. Even with the reduced needle size it was a little ’tight’ on yarn, and I certainly know of one knitter who ran out as their personal knitting tension was fractionally looser than mine, even though the 150g subscription skeins were on the generous side and actually weighed a little more than 150g. See? Tension again – it really does matter!

Therefore, whilst I am also retaining the smaller needles and lower yarn quantities as an option in the pattern, I am strongly recommending that if you do have 200g of each colour of yarn, to use the larger needle size and have a relaxing time knitting. Or, if you only have 150g of each colour, to use the smaller needles and to also follow the newly added instructions for making Part Three of the shawl shorter by working one less repeat of the stitch pattern. That way, a knitter can create a completed shawl with the available yarn without the fear of ‘yarn chicken’.

McIntosh will be offering Barragán shawl kits with 200g of each colour from here on, but I wanted to keep the lower yarn quantity in the pattern as an option in case anyone is gifted the yarn from the subscription offer.

My next yarn show is in just a couple of weeks! The Pop-Up Wool Show is a 1 day event, on 17th August, 10am-4pm. The show is held in a beautiful building, Hulme Hall in Port Sunlight, which is only a stone’s throw from The Lady Lever Art Gallery. You could visit both! Entry to the Pop-Up Wool Show costs £4 and tickets are available on the door as well as in advance. It’s always a great show, so if you can make it over to Port Sunlight on August 17th, please come and say hello!

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Smiling

We spent last week in Kent visiting friends and family and the week culminated in going to see The Manic Street Preachers / Suede at Dreamland in Margate. It was very good, and you can read more about it (along with a fantastic Ronnie photo) over on my lovely wife’s blog, Singing as the Darkness Lifts and see why James Dean Bradfield shouted a “Thank you!” to us. She does an audio version too!

I had finished knitting my Bargello Aurora scarf before we left for Kent and I blocked it the day we got home. Yesterday it was ready for me to remove the pins and finish the ends off. I’m very pleased with it and I’m looking forward to taking some photos of it on Daisy (one of my dress form mannequins) later on today to add to the pattern.

The updated pattern will go live on all my platforms (Ravelry, Payhip, Lovecrafts and my website) on Friday, so you only have to wait three more days.

Since we got home I’ve also woven in all the ends on my Persian Tiles Blanket, designed by Janie Crow. It does need a final wash to allow the border and seams to relax and lie flatter, and I’m watching the weather forecast carefully to choose a consistently dry day to do this so it can dry outside.

This project has had so much attention on Twitter every time I’ve posted about it. I can only hope that one day one of my own designs will be admired as much!

My new Elinor Hap Shawl sample is steadily growing. I’ve done three and a half pattern repeats of the 15 that make up the centre square so far. I’m enjoying knitting this one again and the finer lace weight yarn is giving a really soft fabric It’s rather wide with 191 stitches in this section, but then there’s just the border and the edging. The whole shawl uses traditional lace stitch patterns. The stitch pattern in the centre square is called Smiling Diamonds – once it’s been blocked you’ll be able to see why more easily!

For a while now I’ve been planning to run some Zoom Workshops and yesterday I finally booked them in! All workshops are 2 hours long, running from 7-9pm (British Summer Time/GMT+1) and cost £25 per person. I’ve put a 10-person limit on each the workshops so that people can interact and get the most out of it.

Zoom Workshops currently available are:

Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting – Tuesday 8th October

Fair Isle (Stranded) Knitting – Saturday 12th October

Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting – Tuesday 22nd October

I’ll be adding these workshops to the Events page on my website later. The links above go straight to the relevant TicketSource page where you can see all the details and book a place if you wish.

I’ve been thinking about swatching a lot lately and have been doing quite a bit of it too.

Swatching as a designer is like playing and I love it. During our week away I had my squared paper and pencil out along with my needles and yarn, and knitted 7 different swatches around an idea I had until I finally cracked it with the 8th swatch. It wasn’t a random idea; I’m working on a submission for publication and there is a brief – techniques to include and a level of difficulty to provide, as well as specific yarns/colours they’re looking to use. I’ll be drawing up the submission document this week and I really hope it’s accepted. Of course, as these swatches are for a design submission I can’t show them to you, but I did enjoy making them and tweaking the idea until I got to the Goldilocks ‘just right’ moment.

The other type of swatching I’ve been thinking about is tension swatching. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but a knitter’s claim that they ‘always knit to tension’ and therefore don’t need to swatch before starting a project is so strange to me. They might generally turn out the ‘recommended tension’ on a yarn ball band, but that doesn’t mean anything when it comes to a pattern.

The pattern tension is the designer’s or sample knitter’s tension – it’s the number of stitches and rows that they got across 10cm/4in when working a specific stitch pattern on a specific needle. Any two knitters given the same needles and the same yarn are highly likely to knit to a different tension – sometimes wildly different. Even a small difference adds up over a larger piece of knitting and can even result in a knitter running out of yarn if they were unaware their tension was looser than that in the pattern, as it creates a larger finished item which inevitably uses more yarn.

Here are two swatches knitted by different people using the same yarn and needle size. The swatches themselves are different sizes because a different number of stitches were cast on and a different number of rows were knitted. It’s the size of the stitches themselves that is important.

I can see they look different, but perhaps not very different. It’s only the stocking stitch sections that will be measured – the borders are just to help the swatches lie flat and not curl up.

When measured the smaller swatch has 24.5 sts x 34 rows over 10cm and the larger swatch has 23.5 sts x 33.5 rows over 10cm. That sounds very similar, doesn’t it? It’ll be fine, won’t it? Not necessarily. Scale it up. Say it was for something that has 500 stitches. For the knitter of the smaller swatch that fabric would be 204cm wide, but for the knitter of the larger swatch the same number of stitches would be nearly 213cm wide. That’s a difference of 9cm in the finished items for the same number of stitches!

What’s the solution? It’s easy! Knit a tension swatch in the given stitch pattern and needle size (make it 12-15cm in each direction). Wash it and dry flat, or block more firmly with pins if the pattern says to. Then measure 10cm across the stitches and count them, and measure again down the rows and count them. Compare these numbers to the tension given in the pattern. If you get fewer stitches than the pattern tension states your tension is looser, so try again with a smaller needle. If you get more stitches your tension is tighter, so try again with a bigger needle. Wash and dry this new swatch and measure it. Stitch gauge (tension) is more important than row gauge as it’s harder to adjust around. Patterns often say “continue in pattern as set for another XX rows or until work measures XX cm”. This allows a knitter to adjust the number of rows worked if necessary to achieve the right length – this is much easier to do than adjusting the number of stitches.

So many knitters refuse to take the step of knitting and measuring a tension swatch, saying it’s a waste of time, but surely it’s more of a waste of time (and money) to knit a whole garment that doesn’t fit you, or to run out of yarn just before you finish (if your tension is looser) and then have to buy another ball/skein (if you can find it still for sale)? If you’re a knitter who is reluctant to swatch before a project, please give it a go! You might find it saves you time and money in the long run – and who wouldn’t appreciate that?

That’s all from me for today. Take care and do something that makes you smile this week. K x

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It’s raining again…

The North Wales Wool & Fibre Festival is this coming Saturday, June 1st. It’s being held in the Deiniol Shopping Centre in Bangor, with some vendors being in empty shop units and some being in the shopping mall itself. I’m going to be in what was the BrightHouse store, along with a wide variety of other woolly artists and creatives. Entry to the event is free, so if you’re in the North Wales area on Saturday between 10am and 4pm, come and say hello! Considering the current weather, it’s also a bonus that the whole event is under cover!

I’ve been swatching for a new brioche cowl design, specifically for knitters who might not have done two colour brioche knitting before. It will be simple, attractive and include some increases and decreases to build the knitter’s skills. Interestingly, the more I simplified the idea, the more I liked it!

Although it’s a cowl, it does not have to be knit in the round. I will include knitting in the round instructions, but I will actually be recommending folk knit it flat and seam it as this will help them learn the rhythm of the different stitches and colours when working each side of two-colour brioche. This decision comes after demonstrating brioche knitting to folk at yarn shows and seeing them have lightbulb moments in understanding, often having tried brioche in the round previously and found it confusing. It will also stand someone in good stead for when they come to knit something larger, such a shawl, that will be knitted flat.

Following on from some conversations I’ve had at the past couple of yarn shows we’ve been at, I’m also going to be running an Introduction to Brioche Knitting workshop on Zoom in the next couple of months! There will be a couple of date and time options and numbers will be limited to maintain a true workshop feel.

If a brioche knitting workshop via Zoom sounds like something you’d be interested in, make sure you sign up for my monthly newsletter and keep an eye out on the website.

I usually send out one email per month at the start of the month so your inbox won’t be bombarded! You can sign up from my homepage (scroll to the bottom).

If you happen to see the latest copy of Knit Now (issue 168) in your local newsagent, there’s a design from me inside! A set of lacy circular coasters and placemats knit from the centre outwards using a Pi shawl construction (albeit on a much smaller scale). I knit them using mercerised cotton for the magazine, although you could definitely use wool. Pleasingly, the design is included in the little inset pics on the cover around the main cover image. I named the set Prynhawn Da, which means ‘Good afternoon’ in Welsh, and relates to the brief of Afternoon Tea that was sent out to designers when the magazine asked for submissions last year.

Sue’s socks are coming on well. I’ve completed the leg, heel flap and gusset on the first one and now I’m heading down the foot towards the toe.

It’s amazing how quickly projects seem to grow after you’ve been working on a really big design for a long time.

Last autumn I began singing again after a break of several years. Singing was always ‘my thing’, and my main instrument when I did my music degree and while teaching music. I was quite rusty to start with, but I feel like I’ve got my voice ‘back’ now along with regaining a greater level of confidence. That may be linked with how I’ve really gone for it with the yarn shows this year: I think the grand total is something like 9 or 10!

I’m singing in a church choir who do concerts as well as services with some really uplifting music, and I’m also leading our local community choir who sing a range of songs from pop, show songs and children’s classics. Last week for example included Nellie the Elephant, This is Me from The Greatest Showman, Zadok the Priest by Handel and Rutter’s For the Beauty of the Earth! Quite an eclectic mix! Also, if you’ve never heard ‘Insanae et vanae curae’ by Haydn, do yourself a favour and have a listen. It’s bonkers and highly invigorating! I first sang it years ago, but I still don’t know what the words mean. I must look it up one day!

Right, that’s all from me today. I’ll let you know how Saturday goes next week and I may have a complete sock to show you! Take care one and all, and remember to do something that brings you joy this week if you can. K x

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Roses in Bloom

This week’s blog post will be short and sweet! There may be a lack of links until Wednesday when I get access to something a little easier to write/edit on than my phone! (eta – Links now added!)

Buxton Wool Gathering was excellent and we had a lovely time. Sue has even started writing a poem inspired by it!

A particular highlight was when Helen brought her Tiffany shawl to show both me and Wool Is The Answer. She bought the pattern from me last year at Buxton and the yarn from WITA. I love how different the shawl looks with three colours of yarn rather than 12 – and Helen did a fabulous job both knitting and modelling it!

Next month’s yarn shows are the North Wales Wool & Fibre Festival in Bangor on June 1st and Wool@J13 in Staffordshire on June 29th-30th. All the details are on my Events page of the website.

Speaking of events, the Beginners’ Knitting Workshop at Ditzy Rose in Tattenhall that should have been this coming Thursday afternoon (23rd) has been postponed until the autumn as the venue had not received enough bookings. I will post the new date/time as soon as I have the information.

You can also book on the Pride Flag Knitting Workshop at Qube on June 13th 2.30-4.30pm which is taking place as part of Oswestry Pride (even if you are a beginner!).

Sue is running a poetry workshop there that day too – and they don’t overlap so you could even do both! All the details (for my workshop) are on my events page and all the Qube events are listed on their website.

Less than 24 hours after leaving Buxton and going home I was at Mum’s. Don’t worry – it was planned. Today I took her for a scan which has turned out to be the lesser of two evils – so she had some cherry cake this afternoon to celebrate.

Last night I finished the epic alpaca knitting! Once I get home I will be blocking it – I think the hap stretcher will be getting another airing for this one. As it’s deadline knitting you’ll have to wait a few more months until you get to see photos.

As the alpaca deadline knitting is complete, I’ve also been able to do a little more on Sue’s latest socks using Weku Yarn that she chose at Wool-in Garden City. The colours are pooling in a really cool way. Lydia and Hannah aren’t currently dyeing yarn, but you can see some of their beautiful creations and fun adventures Instagram.

Mum’s garden is looking very full and the scent of roses when you open the back door is really heady. When we got home on Sunday there was a lovely handwritten note through the door, admiring our front garden and asking if we would mind saving some seed from our black hellebores and blue & white aquilegias for them (with the offer of a seed swap). Some of Mum’s green fingers must have definitely rubbed off!

I think that’s all for today. Once I am home again I will edit and add links. – Links now added!

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True to my Word

Not only did I make progress on my small version of Petulia this week; reader, I finished it! It still needs to be blocked and have the ends woven in, but I may even have it with me at WonderWool Wales!

As you can see when comparing the pictures, the small version is symmetrical, starting and ending with just one leaf, whilst the large version starts with a single leaf and just keeps on getting wider! Becci from Riverknits who commissioned Petulia (along with Tiffany and Agnes) is modelling the large version.

You will only have been able to buy the pattern (and kits!) directly from RiverKnits so far, and that’s because they have exclusive rights for the first six months. Having knitted the smaller version as well now I have found a couple of typos, but they’ll be updated very soon and if you want to get the pattern from RiverKnits they’ll have the latest version by the end of this week.

The rights are returning to me now as well and I will also have the pattern for sale in the near future. You’ll still be able to buy it from RiverKnits as well which is ideal if you want a kit.

The small version of the pattern uses 100g of Chimera (2 x 50g skeins) and 100g of Nene 4ply. The image of the small part balls shows how much I had left, so you won’t be in any danger of playing yarn chicken if you have a slightly looser tension than me. The large version used 3 x 50g skeins of Chimera and 2 x 100g skeins of Nene 4ply – though about half the second Nene skein was left over.

I’m looking forward to blocking this and seeing it bloom into its full glory! It’s a shape that you can wear draped around your shoulders with the widest part over your back or wrapped around your neck like a scarf with the widest part at the front and the points hanging down at the front. There will be photos!

I also did some more crochet, working on my Persian Tiles blanket, designed by Janie Crow (Jane Crowfoot). I’m cheating a bit here with this photo as most of the triangles had already been completed. Again they need blocking, as at the moment you might be hard pressed to identify them as triangles. However, once they’ve had a soak and spent some time on the blocking board they’ll look a lot tamer!

The circles are the centres of all the remaining octagons. I completed one in full in January to find out how the patten worked, but I rather like the production line approach – it means I don’t have to fish about in the bag for the next yarn colour quite so often.

I had thought I’d finished working on a design in alpaca last week, but I learnt something else about this fibre once I’d pinned it together and popped it on – it flows like water! This meant that there was no knitting sitting around the neck, where it was intended to be. However, I managed to come up with a solution that I think works well, and just adds a small section on, using the original cast-on as a stabiliser. It’s rather like when you cast off the back neck of a jumper and then pick up those stitches to knit the collar – the cast-off gives stability to the shape of the garment and helps it keep its shape.

Fortunately the next new design I’m working on that also uses alpaca (100% this time!) doesn’t need to stand up in any way; the flowing draping nature of the yarn and the fabric it creates will actually work in this design’s favour. Phew!

If you are a member of my FaceBook group or receive my monthly MailChimp newsletters you now have access to April’s discount codes for patterns beginning with G-H. Actually, it’s just patterns beginning with H as Gnarly Roots hasn’t yet been launched online. But, you could still get a discount on any of the individual Heart in my Hands patterns (Mitts, Hat or Cowl), Honeybun Cardigan or Helena Rose Stole. Want the code? Join my Facebook Group or sign up for my newsletter!

I’m away next Tuesday and will probably only have secret knitting with me, but I will do my best to put a post up, even if it’s just a short one. For now, take care, look after yourselves and those around you and do something that makes you smile. K x

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Let’s Twist Again

Last week I introduced you to Gnarly Roots (Gary…) and yesterday I received photos of the moebius version knitted in HeartSpun DK (the yarn I knitted the regular cowl in) and it looks glorious!

Helen from Woolly Chic Designs will have this sample and some printed copies of the pattern with her at The Sodbury Yarn Over! If you’re visiting the show, which takes place in Chipping Sodbury April 6th-7th, be sure to have a look and say hello from me!

You may also remember that last week I asked for name suggestions for the adult version of Honeybun and my wonderful wife has come up with a fantastic suggestion – Sugar Loaf Cardigan! Not only is a loaf larger than a bun, and honey is linked to sugar, but there is also a Sugar Loaf mountain in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire! (As well as the other ones with a single word name in Brazil and Maine). So, Sugar Loaf Cardigan it will be.

I’ve been knitting a lot of brioche this week. One item is for publication in July, and today I’ve been typing up the pattern and making the chart. I even created a stitch symbol in Stitchmastery that wasn’t there before – although it is a known brioche stitch. Brpyobrp (brioche purl 1, yo, brioche purl 1 all into the same stitch) is the purl version of brkyobrk. It’s very satisfying when you remember how to edit your stitch library in this programme. This is what the new stitch looks like, compared with the knit version above it:

On Sunday I knitted another Twisted Cowl. Twisted is my moebius brioche cowl that has two sizes and two yarn weight options. I’ve knitted quite a few of these now, so why did I make another? Well, one reason was that I wanted to have samples of both colour combinations that I’m going to have as kits with me at WonderWool Wales and the other reason was that I wanted to triple check the yarn usage in the small version. The new one is one the left in Soft Pink and Rust – it’s not even been blocked yet or had it’s ends sewn in. I have already made one in these colours, but it’s visiting Anne at Yarn O’clock currently.

There will be large and small versions of the kit in both of the colour combinations. The yarn is Town End Yarns Poldale DK which is a 100% Falklands wool and it’s so soft and squishy whilst still having enough body to hold the shape of the stitches really well.

The small version shown uses 24g of each colour and the kits include 26g of each. How did I manage to get 26g when the yarn comes in 50g balls? Well, there’s always a little bit of variation in the weight of balls of wool, so I weighed each of the balls I had, took the ones that were 52g or even 53g and split those to make the small kits! You can see soft pink and rust balls on the top of their piles are already part balls, as I’d used those ones to make the sample.

My kitchen scales have been getting a good work out today.

It may seem as though I’m being very organised and ahead of myself for a show that is a month away, but I need to be. I’m likely to be travelling down to Mum’s more frequently in the coming months as she is intending to make a big move this year (although nothing is finalised), and that will inevitably mean lots of time sorting stuff out. So, while I can, I’m getting my own things ready!

Caramel Slice is now available to buy online as an individual pattern! I uploaded this yesterday to my website, Payhip, Lovecrafts and Ravelry. The pattern was launched in printed form at East Anglia Yarn Festival, and I’d intended to put it online straight away after that, but then I came down with that cold and forgot all about it until reviewing my plans for March at the weekend! It’s a really cute child’s cardigan for ages 1 to 8. It’s knitted flat, with the body worked in one piece and the sleeves knitted separately. The colour-work on the body and sleeves is a slip stitch pattern, so you only use one colour at a time. And no matter which size you make you only need 1x 50g ball of each of the two contrast colours. One lady spotted the sample of Caramel Slice on display at EAYF and recognised it, having knitted it from The Knitter when it came out last August. This prompted her to buy two more of my patterns, Honeybun and Nos Da, on the basis that she knew she could trust my pattern writing as Caramel Slice ‘worked’. That was such a great thing to hear and has stayed with me (in fact, I may have told you about it before!) – a crafter’s appreciation for the pattern writing and being able to successfully use the pattern.

That’s all from me for today. Next week I’m hoping to show you some more progress on my small version of Petulia and on my crocheted Persian Tiles blanket, which is designed by the brilliant Jane Crowfoot. If you like crochet, have a look at her patterns – they are beautiful and they work.

Have a lovely Easter if you celebrate it and take care, K x

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What’s in a Name?

This morning I finally got the buttons sewn on to the adult version of Honeybun! I still need to choose a new, but related, name for this pattern. ‘Adult Honeybun’ is way too clunky, but the name does need to be close enough to Honeybun so folk realise it’s the sized up version of the original child’s cardigan pattern that was published back in 2018. My original name for the design had been ‘Joseph’s Jacket’ as I had designed it for a little boy called Joseph as part of my City & Guilds design qualification, but the magazine gave it the name Honeybun. ‘Honeyloaf’ (?), since a loaf is a large version of a bun? That sounds strange. Any thoughts or suggestions will be warmly welcomed and considered!

Why did it take me over a week to get the buttons on since getting home from EAYF? Because I picked up a cold virus (not covid, I did check) and ended up feeling somewhat grotty for a large chunk of the week. However, I’m all better now, and the cardigan is complete (as is the shawl I was working on before I went to Norfolk)!

Positioning buttons for a cardigan can feel like a tricky business, so I thought I’d share the process I use, in case it’s helpful. The buttonholes are already there, worked into the button band as it was made. I line up the two sides of the button band with the buttonholes on top and use locking stitch markers to dip down through the buttonholes into the band below. I do this for all the buttonholes so I can check it’s lined up properly with no stretched or baggy areas.

Once these are all in place you can ease the buttonholes over the stitch markers, leaving the positions to sew the buttons in nice and obvious! I sew the buttons on with sewing thread that closely matches the main colour, even though the stripes I’m sewing into are contrast colours. Apart from anything else it makes it easier for me to see where I’ve sewn!

There are 9 buttonholes, so I bought 10 buttons – I thought it made sense to have a spare just in case. I’ll get some proper photos of the whole garment taken soon to add to the pattern.

By Saturday my cold was improved enough for me to be able to lead Shelby’s Singers, our local community choir, as we sang at Buckley’s Easter Market. It was really well received by all the shoppers, with eight songs ranging from ‘Consider Yourself’ from Oliver!, through Rivers of Babylon by Boney M to This is Me from The Greatest Showman! I’m so proud of how far the choir has come since we started last autumn – and rehearsals continue on, starting some brand new songs tomorrow.

Do you remember I showed you a sneak peek of a new design with cables in it a couple of weeks ago? Well, the design is a cowl called Gnarly Roots and it will be launched next month! There are lots of great features and options in this design. First of all, it’s a DK design that only uses 100g. The cables are reversible, and they’re different on each side. So, knitting one cowl gives you two options for wear!

Sue is modelling the cowl here and it’s knitted in 100g of HeartSpun DK by Woolly Chic, which is a gorgeous soft and silky yarn with 70% Bluefaced Leicester wool and 30% Tercel. The Tencel is what gives the yarn a wonderful sheen and silky feel. You can tell why this colour is called Marmalade!

Now, you know how I love a double sided design and the fact that a moebius construction means you get to see both sides of the fabric at the same time. So, Gnarly Roots also includes a moebius option!

This sample is knitted in 100g of Ewe & Ply’s Shropshire Ply 2018 Double Knitting in the colour Lady’s Mantle. It’s a completely different type of yarn from the HeartSpun DK, being a woollen spun yarn with lots of personality and body, whilst still being soft enough for a cowl. It’s made from 34% Welsh mule, 28% Shropshire, 20% Sherino (Shetland x merino) and 18% Bluefaced Leicester.

So, keep an eye out for Gnarly Roots coming out next month (auto-correct keeps trying to change the pattern name “Gary Roots” which is quite funny, but I think I’ll stick to Gnarly). There will hopefully be HeartSpun kits for it at WonderWool too!

I’m going to keep today’s post a little shorter than usual, partly as it’s already gone 8pm, so I’ll catch up with you next week with more knitting news. Until then, take care and enjoy the warmth of the sunshine when you can! K x

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Oh What a Show!

Wow, what a show! East Anglia Yarn Festival on the outskirts of Norwich was the furthest we’ve travelled for a yarn show, but it was worth every mile. My amazing wife, Sue, has been the most enormous help and support throughout the lead-up to the show and during it and makes a splendid booth babe! Ronnie wanted to join in too, so we made sure he got into some of the photos.

The organisation of the show was fabulous (thanks to Laura and all the volunteers) and everyone was so friendly and helpful. One of our neighbours, Folkestone Harbour Yarn, even let me hang two shawls on hangers from the top of her gridwall! Some of Suzi’s yarn is dyed with natural dyes and some with acid dyes and the range of colours is super – there are even some proper fluorescent neons!

Speaking of stall neighbours, everyone near us was lovely and although I didn’t manage to take photos of anyone else’s stand, I highly recommend giving their websites a visit. On the other side of us was Felt Fusion whose colours are amazing and included some funky zebra striped yarns, whilst behind us was Coastal Colours who also have gorgeous hand-dyed yarns and great needle sets too. Opposite was another designer, Victoria Marchant Knits, who specialises in size-inclusive designs with patterns where you can mix and match the body and sleeve sizes – I’m going to have to get one of these for myself! Next to her were Alex Collins who makes lovely bags and Skein Queen with even more wonderful hand-dyed yarn. It was great too to catch up with Charmaine from YarnTings who was at Wool-in Garden City and Tanya from The Woolly Tangle who had also travelled from North Wales!

One of the helpful things about vending at a yarn show rather than going as a visitor is that I tend to spend less! On this occasion I bought two things! Some rather wonderful buttons from The Button Box Devon for – you guessed it – the adult version of Honeybun, and a sweater pattern from An Caitin Beag which I saw Marna wearing at the show and just loved the way it moved and swayed with her. I haven’t sewn the buttons on yet – that’s a job for tomorrow.

Last week I picked up a lot of yarn from Yarn O’clock for kits, including yarn for new Meg March Shawl kits! This is my only kit that won’t come in a tin as the six skeins of yarn wouldn’t fit, but look at that lovely squishiness! The kit includes 6 x 100g skeins of hand-dyed Fyberspates Vivacious 4-ply (100% Merino Wool) in Blush and Verdigris (the original colours for the design), a printed copy of the 16-page pattern and a lockable stitch marker. There will only be 5 of these kits available, priced at £120 each, so if it appeals to you, don’t forget to visit us in Hall 3 at WonderWool Wales, April 27th & 28th!

I’ve done a lot of knitting this week, but sadly I can’t show you any of it yet! Sorry! I must try to include some knitting or crochet this week that isn’t for publication – maybe I’ll start my Catnip sweater…?

Whatever you’ve been up to this week, I hope you are well, safe and warm. Too many folk out there aren’t. As well as being a fabulous booth babe this weekend, Sue also helped with the hosting of a Zoom launch of the poetry anthology To Light The Trails, Poems By Women In A Violent World, published by Sídhe Press and available from Amazon. Sue was one of the editors of this anthology. It was a powerful evening listening to all the poets read their work. The book is important and worth a read.

Take care all, K x

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Change

I have enjoyed our walks the past few days and I am so grateful that we can get into country lanes quite quickly from our doorstep. These are some of the lovely sights I’ve seen recently on two separate walks. I love watching the clouds in the late afternoon – the light on them is magical, but fleeting.

There’s activity in one of the fields that may be the beginnings of a new housing estate down this lane, so I’m not sure how much longer we’ll have this peaceful route for, but I’m determined to make the most of it while we can.

There are signs of spring in the garden too which is really encouraging. (Yes, I know, I really need to cut those hellebore leaves back, and I will, soon!) There’s lots of work that needs to be done in the garden and I feel a bit guilty that I haven’t been out there much, but now there are increasing hours of daylight, hopefully I should be able to!

Yarn arrived at the end of last week for two new designs and I’m about to get started with one of them later today. I won’t be able to share the designs with you until publication (July and September respectively), so instead, here is the yarn itself. Isn’t it fabulous?!

I can hardly believe that in three days time I will be in the Norfolk Showground Arena, setting up for the East Anglia Yarn Festival! I printed out a few extra copies of patterns today, and have been planning the layout of our space. It’s 2m x 2m and I want to make the best use of it possible.

When we go to Wonderwool Wales next month it will be a very different set-up. The space we have there is 4m x 3m! I had applied for a 3m x 3m space, but they only had a 4m space left and asked if I would be willing to take that. Yes please, and thank you!

I’ve been working on a shawl design this week and it’s coming on really well, despite having had to rip out approx. 100 rows and rejig things a bit. It’s a semi-circular shape, and I was using a standard half-pi shawl construction but, because the fabric is not lace, it doesn’t stretch out in segments in the same way that, for example, my Tiffany shawl does. This has led me to experiment with the spacing of the increase rows and it’s looking SO much better now than it did. Now there are no funny sections where everything is stretched out and then goes all puffy (and there were…) – so I count that a big success!

One of the things I really need to be better at is trusting my gut when it’s telling me that something isn’t working out quite the way I’d thought it would. I was about 20 rows away from the weird puffy increase row when I thought it wasn’t right, but did I stop then? No. I kept knitting, initially telling myself it would block out. When I was coming up to the next increase row and I could tell the fabric was going to do the same thing, but possibly more-so, I had the brainwave of changing the rate and placement of increases. I tried it out and it worked a lot better, but I still kept going, ignoring that earlier section. Why did I do this? Then one evening I sat down to work on it, saw the part I wasn’t happy with and suddenly realised it would be a good idea to use the same tweak to the increases there as well. So, out 100 rows came! The small balls are all ripped out knitting. The large white ball only has the ripped out yarn wrapped around it.

All of these small balls have now been re-knitted and I have to say, this is a great, sturdy yarn. It hasn’t minded a bit! It’s Donegal Rich Tweed 4ply by McIntosh and it’s behaved perfectly well being knitted, ripped out and re-knitted.

I’m really looking forward to showing you this shawl – I love how the three colours and the different slip stitch patterns work together.

Until next Tuesday – when I shall have lots to tell you about EAYF – take care and do stuff that makes you happy. K x

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Scale

One of the things I didn’t expect to need as a knitwear designer was a set of kitchen scales that measure to 0.1g. But it has been so useful on many occasions. Most recently I have been using it to calculate how much of each of the main and contrast colours I’ve used for the sample of the adult version of Honeybun Cardigan. I can tell you now that each 50g ball of Rowan Summerlite 4ply actually tends to contain between 51g and 52.2g. I’m glad I had some full balls of yarn left over, as I hadn’t thought to weigh them before I started. If I’d assumed the balls were exactly 50g and simply weighed what was left I’d have been slightly underestimating my usage. It would only have been by a couple of grams for each of the contrast colours, but that scales up to about 20g when you’re looking at 9 or 10 balls of the main colour – even more so for the largest sizes.

I am pleased to have finished the cardigan. The shoulder shaping has worked a treat. The ends are all woven in and the pattern is now with my tech editor (hi Deb!). The only thing left for me to do with the sample is to choose and sew on 9 buttons. And possibly give it another wash.

Something else I’ve been thinking about regarding scale (and scales) is my Fiery Dragon Skin Cowl! I first designed this in 2019 using Knitting Fever’s Painted Desert 4-ply in the now discontinued colour way Show Stopper (left-hand pic below). Painted Desert is a lovely yarn with gradual colour changes (a bit like the Zauberball Crazy sock yarn).

You may have seen photos of the orange chunky-ish hand-spun version I made for Sue while we were at Wool-in Garden City. I’m currently updating the pattern so it includes options for DK, Aran and Chunky weight yarns as well as the original 4ply. The cowl itself is knit in the round and, to make life easier for folk, I’ve also included a knit-flat stitch pattern so you can swatch easily. This means you can use the pattern with any yarn you want (particularly useful for hand-spun yarns which can vary a lot from the commercial standards of weight/length) by swatching and doing a tiny bit of maths to work out how many stitches to cast on for the size you’d like. Fortunately it’s a 10-stitch pattern repeat, so that part is quite simple!

I love how the texture of the stitch pattern looks and behaves with different weights of yarn – it gives such a varied character to the finished fabric of the cowl.

I’m really excited about East Anglia Yarn Festival (where I’ll be in less than two weeks!), where Caramel Slice will have its debut as a single pattern (having been originally published in The Knitter last August).

It’ll be the first time I’ve exhibited at this particular event and also the first time I’ve sold only patterns at a yarn show (so there will not be any wooden items, kits or project bags etc). My patterns are printed and ready – I’ll be bring 640 with me (of 41 designs), so there should be plenty! This is what 640 printed patterns looks like:

It may not look terribly exciting like this, but wait until it’s all on display! Taking 41 designs with me to EAYF does mean there will be 20+ designs staying at home, but they will still be available online if I don’t have something in particular with me that a knitter is after.

I’ve been working with slipped stitches a lot lately – and I’m doing another design at the moment using slip stitches, but there are other techniques I’m enjoying currently too – particularly brioche and cables! Here’s a sneak peek at some cool cable work:

Isn’t the yarn gorgeous? Now, you probably know I don’t use silk, so what’s making this yarn so shiny? It’s TencelTM which is a fibre made from wood pulp. The yarn is HeartSpun DK from Woolly Chic, a long DK at 250m/100g with 70% Bluefaced Leicester wool and 30% TencelTM in the colourway Marmalade 2022. Helen from Woolly Chic was one of the organisers of Wool-in Garden City and this was where I got the yarn (and the commission to design something lovely with it!)

There are just two and a bit days left if you want to take advantage of the February online pattern discount for members of my Facebook group and subscribers to my monthly newsletter. This month’s discounts are for patterns beginning with C or D. Pictured below are the patterns that applies to: Calon Cariad, Ceridwen, Codetta Shawl, Croeso Baby Blanket, Diamonds in the Breeze and Drifting Leaves.

It’s a 10% discount for Facebook group members or a 20% discount for newsletter subscribers. From Friday 1st March the discount changes to patterns beginning with E or F. Those will be Elinor Hap Shawl, Fiery Dragon Skin Cowl, Forest Ferns Moebius and Furrowed Fields Scarf. Sign up for the newsletter (my “Mailchimp audience”) or join my Facebook group if this appeals to you!

That’s everything from me for today – I’m heading back to my knitting now! Take care of yourselves and each other. K x