Tag: lace knitting

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A Windy Day

The first Yarnies at the Flaxmill on Saturday was a great success. The organisers (Clare of Wild Field Fibre and Chantelle of Bijoux Events) did a splendid job and we had a really good day. We had the prime spot just inside the entrance and it was a great opportunity to give my new roller banner its first outing. Fortunately, once it was in a large space such as the Dye House at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, the banner didn’t seem quite so enormous as it had done at home!

It was a surprisingly windy day on Saturday – it was the first day that the weather began to change and we were glad to have our flasks of tea with us. Not just to drink, but to weigh the legs of the roller banner down and stop it blowing over backwards! See if you can spot them in this video I took just before we opened:

Each of the samples has a new label with a little more information and positioned in a way that makes it easier for folk to access. You would not believe how long it took to do those! Each one was hand stamped with my logo and allowed to dry overnight (I made 2 batches of 50 as I ran out partway through) and then each label was handwritten. But I think it was worth it! Of course, I only did new labels for the samples I took with me on Saturday, so there are still lots more to do!

There were some fabulous vendors at the show, some of whom I see regularly at events and others who I only see occasionally. Our lovely stand neighbour on Saturday was Allium Threads who dyes yarn, fibre and embroidery threads with natural dyes. I’ve seen them at the Pop-Up Wool Show in Port

A wonderful surprise in the morning came from Deb of Dyelution who brought her finished Heart in my Hands Hat to show me. She had knitted it in some of her own hand-dyed yarns, and had it on display with the yarns during the day so visitors could see how the yarns look knitted up. It looks gorgeous!

Another lovely surprise came at the end of the day from Marianne of Penny Stitch Craft who brought over a couple of mini skeins of her 4ply Tencel yarn for me to play and experiment with. What a gift!

I’ve started developing some ideas for a design using her Tencel DK, and I can’t wait to get my current sweater design finished so I can concentrate on it properly!

Speaking of the sweater – both the sleeves now have a full complement of increases! I now ‘just’ have to:

  • knit both sleeves straight to the full length
  • cast off for the saddle shoulder
  • knit the saddle for each sleeve (remembering they are not the same, as half the saddle on each sleeve completes the back neck)
  • block all the pieces
  • seam the pieces together at the shoulders
  • knit the neckband
  • seam the body and sleeves
  • finish the written pattern
  • double check the pattern and the charts
  • and then send it off!

I’m so glad I started this in plenty of time. If anyone ever knits you a sweater, be in no doubt that they love you!

I didn’t actually do any work on the sweater yesterday as I was busy updating my samples and workshop notes for the two workshops I’m teaching tomorrow in Cheadle: Introduction to Sock Knitting and Introduction to Lace Knitting. I knitted one of my mini socks with each section in a different colour to help with understanding the anatomy of a sock, and it was surprising to see that (at this size) the largest section was the gusset (in blue)! By contrast, the heel turn (in green), which creates a lot of the magic of a top-down/heel flap sock, is really tiny!

I quite like the look of the rainbow sock – I might even knit up a full size pair!

Since the weather changed at the weekend, we’ve had lots of much-needed rain. It actually hasn’t stopped today, so I’m hoping that our water butt will be getting replenished a bit. The seedlings in trays have been moved from the garage to the patio and are loving this weather – as are the broad bean seedlings that I sowed directly into the veg patch – I’m just hoping the slugs don’t find them too soon now they are finally growing! Hopefully I will be able to take some pics of the seedlings during the week and show you next Tuesday how they are getting on.

It’s strange to think after three yarn shows in quick succession (Wonderwool, Buxton Wool Gathering and Yarnies at the Flaxmill) that our next one isn’t until August! That will be the North East Wool Show at Newcastle Racecourse. I’m teaching a brioche workshop there and ticket sales for that are made directly through me, so if you’d like to learn how to knit two-colour brioche and will be in the Newcastle area on August 10th, do get in touch!

That’s all for today. I hope you have a good week and manage to do some stuff that makes you smile. Take care, K x

Introduction to Lace Knitting at Sew Woolly, Cheadle, 28th May 2025

Learn how to use decreases and yarn overs to create deliberate patterns of stable holes in your knitting – this is lace knitting!

Learn how to follow both written and charted lace instructions and see how blocking works magic on lace knitting by opening up the stitches.

Skills required: cast on, knit, purl

Equipment to bring: 4mm or 4.5mm needles (you can buy these from Sew Woolly if needed), straight or circular. Everything else will be supplied.

2.5 hour workshop, £35, including yarn and handouts.

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April Already

Menai is being launched as an individual pattern on Friday 4th April – sign up to the newsletter before then for an exclusive subscriber discount code!

It seems very appropriate that the launch of this design as an individual pattern happens in the spring as it is covered in growing leaf shapes!

With everything being quite busy lately, I completely missed that my latest design for Knit Now, Crenellate Shawl came out over a week ago! Knit Now Issue 179 is the one to look for.

Crenellate is a textured top down triangular shawl that uses just knit and purl stitches with yarn overs placed at the edges and centre spine for the shaping. It’s knitted using West Yorkshire Spinners Elements DK which catches the light beautifully.

This photo shows the textured pattern really well. I took this shot while the shawl was blocking and drying so the colours are a little darker as the yarn is damp here.

The camellias are starting to look good as I had hoped. The pink one flowers before the red one with larger flowers. The red one certainly knows which side the sun hits it as that side is becoming covered in blooms and the other side is still very much green.

The daffodils and front borders are looking good too! The red cowslips always surprise me as I forget they are there. Do excuse the weeds and grass in the border – there hasn’t been any time for gardening this week.

Very soon I need to get the veg patches into use, which will mean deciding which veg we want to grow this year. There hasn’t been a lot of time to think about growing our own veg lately, but it would be nice to get that part of the garden up and running properly. Everything was a bit of a disappointment last year as most of the plants got eaten, so we’ll probably try for different crops this time.

There were some more long car journeys this week, down to the midlands to visit my Mum, then further down to Kent to help my lovely mother-in-law celebrate her birthday and then back home again. I tend to listen to unabridged audiobooks when I’m driving and I’ve been expanding my eras of historical fiction.

On the way down I listened to The Bookseller of Inverness by S. G. MacLean, set in the wake of the 1746 battle of Culloden, and on the way home I started listening to The Forbidden Queen by Anne O’Brien, telling the story of Katherine de Valois who becomes the wife of Henry V and mother of Henry VI. Both are hugely enjoyable and I recommend them, in whatever form you enjoy a book. Usually the historical fiction I listen to is Tudor or Elizabethan, so it’s nice to fill in some of the gaps on either side!

Anne at Yarn O’clock is busy getting ready for my trunk show there on April 12th! This window display is full of my designs!

Pictured are Into the Vortex, Nubble Slip Stitch Mitts, Llanberis, Twisted, Ice Diamond Mitts, What Do Points Make? and Calon Cariad. I’ll have paper copies of all these designs and many more with me on the day, and also lots more samples for you to see in person. I’ll be there all day from 10am -4pm and I hope folk will find time to pop in and say hello! The shop is on Earl Road in Mold and there is lots of parking in the town. As it’s being held on a Saturday, you’ll also be able to enjoy Mold’s street market.

I told you that I have two design commissions that I’m working on. One is a lace pattern that needed to have a small rejig in terms of size to make it a little narrower, but since then it’s been coming on a treat. I’m nearly at the end of the fifth pattern repeat of seven. Once all seven are complete, there’s just the final part of the chart to work and the top border and it’s done bar the blocking.

I’m using Jamieson’s of Shetland Ultra Lace for this design and I’m really enjoying it. It’s a yarn with a lot of personality and is able to withstand being pulled out and re-knitted quite happily, despite being a laceweight yarn. It’s the same yarn I used for the original three colour version of Maid Marion, my Pi shawl. If you come to my workshop on lace knitting next month (May 28th) at Sew Woolly in Cheadle, you’ll be using this yarn too! I’ll tell you more about my workshops there next week.

Until then, take care and remember to sign up for the newsletter if you’d like a discount for Menai! K x

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500 Miles

The East Anglia Yarn Festival was fabulous and I think I enjoyed it even more than last year. I think it’s so nice when you can do an event more than once, as things are more familiar the second time round. I had forgotten quite how far away Norwich is from North Wales – the journey was 250 miles each way, but it was absolutely worth it.

Laura, who organises the show, and her team make the event run really smoothly and the layout makes it easy to find everything you need. It even felt quicker setting up despite doing it on my own. My lovely wife was in a different part of the country on Friday, but made it to Norfolk on Friday evening, ready to help. I even had extra help on hand from an old uni friend who came to the show to support what we’re doing, and quickly said yes to the tentative email of “Would you be able/willing to man the stand during my workshop and be my booth bade if Sue doesn’t make it here by then?”. It was definitely the prospect of being a booth babe that got his attention – he said as much! We had a great chat catching up when I wasn’t teaching, and he and Sue had a little competition while I was teaching over who could be the most successful pattern seller – I think they drew.

It was so lovely to see some of my designs in the wild during the show. Our first customer of the weekend was wearing her Into The Vortex which she had bought the pattern and yarn for at the show last year – and she bought two more patterns on Saturday! I also saw a Tiffany being worn. It’s so lovely when people come back after knitting a design and say, “I loved it and it was easy to follow.” And it’s also really nice when they follow it up with “and now I’m going to buy another/more of your designs”! It makes me feel trusted.

The workshop itself was super. The meeting rooms of the main event space are well lit and really warm. I even had to turn one of the heaters off! I had four students in the class, none of whom had tried two-colour brioche knitting before and they all did really well. This is what they created in two hours – as well as learning lots of new concepts, terminology and tricks to help them get it right!

We had hoped to be wearing our spangly new badges at EAYF, but they didn’t arrive in time. Boo. But they arrived today – hurrah! – so they will get their first outing next month at Wonderwool Wales on April 26-27th. I may even wear mine at the trunk show at Yarn O’clock on Saturday April 12th! Please note that one of the badges does indeed have the job description of ‘Booth Babe’.

One of my plans for March was to finish knitting the border of Elinor Hap Shawl – and I have! I’ve even started the edging and I have done nearly half of one side.

There are a lot of repeats of the edging (208 in total I think), but it is only a 10-row pattern repeat, so it’s quite easy to chalk up half a dozen in an evening. I don’t think I’ll finish the edging this month though, as there was an exciting delivery just before we left for EAYF and there’s another parcel attempting to make it’s way to me as well (which, if it’s what I think it is, is something scrummy from Shetland!) and should be at the local post office for me to collect on Thursday.

It occurred to me that it would be a good idea to remind folk that I also give individual online knitting tuition as well as group workshops. This can be useful if there’s a technique you want to learn and you don’t want to wait until a workshop is advertised or if you think you would fare better in a one-to-one setting than a group one. Individual tuition is currently £25 per hour and can be booked by simply emailing me. I haven’t got as far as setting up an online calendar where you can choose a time slot yet, but it’s on the way.

The Imperial Cowl had a good reception at the weekend. People liked the fact that you could knit it flat or in the round and that there are video links included the pattern too. We sold six copies of the pattern at the show and one online (using the exclusive subscriber discount – did you know I do those for newsletter subscribers?), which may not sound like a lot, but as the pattern had already been downloaded by 127 people from the North West Winter Wool Festival, I think that’s pretty good! That’s over 130 copies of the pattern out in the world and hopefully being used!

This afternoon I had my annual dentist check-up. This involves driving into Chester, which I don’t do nearly as much as I used to when I was teaching full time. All was well and as I walked back to the car park I went past a shop that had a window painted with three words I couldn’t ignore: We Sell Yarn. Despite having been surrounded by yarn all weekend I had to go in, didn’t I? I had a lovely chat to the owner, who explained that it had been a plant shop, hence the name The Green Rooms, and she had recently shifted to selling yarn. They also host lots of workshops, particularly for crochet. I bought a ball of self-striping sock yarn that contains 50% wool and 25% bamboo as well as the 25% nylon that will make the socks hardwearing. The bamboo makes the yarn feel quite silky and I’ll be interested to see how it knits up.

It was a long drive home yesterday – over five and a half hours – and I’ve deliberately taken today at a slightly slower pace. Later this week I will hopefully be getting my rear passenger door fixed so it opens again. I have been able to rejig the way I pack the car for shows to allow for this irritation, but it will be so much easier when all doors function as intended once more! On Saturday Shelby’s Singers will be singing at the Buckley Spring Market in the shopping precinct in town at 1pm, for about an hour. We have our final rehearsal for that tomorrow! I’ll tell you all about that next week. Until then, take care. K x

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Coming Together

The sofa bed arrived promptly on Wednesday morning and the delivery chaps were friendly and helpful. We had chosen the second option for delivery (at £50) where they put the boxes in the room of your choice (rather than the leave them at the front door option for £25, or the put everything together and take away all the packaging option for £100!) but we discovered it required more building than the chap in the shop had said…

Not just sliding the pull-out part of the mattress under the frame of the sofa, but bolting the arms of the sofa onto the folding part (the seat/back) and a few other bits besides. And the pictures on the instructions were tiny and faint line drawings, so naturally we ending up putting the arms on the wrong sides.

It was only when we’d attached both arms and were looking at it that I said I was sure the front of the arms were supposed to be flush with the front of the seat – and they absolutely weren’t! I wish I’d taken a photo at that point as it did rather look like a mutant sofa! So, we took it all apart again and started from the beginning and this time we got it right. We even checked that we can change it from sofa to bed and back again. And we can! It’s not flashy, but it’s comfortable and it suits our needs perfectly, and we’ve already made more use of this room since last Wednesday than we had in ages before then. I’ve even played the piano now I can get to it easily again.

The border of Elinor Hap Shawl now only has 2 rows left to go and then I’ll be knitting the edging.

Each row is taking somewhere between 30-40 minutes at present as there are over 940 sts per row, but once I get on to the edging I’ll be able to see my progress more quickly, as the edging grows and works its way steadily around the four sides of the shawl.

I’ve printed out copies of The Imperial Cowl ready for East Anglia Yarn Festival and I’ve prepped my newsletter that’s going out tomorrow.

The pattern will go on general sale on Saturday 15th March! That’s this Saturday. At 10am for printed copies when the show opens and at 8am for online sales. Newsletter subscribers will be getting a code in their newsletter on Wednesday for a 20% discount for digital copies of this pattern, but it only lasts for 48 hours, from 8am March 15th until 8am March 17th (GMT – London time). So if you fancy a discount, sign up now, before the newsletter goes out at 9am tomorrow!

I’m really looking forward to East Anglia Yarn Festival and I’m hoping there’ll be a chance to go into Norwich at some point over the weekend, which we didn’t do at all last year. There are still a few things to do before Friday, but it’s all under control and mostly I’m ready. I don’t think you would believe that if you saw the state of my desk at present, but it’s true, I promise! I think you can still book for the brioche workshop on Saturday afternoon (1-3pm), but remember you need a show ticket as well.

It’s been quite a busy day today, so I shall keep today’s post short and sweet, and I shall tell you all about my adventures at EAYF when I write again next week. Until then, take care and do something that makes you happy. Kx

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The Siren Song of Spring

This week has involved lots of scrubbing and hauling. Scrubbing of walls, floors and other surfaces and hauling around of furniture. We had decided that it would be more sensible to have a sofa bed in the spare room rather than a full double bed that is used once in a blue moon and takes up most of the space.

So, we visited all the shops in our area (in the same retail park, fortunately!) to look at the sofa beds on offer and chose the one most suited for our needs (and space) which was, of course, the one we saw first. We have removed the old bed and cleaned the room thoroughly, including moving the wardrobes with heavy sliding mirrored doors which hadn’t been moved since we built them over a decade ago! We moved the Clavinova (full sized electric piano) into the hallway to be squeezed around until it can go back in and we even hired one of those Rug Doctor machines and cleaned the carpet!

The room is now refreshed and awaiting the delivery of the sofa-bed tomorrow. Not only will this free up more space in the spare room, it will also turn it into a room we can make more use of, either for playing music or even giving music lessons, or for my lovely wife’s coaching sessions, or just for somewhere else to ‘be’ in the house. We even took the opportunity to go through the contents of our wardrobes thoroughly and be honest about what we were or weren’t going to wear again, since everything had to come out of them anyway before we could even try to move them.

So, unsurprisingly, I’ve been aching a bit since the weekend when most of this took place! This may also be due to having spent an hour or so in the garden on Friday – the first gardening I’ve done in months. I pruned the apple tree, cut back the autumn fruiting raspberries, pruned the blackcurrant, one of the gooseberry bushes and one of the roses and made a start on pruning the redcurrant.

Spring must be well and truly on her way and we are hearing her siren call!

I finished my Haori Cardigan last Tuesday, spent a couple of days weaving in the ends and then wore it the very next day – without even blocking/washing it (shocking!). To be fair, the main thing that blocking this will do is possibly to straighten out the neckband for a short time before it heeds its own siren call of stocking stitch and rolls inward again. I’m really pleased with it and I know I will be wearing it a lot.

Finishing this (and awaiting the arrival of yarn for a couple of commissions) means I’ve returned to knitting my new sample of Elinor Hap Shawl.

This new sample is in a superfine lace weight (1200m per 100g) but the shawl can still be knitted in ‘standard’ laceweight yarn (800m per 100g). My old sample had become a bit bobbly and had lost some of its stitch definition as it’s something I wear often – it certainly isn’t fit for being a display sample, which this new shawl will be!

Do you remember I showed you the beautiful Tencel yarn from Penny Stitch Craft that she kindly gave me to design with at the North West Winter Wool Festival? I’ve knitted up a basic stocking stitch swatch on 4mm needles to see how it behaves and it has a lovely drape and sheen.

The next task is to experiment with a lace swatch, probably on slightly larger needles and see how it holds the stitches after blocking. It should work well, judging from the stocking stitch swatch. I wonder what final design these skeins will become?!

As we have now left February I have been able to count up the number of Bodelwyddan copies sold during the month, both online and at the North West Winter Wool Festival, and I am delighted to say that you bought 12 copies which has enabled me to make a donation of £36 to Treasure Chest YGC. Thank you if you were one of the people who bought a copy. YGC stands for Ysbyty Glan Clwyd which is Welsh for Glan Clwyd Hospital and the Treasure Chest charity raises money to support those having breast cancer treatment there. I originally wrote the Bodelwyddan sock pattern as part of a fundraiser for this charity so it made sense to me to use it again for the same charity during the month I had my first mammogram! (It all went smoothly and I’m just waiting for the results now).

On Sunday night we went to a concert in Manchester at Aviva Studios. We were going to hear Mary Chapin Carpenter singing with two other people of whom I’d not previously heard. It was fantastic! We were far nearer the front than “Row L” suggested (2nd row!) and all the musicians were phenomenal.

I was particularly entranced by the multi-tasking of the percussionist (he did way more than calling him a ‘drummer’ might suggest). This photo was taken before the concert began, from my seat! If you get a chance to hear Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis or Karine Polwart at all (they were the other two singers – both Scottish folk musicians), then do! The three of them and their band have a new album called “Looking For The Thread” which is simply beautiful.

Today is also Pancake Day (or Shrove Tuesday, if you prefer), so I am hoping to make pancakes later. This is a slightly more complex task when they’re vegan pancakes, but I know I have a good recipe somewhere! I just hope we’ve got all the ingredients we need. I’ll let you know next week! Until then, take care and I hope you get the chance to do some things you really enjoy and maybe listen to the siren song of spring. K x

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Coming up for Air

The top edge of a knitted shawl in golden yellow, green and pink, pinned out to dry with a wooden rule to keep the edge straight.

This week I finally feel like I’m starting to get back to stuff that makes me “me”!

I finished the shawl I showed you a sneak peek of last week and on Monday morning I blocked it. I’m really pleased with how it’s come out and I’ll be showing you the whole thing very soon! The blocking is a gentle one, just easing the edges into straight lines and pinning them in place to dry, rather than stretching the lace out to its limit. I happen to have a wooden metre rule (actually as the measurements are in inches, it might be a yard rule) that came with my blocking kit and this was the perfect tool to ensure I was maintaining a straight line as I pinned. The pattern will be available exclusively in kit form from James McIntosh in the spring. Remember you can already get gorgeous kits for County Shawl and Barragán from McIntosh (and, if you already have the ideal yarn for it in your stash, you can buy the pattern on its own for Barragán from me). Some folk do check in with me about kit sales to

I’ve also sent off a submission swatch/sketch for a design that could be published later in the year and had two others accepted recently.

And last Wednesday was spent mostly making 18 jars of Seville orange marmalade. This was made in two batches which is why it took most of the day, as there was no way my jam pan would have coped with 2.5kg fruit, 5kg sugar and 9 pints of water! It tastes delicious.

Last week’s Zoom brioche class went really well and my student completed her entire swatch during the session. I was very impressed and was pleased she said that I could share a pic of her work with you. Isn’t it great?!:

I will be teaching my Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche workshop (pictured above is ‘Next Steps’) at a couple of yarn shows this year and I’m keeping my eyes peeled for when they open their bookings for these so I can let you know.

Last week I mentioned the North West Winter Wool Festival taking place in Blackpool on February 15th and 16th. The opening hours are 10am-4pm for advance ticket holders, and 11am-4pm for tickets bought on the door. This is important as if you don’t have a ticket pre-booked you won’t get in at 10am. So if you want to be sure of a whole day of woolly fun, get yourself an advance ticket now!

I’m really looking forward to this show, although I won’t have my lovely wife acting as my ‘booth babe’ on this occasion, so I shall be flying solo. It’s a pattern only show for me, so I won’t have any kits with me, but there will be lots of wonderful yarn on offer from other vendors that you will be able to pair with any patterns you purchase!

Vendors will be split across two rooms, the Lancastrian Suite and the Louis room, both of which are on the same floor of the hotel and very close to each other. Do make sure to visit both spaces so you don’t miss out on anything.

To date, 73 ticket holders have downloaded their free copy of The Imperial Cowl, which is wonderful. I’m hoping to see lots of them being worn at the show! If you have bought an advance ticket and not downloaded your pattern, please do! The free version of the pattern is only available as a pdf download, and I won’t have any printed copies available until Wonderwool in April!

Writing this reminds me that one more task to add to my list of things to do before I head to Blackpool is to seam the shocking pink version that I knitted on the way to Kent before Christmas. See, I’m still coming up for air! (I also need to block the DK version of Into the Vortex that I knitted much earlier in the year – I think I finished it mid-October…)

The next few days will see my computer and printer working overtime (thank goodness they don’t only work 8 hour shifts!) as I update my inventory and get printing! I’ve double checked that I have spare ink cartridges lined up as well. The ones I buy are really good – expensive, but each colour does 2500 pages and the black does 5000 pages! (and I’ve got two of those on hand, so no fears of running short just yet!).

On a somewhat different note, I have my very first mammogram next week. I’m a little apprehensive about it to be honest, but I will be going as I know that these screening tests save lives. Early detection can just mean that you need to have something removed and then be closely monitored for a few years. If you get invited for a mammogram (or any other type of health screening check) please go. It could save your life.

Bodelwyddan was designed as part of a fund-raiser for Ysbyty Glan Clwyd (that’s Glan Clwyd Hospital to anyone who doesn’t speak Welsh) which is based in the village of Bodelwyddan (pronounced Bod-el-with-an). In October 2023 I donated 50% of sales from this sock pattern to Treasure Chest YGC, a charity whose aim is to support and raise funds for patients who have had or are having surgery or treatment for breast cancer in Glan Clwyd Hospital. I’m going to do the same for all sales of Bodelwyddan during February – so what are you waiting for? Crack open the sock yarn!

That’s all from me for today. Take care, stay safe and, if you get even the smallest chance, do something that makes you happy. K x

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Signs of Spring?

it’s been quite a week! I took part in the Knit Happy! Summit online as one of the speakers, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve had some lovely interactions with some of the 9000 (!!!) people attending the summit including with knitters who watched my presentation on How to Knit a Pi Shawl.

Yesterday I got the chance to watch some of the other presentations from the summit. I particularly enjoyed Jen Parochini’s of One Wild Designs talk on common sense bust darts and I’m looking forward to adding some to an existing sweater pattern next time I knit one! I did design a sweater including darts as part of my City & Guilds course, but it was only written for my own size (at the time). I would still love to revisit and update that design, grading it for different sizes and including instructions for knitters to add their own personalised bust darts. I think it will be quite a big piece of work and I’m hoping I’ll be able to block out some time for it later in the year.

As a result of the Knit Happy! Summit my newsletter subscribers have grown from just over 200 to over 800! In a week! Not what I was expecting at all, and it has made me smile – and hope they stick around for a while. It did involve quickly upgrading to a paid MailChimp plan so it would continue to function, and I’ve also started researching other newsletter/email platforms in case a different provider is something I need to consider in the future.

Yesterday we also had the excitement of a drains survey and we were so glad to hear that everything is fine. It did mean that I went into the back garden (for the first time in a few weeks) and it was wonderful to see the snowdrops in flower and the hellebores making an appearance. Of course today it’s raining hard, so I won’t be able to get any decent photos of them. For some reason, thinking about the snowdrops has reminded me that I really need to find some Seville oranges and get on with marmalade making…

If you’re a long time reader of this blog you will know that I’ve had a few issues with my car in the 15 months I’ve had it and, indeed, I am once again back at the garage. However, today is not a mechanical problem which is very nice! I’m just getting a trim replaced that was snapped two weeks ago while my rear windscreen wash jet was being fixed. Fortunately I will not be paying for that as it wasn’t me that broke it!

Being back at the garage means I am typing this on my iPad and I don’t seem to have the knack of selecting a small amount of text to delete. I just tried to delete two sentences and lost a whole paragraph! Maybe my iPad is trying to save me from myself as it was a little sentimental – I was talking about my Mum’s recent move to a care home (planned and her choice) and clearing her house which she’d been in for over 60 years and which I’d grown up in. It was a big job and I am glad the house sale completed last week.

Everything with Mum got delayed by two weeks (for completely different reasons both the house sale completion and Mum’s move as she ended up in hospital again – complete with a 19-hour wait in various ambulances outside A&E), I find myself at the end of January coming up for air and wondering where the month has gone. I am teaching on Zoom again tonight. Tonight is Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting. This is your last chance to book a place!

Last week’s workshop was good. I had just one student attending – from Arizona! – but, as I had no travel, room hire or accommodation costs to cover, we went ahead. She did amazingly well and we even covered how to pick up dropped stitches in two-colour brioche and correcting mistakes. It’s amazing what you can do even when thousands of miles away!

The North West Winter Wool Festival takes place at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool in just over two weeks. Mark February 15-16 in your calendars and do come if you can. If you buy an advance ticket (only £6 for the day!) you will also get to download a free knitting pattern that is exclusive to the show until mid March. I’ve seen a couple of Imperial Cowls knitted by people who are coming to the show and it never fails to give me a thrill to see items that knitters have made from my patterns and shared with me on social media (Instagram in this case). The one on the left was knitted by Sally and the cowl on the right was knitted by Suzanne. Aren’t they great?!

I’ve been making good progress on a new design that was started in November and I’m on the final stretch, knitting an applied i-cord edging and trying to calculate how much yarn it will use. I know some folk aren’t fans of applied i-cord, but it makes all the difference to this design, giving the edge weight and maintaining the shape well. It does grow surprisingly fast too once you get into the rhythm of it – I did half of one long edge in under an hour on Sunday. Soon I’ll be able to show it to you properly when it’s all finished and been blocked, but for now here’s a sense of it:

I’m using McIntosh BFL 4ply in three glorious spring colours! BFL is short for ‘blue-faced Leicester’, which is a sheep breed and this is a 100% British wool that is a joy to knit with.

Right, that’s all from me for today. Who’s coming to Blackpool? Take care one and all, K x

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On the Road Again

Saturday’s workshop at Bakewell Wool Gathering was great and all those attending made excellent progress with their first ever brioche knitting.

My lovely wife drove us over to Bakewell – it was our first opportunity to have a look at the town so we had a wander around in the late afternoon sun and bought a couple of vegan Bakewell tarts. The town was incredibly busy so we stopped at Buxton for a meal before continuing home.

Tonight’s Zoom workshop is the follow-on to the Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting workshop that I taught on Saturday and two weeks ago on Zoom: it’s Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting. There’s still time to book a place! It runs from 7-9pm BST (that’s GMT +1) and we’ll recap the increase and decreases covered in the Intro workshop and add another one of each for good measure! If you are confident in your basic brioche stitch and want to extend your brioche skills this is definitely the workshop for you.

This coming Saturday is the Designer Day at Ewe Felty Thing and I will be there along with 4 other designers; Nikki Small who runs Ewe Felty Thing, Elizabeth McGuire, Tanya from The Woolly Tangle and Dina of Dina’s Home of Crafts.

As well as my current patterns and kits, I will also have copies of Prynhawn Da with me – available in individual printed format for the first time.

It seemed silly to be at an event in North Wales and not to have one of my Welsh named patterns there!

I highly recommend coming along to the Designer Day – it’s not a ticketed event, just turn up to Ewe Felty Thing, 24 Castle Street, Conwy 10am-5pm this Saturday.

My current commission knitting is coming along and I’m nearly halfway through the second colour. Once that’s done, I’ll need to block, measure, finish and check the pattern and get it all sent off.

If you can’t get to North Wales this weekend, I’ll also be at Stollen & Wolle with RiverKnits and several other amazing creative folk on Sunday 17th November at the RiverKnit studio in Weedon Bec and at Wool-in Garden City on 24th November at Oaklands College, Welwyn Garden City. See my events page for all details and links for tickets.

Take care and do some stuff that makes you happy this week if you can. K x

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Good Afternoon

I’ve caught up with the frogging I had to do last week and everything is now ticking along nicely with the new design. I should finish the main section of it fairly soon and add the second colour in.

I don’t think I have shown you the finished DK version of Into the Vortex, so here it is!

It still needs to be blocked and it will behave itself much better for photographs once that has been done.

Last Tuesday evening’s Zoom workshop worked very well and the knitters who attended made excellent progress having not tried brioche knitting before. I was really impressed with them and they had a lot of fun too!

I’m teaching the same workshop (Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting) at Bakewell Wool Gathering this Saturday, 1.30-3.30pm. There are still spaces on the workshop if you’d like to attend – you can book in advance or ask on the day if there are still spaces available. You just need to bring 5mm circular needles (minimum 60cm long) with you.

If you already know how to work the basic brioche knit stitch and would like to extend your brioche knitting skills, I would encourage you to sign up for the Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting Zoom Workshop on Tuesday October 22nd, 7-9pm, where we are going to work on this swatch:

The community choir (Shelby’s Singers) I lead sang in our town on Saturday afternoon as part of a free music festival. We had an hour’s slot, with the expectation to sing for 45 minutes. That’s a lot of songs! We did 13 songs, finishing with the song that has become ‘ours’ – ‘This is Me’ from The Greatest Showman. We change the final line to ‘This is Us’ and that has been added to the choir hoodies that arrived just in time for the performance!

So, this is us:

Prynhawn Da was published in Knit Now in May and I have now released it as an individual pattern on my website, Payhip and Ravelry. Prynhawn Da is Welsh for ‘good afternoon’, hence the title of today’s blog post! The coasters and placemats are not only pretty in themselves, but they are also a great introduction to Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Pi Shawl construction:

That’s everything from me today. I hope you have a good week and get a chance to do something you enjoy. K x