Tag: lace knitting

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Flowers and Stars

Last week I promised I would show you my progress with my Persian Tiles Blanket, designed by Jane Crowfoot and my Bargello Aurora Scarf. I’m quite pleased with both.

The large motifs for the blanket are on their final three rounds.

One of these 16 motifs is complete – that’s the one I made first and one to the left of it has a dark blue round with stitches of different heights that changes it from a flower / star to an octagon. I hope to have completed this round on all the other 14 motifs by next week and perhaps have begun the cream round with the stitches that cross over each other – that’s the hardest bit in my opinion.

As for the Bargello Aurora Scarf, I’m just over a third of the way through it! It probably could have been more, but since I got home from my *second* trip to the midlands last week (it was planned, but it was a lot of driving), I’ve been crocheting in the evenings instead.

There will be nine blocks of the stripe pattern repeat in total. Yesterday I wrangled with inkscape, a programme I use for drawing .svg files for schematics. I don’t use it very often, so remembering how to move nodes (the points where the lines change direction) etc and edit files took longer than I would have liked, but I do now have schematics for the cowl and the scarf as well as the wrap.

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I won’t have copies of the updated Bargello Aurora pattern with me at Wool@J13 this weekend as I want to finish the scarf sample first and double check the measurements and yarn quantities used, but I will have it at the Pop Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight on August 18th and it will hopefully be available online before then as well.

There will be new designs and new kits at Wool@J13 though! Leaf & Vine has returned to me as I told you last week and I will have printed copies of that, the new brioche cowl (now named Bryn!) will be there in both printed pattern and kit form (with kits comprising the pattern, yarn and a stitch marker in a tin), and the pride kits will be there with the same bundle offer as online.

The Bryn Brioche Cowl kits all contain the same amount of yarn, allowing you to simply choose your colours and then decide which size you want to make.

That’s quite a few items having their first show outing! I was going through my inventory list and as well as these ‘brand new to shows’ designs, there will be about 20 other products that I didn’t have with me last year at Wool@J13, including patterns, kits, postcards and hand-spun yarn. I just hope I can fit it all into my car and then into my stand space! (Barragán will be making its show debut at the Pop Up Wool Show).

I have a new brioche knitting workshop coming up in a couple of weeks! Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche Knitting is ideal for knitters who have learnt the basic two-colour brioche stitch and now want to explore the technique further. Knitters will create this amazing swatch, learning increases and decreases that will open up a whole range of brioche knitting patterns.

The workshop is being held at Shaz’s Shabby Chic in Buckley on July 10th, 6.30-8.30 and the full details can be found on my events page as well as on ticketsource where you can book a workshop place.

I will also be running this workshop AND my Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting workshop as online Zoom events later in the year, so keep your eyes peeled for those if this is a knitting technique you’d like to explore, but you can’t get to North Wales (or to Yarndale in North Yorkshire, where I am teaching Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting on Saturday 28th September – there are just 3 spaces left on the Yarndale workshop).

I haven’t been at home much this week with the double trip to the midlands, but we have been able to get into the garden this weekend. There has been some serious pruning of the box at the bottom of the garden (it was almost twice as tall as us!) and we’ve even trimmed the hedge! Well, some of it. We couldn’t get right down to the bottom because the box was in the way, but now that’s been brought back under control we’ll be able to finish the hedge off. This is the hedge that acts as a backdrop for many of my photos of knitting when it’s modelled on a human! Our neighbour used to cut our side every year while we were away in the summer, but since he died (quite a number of years ago now), we’ve had someone in to do it twice, but it hasn’t been enough – and we felt it used to get more of a tickle than a prune anyway. I reckon we’ve lost at least two feet of garden to the hedge, judging from how much it came in front of the bottom garage window. So, we bit the bullet and bought a pole hedge trimmer. We took off about a foot from the width of the hedge on Sunday, but we still need to remove more. We are being very careful – gloves, proper shoes and so on. This pic gives some idea of how much the hedge has overgrown – that’s after we trimmed a foot or so off (and bevelled the corner to get more light into the garage)!

The veg has been very poor this year, with everything apart from a few kale plants having been eaten by slugs or snails. However the fruit bushes are looking mighty fine, and the blackcurrants are ready to be picked!

Jam making time is coming near. Maybe after the weekend?

That’s all from me today. The next time I write it will be July! Which reminds me, if you’d like to receive exclusive discount codes and more, then do sign up for my monthly newsletter, which comes out at the start of each month.

Take care one and all, K x

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Haven, I’m in Haven

Three photos of models with dark hair wearing Leaf & Vine Cardigan shown from different angles

This time 2 years ago, Leaf & Vine Cardigan was published by Knit Picks as part of their “Haven: Knit Lace Patterns” collection. The rights have now returned to me and I am delighted to tell you that the digital pattern is available to buy from Ravelry, my website and Payhip! You can still also buy the whole Haven collection direct from KnitPicks.

Leaf & Vine is an oversized lacy cardigan with very short sleeves that are worked as an integral part of the body. There are 10 sizes (up to finished chest measurements of 71″) and 2 length options for every size. It is designed to be worn with 7-10″ of positive ease (ie 7-10″ bigger than your body measurement). As the pattern was published in the US initially all the measurements are in inches.

Knit Picks have a great system where, once the rights return to the designer, you can choose for the individual pattern to still be available from their website (it is) as well as sell it yourself. They send you the pdf document that they’ve been selling for you to sell yourself, so I don’t have to worry about reformatting the pattern, taking new photos or any of that.

The pdf for Leaf & Vine is 10 pages, 2 of which are full page photos. For printed patterns, that I will sell at yarn shows, I haven’t printed out the 2 full page photos. This is to keep the pattern to 8 pages and avoid excessive ink usage. Both omitted photos are on the pattern page on my website and on Payhip (and here!), so you won’t be missing out on anything if you buy a printed rather than digital copy of the pattern!

Last Thursday I should have been giving a workshop knitting Pride flags at Qube in Oswestry. Sadly it was cancelled due to lack of bookings, so I decided to use some of the yarn I had purchased for the workshop to make up Pride flag kits. It’s all West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab DK, so it’s 100% wool that is machine washable. The ‘basic’ flag kit (£7) has 6 colours and the progress pride flag kit (£8) has 11! I think you’ll agree that’s a massive saving on buying 6 or 11 100g balls of wool!

The instructions for the basic flag include youtube links for every stitch used (two cast-on options, knit, cast-off). They’re publicly available videos that I have checked out for clarity and helpfulness. The progress pride flag instructions include the colour work chart and information on how to work intarsia in garter stitch to get the zigzag part of the design. I’ve put the kits on my website and I will be bringing them to Wool@J13 in just under two weeks time. You can even buy them both together and get a tasty discount (both for £12)!

Although I wasn’t able to lead the Pride flag knitting workshop at Qube as part of the first Oswestry Pride, my lovely wife did take part in the Pride in the Park event in Oswestry on Saturday. We braved the weather (which thankfully calmed down and dried out a bit!) and, after the Mayor of Oswestry (the one with the chain) and Jen the organiser (the one with the flag) opened the event and welcomed everyone, Sue was the first of three poets up on the bandstand to read to an enthusiastic audience. I was very proud at Pride!

If you receive the Yarndale newsletter (or have looked at the Yarndale website since Friday), you will know that I am teaching a workshop on two-colour brioche at Yarndale this year! It’s on the Saturday afternoon, 1.30-3.30pm. If you’d like to be introduced to the delights of two-colour brioche knitting and are going to be at Yarndale on the Saturday (28th September), why not book a place? You’ll have to be quick though – there are only 4 places left! I’ve updated this workshop since I last taught it and we’ll cover the basic two-colour brioche stitch, an increase and two directional decreases with lots of repetition in the swatch to help the skills bed in.

You may spot some similarity between the new workshop swatch and these cowls! I’ve been asked quite a lot recently what my simplest brioche design is for someone who hasn’t done two-colour brioche before or for someone who has done just the basic stitches but maybe didn’t want to knit a whole brioche shawl. This is my answer to that question! There are two size options in the pattern, both of which can be made with or without the garter stitch striped border. The cowl looks great worn as it is or folded in half. Not only do you have these options, but the pattern ALSO includes instructions both for knitting it flat or knitting it in the round! (Top Tip: I strongly recommend starting with knitting two colour brioche flat…)

There will be kits in a tin too, in these two colourways of Town End Yarns Poldale DK: Lime Green/Olive Green or Light Blue/Blue. Look out for them at Wool@J13, Pop Up Wool Show, Yarn Gathering and Yarndale!

The pattern is written, the samples are knitted and the photos have been taken. All I need before I can print the patterns is a name! Have you got any suggestions? Please add your pattern name suggestions in the comments. If I choose your suggestion, you will get a free copy of the pattern!

I think I mentioned before that I’m adding some more options to my Bargello Aurura pattern.

Here’s the original wrap:

There is now a cowl version as well, and I’m currently knitting the scarf sample to complete the set.

Here is the cowl!:

I love how the cowl works with the fabric folded to create overlapping points. The finished updated pattern with all three options should be available in time for the Pop Up Wool Show in August.

Yesterday I took my mum for another hospital appointment. When she was called in I stood up rapidly to push the wheelchair and heard a ripping sound. The pocket on my smock had caught on the back of one of the waiting room chair armrests and had torn. I’ve already had to mend this area of the smock once before – but it hadn’t torn so badly the first time. The smock is from The Slow Wardrobe as are many of my clothes. I had kept some fabric from a pair of black linen baggy trousers that had given up the ghost years ago, and I used that give support to the mended area. A patch, but on the inside. Once that was tacked in place I had some fun with the sewing machine. The tear is now repaired, the smock is once again wearable (and it’s at least 8 years old), my sewing machine knows I still love it, and it looks as though I’ve sewn a K around the pocket! What more could you want, really?

I’m taking her for another appointment later this week – hopefully I won’t need to mend any more clothes as a result of that one!

That’s all for today. Next week I’ll show you some of the progress I’ve been making with my Persian Tiles crochet blanket (designed by Janie Crow) and the scarf sample of Bargello Aurora. Take care all, K x

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Full Circle

In early June 2018, one of my shawl designs, Maid Marion Shawl, was published in Knit Now Magazine. It was my first Pi shawl design (a full circle design worked from the centre outwards), and I remember drawing out the first charts for it on squared paper in April 2017. One of the magazine’s images of the shawl popped up in my lovely wife’s phone memories this week.

The shawl itself is not the main focus of today’s blog post, although I am very proud of it. Instead I am going to write about the circumstances of its coming into existence.

I had sent my submission to the magazine in the same week of October 2017 that I finally admitted to myself and the GP that I needed some help. Things were very dark for me. I was struggling to sleep and to function, let alone enjoy life. They suggested signing me off work for a little while, which I declined. A week later however, I was in the GP carpark having seen them again to accept being signed off, but having a melt-down as the slip was signing me off for a whole month, not the week (or possibly two ) I had anticipated. I didn’t understand how I could be away from work for a month – there was far too much to do and so much I was responsible for. But, my amazing wife talked me down, said the doc wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t necessary and, of course, the place would continue to function without me. As it turned out I was signed off for the rest of that term and had a staged return to work after Christmas.

I don’t remember receiving the acceptance email for the shawl submission, but I must have had it, and there are pics taken in the December of the yarn having arrived (Jamieson’s Ultra) and showing the start of the central part of the shawl.

Somehow I knitted the shawl – and it was finished and blocked by mid-January. Again, I don’t remember it, but the photos are there:

I’m not going to say that the power of knitting got me through, because that would be trite, but it was one of the things on my very simple daily to-do list while I was off work: get up, shower, Headspace, read, walk, knit. I do remember that list as I wrote it out every day and crossed off the things I managed to do.

I left the classroom at the end of that academic year, realising a permanent change of pace was needed and I focussed on getting better, then moved into designing full time as well as giving knitting workshops.

It wasn’t just the time off and the change of direction that helped; there were the meds too, and I used the Headspace app every day for over a year, although I’m not sure I ever really got the hang of that. But it wasn’t a quick fix. Things took time and the good friends who stayed in touch made all the difference. In fact, it’s only just over a month ago that I finally got off the meds – reducing the dose of anti-depressants down to nothing is a slow process if you want to avoid the side-effects.

Looking back I could have reached out for help much sooner, but I had felt that admitting there was a problem would be a problem in itself – and if I could just get to the end of each day that would be enough. It wasn’t. Life is so different now, but it’s still not easy to talk about.

This period of my life is not something I’ve written much about before, but well-being and mental health awareness are so important and rightly being talked about more these days. If just one person reads this and it encourages them to ask for help or support from someone else, that will be worth it. It’s also a reminder that folk never know what others are dealing with.

As for Maid Marion Shawl, it’s still a great design. It can be knitted in lace weight or 4ply (you could even try it in DK if you go up a needle size or two), and you can use 1, 3 or 4 colours. It’s up to you. The pics in today’s post are all from Knit Now Magazine, showing the 3 colour version in Jamieson’s Ultra (lace weight) yarn.

By the way, if you’ve never heard Full Circle by Dolly Parton – do have a listen. It’s yet another one of her brilliant songs.

Until next week, take care and do something that makes you happy. K x

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The Blue Distance

After the glorious sunshine we had at the weekend, the past couple of days have once again been cloudy, windy and sporadically wet. However, the roses are looking amazing in spite of the wind and rain and one of them is defying its name (Tottering By Gently) and attempting to grow taller than the fence it is next to! We also had a little day trip to Llandudno yesterday to help celebrate my lovely wife’s birthday – and there was, indeed, a little hint of blue sky at times in the distance. Why not have a listen to Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song, The Blue Distance while you have a read? It’s a beautiful song and very relaxing.

I spent this morning and a good chunk of the afternoon in a deep dive analysis of sales, costs and profits from the yarn shows I’ve attended so far this year. It’s quite eye-opening once you add in the mileage, the printing costs of patterns and the cost of knitting kits as well as the usual costs of show fees and accommodation. Wonderwool Wales has been my best show business-wise so far which I was expecting. It’s a huge show and we were busy all weekend. More of a surprise was that Saturday’s event in Bangor, the North Wales Wool & Fibre Festival came second! It was such a lovely day and, although we had a very early start leaving home at 6.30am, the sun was up, the A55 was actually quiet and the hour-long journey was a pleasant way to start the day. We met some new folk, all lovely and interesting people, and the whole event was very well organised by Jenny and Sophia.

This was our space in the window of what used to be Bright House in the Deiniol Shopping Centre. I didn’t get pics of many of the other stands, but these are the ones I did get. On the left is Mossy & Fern who was our stand neighbour and on the right is Saorimor:

Both weavers, but very different!

I also made a purchase! It was my first purchase at a yarn show in quite a while, but I was so intrigued by this little gadget on Tecstiliau‘s stand and then, when I saw how it worked, I was hooked!

It’s for bracelet plying when spinning. Instead of wrapping the singles around your hand and wrist (and risking losing the blood supply in the process as well as finding it very difficult to remove) you wind it around this and then remove the peg from the top when you’re ready to ply the two ends. Genius!

If you’ve seen me at a show recently, you might have noticed me walking a little less freely than usual. I’ve been experiencing plantar fasciitis (again – I had it years ago too) and it’s been quite annoying and painful. But I am hopeful that improvements will soon start to be felt. I’ve just taken delivery of these massage balls:

The spiky one is very hard plastic and the smooth one is like heavy rubber. Currently I am typing away whilst rolling the spiky ball under my foot and it feels heavenly! My foot already feels better than it has in months. Fingers crossed it will make a long-term difference. I’ll let you know!

Last week I showed you some swatches I’d been experimenting with for a knitters-new-to-brioche pattern. Well, I’ve been busy and both the knit flat and in the round samples for the pattern are completed (although I still need to weave in ends and block them), and the pattern has been written up! There are two size options and either can be made with or without the garter stitch border. The pattern (and kits) will be making an appearance in the coming months. 🥳

The colours of these cowls haven’t come out very well – the left one is two shades of blue and the right one is two shades of green with the light colour being more muted than the pic suggests! If I get better pics with morning light tomorrow I’ll update them.

Also moving its way up the ‘to do’ list and edging nearer to the needles is my update of Bargello Aurora Wrap. This gorgeous horizontally knit wrap hasn’t had quite the amount of love I feel it deserves.

I wondered whether the large number of stitches (and very long rows) might be putting some folk off, and so considered ways to extend the flexibility of the pattern. So, there will also be a cowl version and a vertically knit version of the scarf coming soon and I’m looking forward to winding this yarn up tomorrow. It’s the same yarn I knit the original sample of Bargello Aurora in, dyed by Rachel from Cat and Sparrow and it’s so gorgeous, being a single spun, superwash Blue-faced Leicester yarn. This photo has come out showing the colours exactly as they are!

There may even be progress on one of the new samples to show you next week – who knows!

Take care and enjoy the sunshine when 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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Sugar Sugar

Part of a pink knitted cardigan with a slipped stitch pattern using teal, raspberry and lime green stripes.

This has been an exciting morning – and, as I start today’s blog post, it’s only just gone 9am!

I’ve been printing out copies of Sugar Loaf Cardigan – 20 copies will be going with me to Buxton Wool Gathering this weekend. The pattern will also be going live online tomorrow!

Sugar Loaf Cardigan has been a big piece of work for both me and my amazing tech editor, Deb Bramham. The pattern contains 20 sizes, each of which has 2 length options, so there are 40 different possible size variations. And the pattern fits neatly into 12 pages of A4.

I created this design as a result of customer feedback – so many people were disappointed that Honeybun Cardigan was a design for children and only went up to Age 8, that I promised I would make an adult version. I used the same yarn, Rowan Summerlite 4ply with a new colourway. As with the child’s version, the body is made in one piece and the sleeves are knit flat separately, seamed and joined to the body. The sleeves are a hybrid of inset and raglan design, just like the original Honeybun, with cute shoulder shaping at the top of the sleeve cap.

I also have to give a shout-out to The Button Box, Devon. I got the gorgeous metal buttons for Sugar Loaf Cardigan from them at East Anglia Yarn Festival.

The first inside page of the pattern lists all the sizing details along with the schematics. I will be adding this as a picture to the online info so folk can see if the design will work for them before committing to buying it. Sizing info is important – and we need to know more than just a chest measurement in order to know if a design will fit us.

You may notice the term ‘9-14cm positive ease’ in the first sentence of the image above. That means the garment will be between 9-14cm bigger at the full chest than a person’s body, depending on the size. Negative ease would mean the garment measurement is smaller than the actual body measurement – for a garment that would only work for stretchy fabric designed to fit snuggly! I imagine the only time I’ll be using negative ease in designs is for sock or mitt cuffs or the brims of hats like berets, where stretchiness is an important part of making the item fit or stay on/up.

Last week I was talking about my epic alpaca knitting and I was hoping to have finished the third part and maybe even made a start on the fourth and final part of it by today. Well, I am very pleased to report that I finished the third part on Friday and last night I got to the half way point of part four! So, at this rate, I may even have finished it by next Tuesday!

There are definite advantages to being the passenger in a car when you’re a knitter, and the M25 decides to be VERY slow. That was Friday on the way to Kent (the day after Sue’s AMAZING book launch in Worcester). I also got quite a lot done on the way home on Saturday. For some reason the sat nav took us up the M11 towards Cambridge and then on to the A14, rather than our usual M1 route to the M6, but it was a pleasant and quietly uneventful drive!

We are learning to trust any unusual routing the Apple Maps sat nav suggests after blithely ignoring it on the way to East Anglia last month where we ended up trying to drive down terribly frosty/icy lanes at 6am because the road we had expected to be on was actually shut for repairs. The sat nav knew about the road closure and that was why it was trying to take us a different route from our usual one!

Woolly Wormhead has a book out and I am hoping to get a copy tomorrow from Yarn O’clock. It is called Short Row Colorwork Knitting, the Definitive Stitch by Stitch Guide and is published by Sixth & Spring Books.

Woolly is even going to be coming to the UK for a book tour to celebrate its launch with events at RiverKnits Open Day in Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire, on Sunday 19th May and at For The Love Of Yarn in Glasgow on Sunday 26th May. Sadly, I’m not able to get to either of these events myself, but if you are, I recommend going!

Of course, the reason I can’t get to the RiverKnits Open Day is that it’s the same weekend as Buxton Wool Gathering. If you can’t come Buxton but you’d like to see my designs and kits in person, I’ll also be at the North Wales Wool and Fibre Festival in Bangor, North Wales, on June 1st, Wool@J13 in Staffordshire, June 29th-30th and the Pop-up Wool Show in Port Sunlight, August 17th. I will also have a stand at Yarn Gathering in Mold on September 15th which myself and Anne from Yarn O’clock are organising and is returning for its 3rd year, and there’s one more large yarn show I’ll be exhibiting at this year too…!

Right, that’s enough for today! Have a good week if you can and do some stuff that makes you happy. Take care, K x

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Proud

There has been a lot of knitting happening this week. I can show you what I did this morning:

I am going to be running a workshop at Qube in Oswestry next month as part of Oswestry Pride, knitting pride flags (you can book via that link). The workshop is on Thursday, June 13th 2.30-4.30pm. There are three options, each with a different level of difficulty. The progress pride flag (bottom right) is the most complex as it uses intarsia with up to six colours in a row (though you only ever use one at a time) and the garter stitch pride stripes on the left is the simplest, being suitable for a complete beginner. The two patterns on the right (the pride stripes with the moss stitch border and the progress pride flag) are from the Knit Picks blog last June when they published a simple pattern with options for a whole range of different pride flags. I might see if I can work out a garter stitch version of the progress pride flag too to see if that gives a more even texture. The yarn I’m using for the workshop is West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab DK – it’s a pure, machine washable wool with, as you can see, a good range of colours!

There are also still spaces available on my Beginners Knitting workshop at Ditzy Rose in Tattenhall. This workshop is taking place on Thursday May 23rd, 1-3.30pm. You can book a place by contacting Nikki at Ditzy Rose either by email (nikki@ditzyrose.co.uk) or through the event listing on facebook.

This is my usual complete beginners (or returners) workshop where you learn the cable cast-on, how to knit and purl to create garter stitch and stocking stitch, how to count your rows, how to cast-off and how to seam and stuff your finished knitting to create a cute little creature, as well as giving it a face. If you know someone who might enjoy this workshop (it comes complete with cake!), please point them in the right direction. Participants should bring 4mm needles if they have them, or they can borrow/buy needles at the workshop.

The other knitting I have been doing this week is deadline knitting, due to be with a magazine by June 15th. I’m doing about 3 hours a day on it at the moment/, aiming to finish part 3 of 4 by this Saturday. Because it’s for publication I can’t show you any progress pics, but I can tell you that lace-weight alpaca yarn is very silky and the fabric is creates is as light as a cloud!

Because I’m spending so much time on the alpaca knitting, I haven’t done any spinning lately, but I have chosen a few skeins from my growing collection to take with me to sell at Buxton Wool Gathering which is taking place in less than 2 weeks! These will all be priced by weight, with the skeins varying from 25g to 197g! If I had a record of who dyed the fibre and the exact fibre contents I’ve included that on the labels, and that info is there for most of them, along with an approximate length based on the number of strands in the skein (yes, I counted them and then multiplied that number by 1.5 as my niddy-noddy is 1.5m per round), and the approximate yarn weight (eg DK etc).

Do you remember that last week I told you that Sugar Loaf gained some interest when I displayed the sample at Wonderwool? Well, it’s going to be ready in time for Buxton as I had an email from my tech editor on Saturday that started with “Okay, I think we’re nearly there!”. I’ve responded to those points and once my last tweaks have been signed off I can add the photos, print copies and upload the pattern to all the usual online places. It’s the most comprehensive garment I’ve designed yet. There are 20 sizes (from UK4 to UK42). And two length options. That creates 40 total possible combinations and yet the pattern comes in at just 12 sides of A4 – including the cover and the optional chart! I love that Sue agreed to model this cardigan for me – and she did it so well.

By the time I write to you next I will have attended my lovely wife Sue’s book launch in Worcester at Scripthaven bookshop. I am so proud of what she has achieved with this second collection and would recommend it to anyone.

I will also have visited my mum and my in-laws, and I may even have Sugar Loaf Cardigan printed out ready for Buxton! I should also be on the last part of the epic alpaca knitting.

Until then, take care and enjoy the sunshine when you can. K x

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After the Storm

I’m glad the wind outside has dropped since yesterday. For 24 hours we had winds over 40 miles an hour and we’ve been very lucky that nothing has been broken, just a small tree in a pot on the patio that got blown over into the border.

It was a day to settle down into the knitting. I’m working on a new design with baby alpaca laceweight yarn and I’ve very nearly finished the first section now. The photo just below the title (which you may not see if you receive this blog by email) shows a full ball of alpaca on the left for comparison and what was a full ball on Friday morning on the right. There’s 12g (of 50g) of that ball remaining currently (along with four full ones).

I was hoping to start it while I was at Mum’s last week, but I didn’t have anything appropriate for a provisional cast-on with me. When you do a provisional cast-on (i.e. one that will later be undone so the live stitches that remain can be picked up) you need a yarn that won’t felt or stick to your main yarn. One that isn’t fluffy, or too thick – for something that is referred to as ‘waste yarn’ it is funny how important it is to have the right characteristics. Once I got home I had the pick of my 4ply leftovers and a merino superwash 4ply that I knew to be quite slippy was the perfect choice.

Because I couldn’t get started on that project at Mum’s, I worked on the other project I’d taken with me (I don’t make the mistake of only taking one project away with me anymore), so there has been quite a bit of progress on my Persian Tiles blanket, designed by Janie Crow. I’m following the original colourway more or less, using West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab DK – do follow the Persian Tiles link to check out some of the other colourways!

I know they look like flowers now, but they will ultimately become octagons.

I blocked my final sample before Wonderwool over the weekend. Petulia came out in September with RiverKnits. It’s really two patterns in one as the different sizes of the shawl are also different shapes. RiverKnits have kits for sale for both sizes on their website. I recently finished knitting the smaller, symmetrical version of the pattern and I’m really pleased with it. Both versions of the shawl use the same lacy brioche leaf motif, in different arrangements.

Photos were taken yesterday and added to the pattern, so the front cover looks a little different than it did seven months ago, but it is the same pattern inside (with a couple of previous typos also now corrected). Now you get to see both versions on the front cover!

Copies have been printed and I will have them with me at WonderWool – and, if you want to use the same yarns I did (Chimera and Nene 4ply from RiverKnits), you’ll be able to buy those directly from RiverKnits who will also be at the show!

Petulia is the third of my Discworld named shawls that I designed for RiverKnits. The first two were published in September 2022; Agnes and Tiffany. These two designs ‘bookend’ the designs on my Shawl & Scarf Patterns page, being the first and last alphabetically.

Preparations are nearly complete for WonderWool (I think). I’ve got to the point where I’ve updated my packing list and started drawing possible stand layouts on squared paper – the stand is 10 x 14 feet – that’s nearly as big as our lounge! As I think I mentioned previously, I’m trying to get ahead of myself as I don’t know if I’ll need to do any extra trips down to Mum’s before the show. If Sugar Loaf (the adult version of Honeybun Cardigan) is back from the tech editor in time to print I’ll bring that with me too. I may bring the sample with me anyway even if the pattern isn’t printed and ready to sell, so folk can see how the design works on a ‘grown-up’ scale. The photos below were all taken at the same time and the colour has come out differently in each one. I would say the reality is nearest to the top left image.

I spent quite a bit of time on Friday working on my website, setting up a WooCommerce store, and getting the first few products uploaded. I then realised that every time I pressed ‘publish’ for one it was sent out as a social media post! That would have been fine, except neither the basket or checkout pages would load on mobile devices, so it wasn’t really working. I turned the product pages into drafts and tried to find out what the problem was, but it seemed to make a few other things go wonky instead. And then I couldn’t check whether the basket worked without pressing publish again – and getting another social media post going out (to four different platforms, no less)…

Anyway, by Saturday lunchtime I still couldn’t fix it and it seemed weird to have a ‘basket’ option on the main menu of the website when you couldn’t add anything to said basket. Also, in the process of all this, the Payhip pop-up window plug-in stopped working as it was incompatible with something ‘Woo’. You can possibly imagine my joy frustration.

So! I have deactivated the WooCommerce store again for now. The price buttons on my pattern pages take you directly to the relevant product in my Payhip store now, rather than giving you a pop-up Payhip checkout window, and you can add patterns from my whole store to a basket and check it all out at the same time, which is useful if you did want more than one pattern.

I will investigate the WooCommerce option again at some point, but possibly when my head is clearer and things aren’t so busy.

Excellent news this week is that my lovely wife, Sue Finch, has had her second full collection of poetry published. Welcome to the Museum of a Life is available from her Payhip store, Amazon and all good book stores – your local bookshop can order it for you if you give them the title and author.

That’s all from me for today. I hope you all have as good a week as you can and that you get a chance to do some stuff that makes you happy. Take care, 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

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Housiversary

Part of a crocheted octagon motif from the Persian Tiles blanket by Janie Crow. It is in orange, red, dark blue, teal, yellow, light blue and cream.

Twenty years ago today we moved into our bungalow. Moving from our little flat we thought that we’d never run out of space again. How naive we were!

Regular clear outs and de-clutters have to happen to help us still fit into our home that has become more and more ‘us’ over the years. During the time we’ve been here, pretty much the only things that haven’t been changed are the walls and the bathroom (apart from the basin which had to be replaced). The garden has grown along with us too: the daffodils we planted in the lawn last year are starting to come up, the roses and fruit bushes are ready for pruning and the hellebores and snowdrops look beautiful.

It’s made me think about how things can change over time so that even though technically you’re in the same place, in other ways you’re definitely not.

When we moved in I was 30, teaching music (still part-time then) and singing as a regular alto dep at the cathedral. Now I’m 50, I’ve been out of the classroom for 5 1/2 years, I’m working with yarn full time, designing, teaching knitting, exhibiting at yarn shows and I’m singing again.

Back in the day I had made a couple of (quite simple) crochet jumpers and I loved them. I made a couple of granny square blankets too. Then I didn’t do any crochet for years, apart from the odd edging to a piece of knitting or an amigurumi, such as the unicorn I made for my sister-in-law and the Pikachu I made for Sue.

Then last year I started the Mystical Lanterns blanket designed by Janie Crow and loved it. I’ve not yet finished it, but it’s coming on. And last week I began my most challenging crochet project yet – the Persian Tiles blanket, again designed by Janie Crow. I’ve completed one octagon motif which was very successful and tried a small granny triangle which is a little lopsided at the moment.

Persian Tiles octagon motif

It’s so good to learn new things, especially when you teach – getting yourself into the place of ‘not knowing’ is really valuable to understand what it feels like for your students!

I mentioned exhibiting at yarn shows. I’ve already publicised that I’ll be at East Anglia Yarn Festival (EAYF) in Norwich next month and Buxton Wool Gathering in May.

I can now let you know that I’ll also be at Wonderwool Wales in April! This is held at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells and has always been my favourite show to visit, so I’m thrilled to be exhibiting there.

I’ll be back at the Pop-Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight too in August. And there may be more shows to tell you about in the coming months as well!!

In terms of designing, I’m juggling a couple of things at the moment. The sleeves for the adult Honeybun are nearly complete – I just need to work out how to add the extra shoulder shaping into the pattern writing.

Then the button band and it’s off to the tech editor! Fingers crossed it will be ready for Wonderwool.

I’m also working on a lovely reversible cowl which I hope will be out quite soon (no pics of that yet).

I bought some fab yarn at Ewe & Ply on Saturday and it’s already being used!

Caramel Slice was first published in The Knitter in August last year and the rights have now returned to me. The pattern is now in my own format and I’ve taken some new photos with Shelby modelling the cardigan. Once these have been fully edited and added to the pattern it will be ready to be published and I will have printed copies of the pattern with me at EAYF!

I’m at my mum’s until tomorrow – Cleo the cat says hello:

And I’ll say goodbye until next week!

Take care all and have a good week, K x