As we move into February the evenings have begun to lighten a little. I was really surprised and quite excited the other day to see that the sky was not dark at 5.15 when I looked out of the window. A sign of hope, along with the flowers that are blooming in the garden. Our garden currently has lots of hellebores, snowdrops and cyclamen in flower and it was even warm enough yesterday to get outside and cut away some of the old hellebore leaves and overgrown grasses that were trying to hide the snowdrops. The photo isn’t mine by the way – it’s from The Wildlife Trusts website and was taken by Les Binns.
Other new life is also making its presence felt. I have an urge to make sourdough bread. I know that most people jumped on this particular bandwagon last year, but I was just making standard wholemeal and seeded loaves. Now, though, the idea of sourdough made with my own homemade starter is calling.
If you follow me on social media you will have seen that yesterday Hanna Germander of Germander Cottage Crafts published her Designer of the Month blog feature for February – and it’s yours truly š! I did know it was coming out this month, but it’s such a buzz nonetheless. Go and have a look – I’ll wait. And while you’re there have a look at Hanna’s Etsy shop too – it’s super.
You know that I’ve been working on a hat and cowl to go with my Heart in my Hands mitts. The cowl pattern is now live! I wasn’t sure whether to grade it for a range of sizes or just have one size, so I asked for opinions on social media. One or two people said “Just do one, if we want to change anything, we will”, but the majority of folk were in favour of some guidance, even if just to avoid a bit of maths. So, in response to this, the pattern has various options:
- The Standard Size (24cm x 72cm) with six chart repeats, including meterage used for each colour
- Information on making the circumference bigger in increments of 12cm, including the meterage for each colour used in that amount.
- Options to make the cowl taller or shorter by 8.5cm with guidance on how that would change the meterage.
This approach gives *almost* limitless combinations and I think the flexibility is much better than a two or three size pattern.
The hat pattern will be published soon – in three sizes. Very happily you can make the mitts, standard size cowl and large hat all from one skein of each colour of the yarn (Erika Knight Wool Local). You could probably even make the cowl a bit bigger too.
The last crafty thing I want to tell you about today is more of a reminder – Craftucation launches this month!! In less than two weeks, in fact, and I am getting very excited about it. The materials for the optional kits to accompany the courses which will also be available to buy from Ewe Felty Thing are arriving this afternoon (thank you, Yarn O’clock!) and it’s all coming together.
My audiobooks (yes, plural) this week have been from the Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom, narrated by Stephen Crossley. At one point the events completely intersected with the book I am also reading, Six Tudor Queens No.5 Katheryn Howard by Alison Weir, which was fascinating and slightly bewildering on occasion. It meant I had to keep reminding myself which bits were murder mystery and which were historical fiction. Both brilliant though.
Have a good week and keep knitting, K x
