Tag: Makers gonna make

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Don’t Stop Me Now

We got home from the East Anglia Yarn Festival yesterday, successfully completing the third yarn show of the year. As always at EAYF it was a lot of fun, and we saw some old friends who we only see at this show, both visitors and other vendors. This included Victoria who I first met in person at EAYF in 2024 after knowing each other on social media beforehand and have been delighted to catch up with each year since. This year she brought her completed Am Byth hat to show me – knitted in a yarn containing camel fibre, it was super soft and silky and a very different beast fabric-wise to the original sample in WYS Croft DK – which is on display just behind her head!

One visitor wore her Meg March Shawl on the Saturday, to great admiration – and then returned on the Sunday wearing her Tiffany shawl!

If you’re on social media you may well have seen these pics already (apologies for the overlap!), but I know that several readers of this blog aren’t, and I didn’t want them to miss out!

I was most impressed by the knitting and greatly honoured too that she was wearing my shawl designs on both days of the show, especially as this was a show where Stephen West was present (sharing the same space two weekends on the trot!? Goodness!) and so there were a huge number of Stephen West shawls in attendance as folk queued for selfies. I was also highly delighted that he admired my Meg March Shawl and asked if I’d designed it on Sunday morning before opening when the vendors get a chance to wander around and chat with each other. I heard him say to Eddie of Madrigal Yarns while they were behind me that people at the show just had ‘mad technical skills’ and then realised they were talking about my shawl, so of course we had to chat!

Sue and I shared the most outrageously gorgeous vegan cinnamon bun on Saturday morning from Swirl of Norwich, who did very good business, selling out of most of their buns both days.

Since we got home we’ve been busy, catching up on the house and washing, and I’ve been weaving in the ends of the design commission that has a deadline of this coming Friday. Final checks of everything were completed this morning, the sample has been posted and the pattern and ‘all associated files’ – charts and schematic – have been emailed! Completed, done and dusted well before the deadline. I’m very pleased – I just hope they like it!

Now I’ve emailed the pattern I really need to sort out my desk. It hasn’t quite got to archeological strata levels, but it’s not far off – large working drawings, printed schematics, draft print outs of the pattern, inter-spliced with other paperwork. I know where everything is, but I also know that my brain will function more smoothly on the next things when it’s all tidied away.

The next things for me are to update the website with workshops and shows that are coming up and to start putting kits together in the new boxes ready for Wonderwool. I know there are technically four and a half weeks until Wonderwool, but that time will go by fast. We have nine more shows this year, six or seven of which I am teaching at (yay!), so there is a fair bit to update!

I’m also looking forward to my next workshops which are in less than two weeks at Ewe Felty Thing. I’ll be teaching an Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting and Stranded Knitting there on April 4th. The brioche workshop has sold out, but there are spaces on the stranded knitting workshop (10.30-12.30, 4th April)!

Closer to home, there are just 10 days left before Anne closes Yarn O’clock for good! Everything is now 20% off, so now would be a very good time to make a final visit (or two) while you still have the chance! I still can’t quite believe that very soon she’s not going to be there as she’s just celebrated the shop’s 10th birthday. However, all good things must come to an end one day and this particular ‘one day’ is April 4th. Don’t miss your chance.

I’ve also been knitting this.

It’s a Bryn Brioche Cowl, in a new-to-me (and new-to-everyone as it made its debut at East Anglia Yarn Festival!) yarn from Weku Yarn. If you watched Game of Wool, that’s Lydia’s and her sister Hannah’s company. Watch this space.

Until next week, take care and I hope you get a chance to do some stuff that makes you happy. Goodness knows we all need that! K x

P.S. If you don’t know the Queen song ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, I highly recommend a listen!

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Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend

Knitted ones at any rate! I designed Ice Diamond Mitts five and a half years ago and I’ve been knitting a new sample from the pattern this week. I’ve just reached the point where the stitches for the thumb are divided away from the rest of the stitches. Diamond patterns are a common feature of lace knitting as they are easy to create with correctly placed decreases and yarn overs and create clear and pleasing shapes in your knitting.

I find it fascinating that, while the design and pattern are clearly mine and my style of pattern writing has changed little since 2020, in some ways following the pattern is almost like knitting someone else’s pattern – it feels quite distant. I suppose that’s hardly surprising as I’ve only knitted these mitts once before and I’ve created 44 other designs since then (I’m also including the ones I’ve designed and made and are due to be published soon)! That’s an average of 8 designs per year – which may not sound like a lot, but it’s quite a chunk of work.

Last weekend was very much a musical one. Saturday was the Spring Market in our local shopping precinct where Shelby’s Singers performed 14 (yes!) songs to the shoppers and I bounced around in front of them waving my arms, sorry, conducted them. Then on Sunday it was choral evensong at the church where I sing in the choir. From Erasure, Alex Warren and the Great Showman to Stanford in Bb and Purcell! Quite a mix.

This weekend sees our second show of the year (of 12!) at TexStyle in Manchester, followed by East Anglia Yarn Festival in Norwich the next weekend. Both are patterns only, so no kits, but we will still have all the samples for the designs we are bringing with us so folk can see in person what they will be creating.

I’ve finished knitting my current commission and I now need to block the pieces and seam it (and make any tweaks to the pattern’s other sizes if necessary at that point – I’m looking at you, neckline!). It feels good to be at this stage 17 days before the deadline – especially with two shows added to the mix!

Now that I’ve finished the knitting of this design I can really get cracking with knitting the mitts, and finishing my DK Into the Vortex as well.

The brown boxes have arrived for my kits – being made of cardboard and arriving ‘flat’ means they take up far less room in the house than 100 tins would have done! In fact, I don’t think I would ever have ordered 100 tins at a time precisely for this reason. Yes, that really is 100 boxes. Or will be, when I make them up.

I’m considering adding needles to some of my kits, specifically Twisted which needs special short interchangeable needle tips plus an 80cm cable to make the smaller version and not everyone has these. Do you think this would be useful – a kit that includes the needles where the needles required are ‘non-standard’?

If you bought an advance ticket to the North West Winter Wool Festival and have not yet downloaded your free hot water bottle cover pattern, now is the time to do it! The download code will stop working at the end of the day on Sunday 15th March. 158 people have taken advantage of this offer which is an increase on those who downloaded The Imperial Cowl last year (125).

We are almost ready for Friday – the parking has been booked, the unloading time-slot at Manchester Central has been booked, the patterns printed, the samples checked, float made ready and the snacks bought! Now I just need to refresh the blue of my hair, and keep all the other plates spinning.

That’s all from me for today. Keep your heads up and I hope you are able to do something that makes you happy this week. K x

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At Last

I completed my 4-ply version of What Do Points Make? late last year, but with the reduction of space in the lounge with the Christmas tree up and all the busy-ness at the start of the year, I have only recently got around to blocking it. I have to admit that pinned out it looks like a large pair of trousers, but, once it is released from the blocking boards, I will fold the narrow pieces over, sew some side seams, weave the ends in and it will be a loose flowing throw-over. I’m hoping to have it with me at the shows are doing in March – TexStyle and East Anglia Yarn Festival (or EAYF).

You can see from the schematic (the line drawing on the right) that the measurements are bigger in the 4-ply version (that’s the bigger font) than for the laceweight (smaller font). I’d made the largest size. Not quite a ‘whole size’ different but definitely bigger. It might be interesting for me to knit a size 3 4-ply version as well and see what size that comes out. At least I know it wouldn’t take up quite so much room on the lounge floor!

I’ve also made some progress with my DK version of Into the Vortex. I seem to be in a ‘scaling up’ mode at the moment! This is coming out nicely and it will be interesting to see how much of the pattern I can work with 100g of each colour. The DK Chimera from RiverKnits is an absolute delight to use – really bouncy and full of so much colour. This photo doesn’t do the yarns justice as the colours look a lot brighter in real life.

I’m also cracking on with my latest design that had me purchasing a protractor and then doing calculations with both tan and cos. (no pics as it’s for a magazine). The surprising thing is that it looks quite simple in the sketch (and on the needles), it’s just the way I constructed it that caused me some head scratching in terms of making sure all the sizes work and especially that the larger sizes won’t have the top falling off the shoulders. I can’t wait for you to see it!

The sleeveless jumper design I was working on for a knitty.com submission has taken a back seat for a while – I’m not happy with the neck line and armholes when worn and there’s a weird band right across the middle of the chest that might be due to have used re-purposed yarn. I’m going to knit another sample in new yarn and work out how to improve/change the neck and armholes so they make the top look properly finished. I know I can’t do that in time for their current deadline, especially with the other top on a March deadline too. Sometimes, I have to admit that I can’t do everything and let something go.

Some exciting news for me, and possibly for you as well if you live near Glasgow, is that a number of my printed patterns are currently winging their way to For The Love of Yarn in Rogart Street. I saw a video of their shop recently and it’s enormous and beautifully stocked! If we ever get the chance to go to Glasgow – I’ve never been – I will definitely be paying the shop a visit.

On the garden front, we have one daffodil in flower in the front lawn, our deep red camellia is beginning to flower and the hellebores and snowdrops and still going strong. It also looks as though all the chunks of rhubarb crown we planted have taken – all of them have bright green leaves topping even brighter pink stalks. So I think that’s seven rhubarb plants we now have. I think we’re going to be giving rhubarb away come the summer!

And we still have flowers from my Mum’s amaryllis – even though the second flower stalk fell over and had to be cut off.

That’s everything from me for today. I hope you have a good week and get to do some stuff that makes you happy. K x

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Blackpool Rocks!

We had a great time in Blackpool at the North West Winter Wool Festival last weekend. Being the first show of the season it was particularly exciting to catch up with other vendors who we haven’t seen for a few months and also meet some new ones and make new friends! Shirley and Trevor were very organised and great hosts for the event.

We didn’t venture as far as the piers or the tower as the hotel the show was held in was at the far north end of Blackpool, but we had some bracing walks along the promenade and enjoyed some great chips and mushy peas. We did, however, experience the in-hotel entertainment on Friday night which included a cabaret singer who encouraged audience participation and also bingo! We didn’t win anything, but another vendor on our table did so we shared his joy.

It was wonderful to talk to knitters about their plans and ideas for the patterns they chose. One lady was even planning on spinning the yarn she was going to use for a lace shawl design she purchased. A couple of people told me they had knitted some of my patterns in the past and really enjoyed them, which always gives me a boost. One lady was wearing her beautifully knitted Tiffany shawl in bright rainbow shades and it was delightful. Jo Knit Sew showed me her Bryn Brioche Cowl which she knitted as her first brioche project before diving into a very intricate brioche shawl (I’ve seen that in progress and it’s stunning as well).

I also met and taught some wonderful people how to knit brioche on Saturday and how to knit a moebius on Sunday. I was very impressed with all of them and with the amount of learning that went on during those hours.

Lately I haven’t bought anything while I’ve been at a yarn show, but this time I treated myself to two things. A little ‘Scoopy’ from Bowfiddle Yarns which has a magnet in the base to help you hold on to your metal stitch markers and which changes colour in the most mesmerising way.

Also, I was given three beautiful mini skeins for my birthday which came from Jo at Second City Yarns. I’ve been thinking about what to make with them and I decided I need a good neutral yarn to go with the colours. So I got four mini skeins from Jo. They really help to make the colours sing when put together!

The Seaside Winter Cosy pattern is now live on my website, payhip and Ravelry, so you can now buy the pattern! It’s knitted in the round in four colours of DK yarn and you can choose to either seam the bottom (as in the picture below) or add poppers to the bottom to make the hot water bottle removable.

Next month we have two shows back to back! TexStyle is in Manchester on 14-15th March at Manchester Central (previously known as the G-Mex centre) and East Anglia Yarn Festival is the following weekend on 21-22nd March at the Norfolk Showground Arena just outside Norwich. If you come to either of these events, please do stop by and say hello!

That’s all from me today – I’m about to crack on with a new design that the yarn arrived for last Thursday! Have a good week, stay safe and do something that makes you happy. K x

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Community

Progress has been made on the sock this week with the majority of the gusset decreases completed. This is less progress than you might expect in a week, but that is partly because I am just over halfway through knitting (and writing the pattern for) the design I mentioned in last week’s post.

My spreadsheet for that design is large, but the pattern is (I think) nicely concise, without including any of those phrases that annoy me so much and are often used when a publication needs to save space, such as “Work as for Left side, reversing shaping”. I know this is a common phrase, but it relies on a certain level of knowledge and skill from the knitter to be able to do that, which a less experienced knitter might not have, and therefore can potentially exclude people from making the design. It is important to me that my patterns include the full instructions required and don’t make you guess what you need to do. Inclusivity in pattern writing is about more than the size range!

Some exciting news is that my brioche workshop at the North West Winter Wool Festival in Blackpool next month (Saturday 14th Feb) has sold out! There are still 8 spaces on the moebius knitting workshop on Sunday 15th Feb, so if you are going to that event and would like to learn how to knit what looks like a totally impossible shape, you can!

Also, a reminder that if you are going to that show, please do get an advance ticket as you will then get a code to download the Seaside Winter Cosy pattern for FREE!

The floorplan for the North West Winter Wool Festival has just been released too – which makes everything seem much more real! We will be on B9 which is just by the door, so you can’t miss us! If I’m not on the stand in the afternoon it’ll be because I’m teaching, but my lovely wife Sue will be there to help you.

After two weeks of lots of extra work, complete with the novelty of having colleagues again (with the invigilation for mocks), next week will feel a little quiet I think. I do enjoy working at home, by and for myself, but there is really something to be said for that 10 minute chat in the staff room before everyone cracks on with the next part of the day. Even if it’s just about something very ordinary. Actually, during the past week or so, I have been able to enjoy that moment of time much more than when I was teaching full time as, in this role, I have no last minute planning/marking/photocopying/furniture rearrangement etc to do, and I even have an allotted starting time, which never existed in my previous school role.

Tomorrow I am going to the social evening at Yarn O’clock, which I haven’t been able to do for quite some time as it has usually clashed with other commitments. I’m really looking forward to it and am planning to take the sock, with the intention of getting onto the foot during the evening. So, hopefully there will be more progress to see next week – maybe even a completed sock, who knows?!

By the way, no one commented on last week’s post for the opportunity to win some free tickets to the new TexStyle show in Manchester, so I am extending the opportunity into this week as well with the draw now scheduled for Friday 30th January. Don’t be shy if you’d like to go and you’d like a pair of free tickets (so you can take a friend too)!

TexStyle is a fibre AND textile event with a massive range of crafts represented. Just see this list below which is taken from the TexStyle website to give you some idea:

  • Basketry
  • Crochet and hooking
  • Cross stitch
  • Demonstrations
  • Dyeing
  • Felting
  • Finished items
  • Gallery display
  • Home decor
  • Knitting
  • Lace, embroidery and blackwork
  • Macrame
  • Quilting
  • Sewing
  • Spinning
  • Stationery
  • Tufting
  • Upholstery
  • Weaving

There seems to be a bit of a community theme in what I have been thinking and writing about today – whether that is of the knitting/crafting community or a community of colleagues engaged in the same work. I hope you have a week with some positive connections in one or more of your communities, and that you get a chance to do something that makes you happy. Take care, K x

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Advent – a time of waiting

On Sunday I sang at the Advent carol service at the church where I am a member of the choir. There was quite a bit of plainchant (we did the Palestrina Advent Responsory and the ‘Great O Antiphons’ as well as the much more modern The Lamb by Taverner and some good solid advent hymns. Before the service began the rector said there were some children in the congregation in Christmas jumpers and that perhaps they thought they were going to get Christmas carols rather than Advent carols. They are very different! Advent is a time of waiting and anticipation.

A tradition here is that we put our Christmas tree up on Advent Sunday, so it is now in pride of place in the lounge, complete with lots of decorations. Some are new, some are as old as I am. Some are homemade and some are bought. There are even a couple of glass baubles she and Dad bought when they were first married. Putting the tree up and decorating it (two separate things!) always takes much longer than we expect, perhaps because it also involves moving furniture to other rooms in order to make room for the tree! We now have an armchair in the kitchen and a rocking chair in the front room where I teach. The other result of having put the Christmas tree up, is that I know realise I will have to wait until it comes down again (on January 6th) to block my 4ply What Do Points Make? as there simply isn’t enough floorspace anywhere at the moment. Another example of Advent being a time of waiting and anticipation, perhaps!?

Later today I will be getting my sewing machine out as I have some mending to do. A couple of months ago we were re-arranging the front room ready for piano lessons and I caught the pocket of one of my smocks under the radiator. I have been meaning to mend it ever since.

And then in the past couple of weeks I have discovered that two of my skirts are going on a seam and one of my favourite dresses has a hole developing so I really need to get these things fixed.

Of course, these are all garments from The Slow Wardrobe and I have had them for years (I think you can tell that in the case of the purple skirt), but I want to keep them going for several more years. It’s all the more important as Linda has moved to France and isn’t currently selling any new clothes! I really can’t imagine wearing anything else on a day to day basis. I can’t decide at the moment whether to patch the dress or try to darn it. Any suggestions welcome!

Making Tracks is now out in issue 222 of The Knitter! It looks great on the model.

This is the jumper I was writing about earlier in the year where it took me three tries to get the sleeves exactly the way I wanted them. The yarn quantities are quite large because it was designed as a man’s jumper and therefore the body and sleeves are longer than might be expected in a woman’s garment. As long as you have completed all the sleeve increases you can make the sleeves the length *you* want them to be. The same goes for the body. When I republish this as an individual pattern in six months I think I will add in additional length measurements for body and sleeves for female sizing charts as well, and include yarn quantities if following these length measurements.

The knitted gnome is complete and will be delivered to his new home at the end of the week. I’m very pleased with how it turned out! I think I will make one for us to keep as well, maybe reversing the colours.

I completed my tech editing course last week!

As well as this badge I have a certificate and now I just need some people who would like me to edit their knitting patterns!

Our final yarn show of the year is happening soon! On Saturday December 13th we will be at Yuletide Yarnies at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings. There will be mince pies and live music too! ยฃ5 for advance tickets bought online or ยฃ7.50 on the door.

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Making and Baking

This weekend I did some baking for the first time in absolutely ages. I made biscuits that are the simplest things ever and they are lovely. The recipe suggested dividing the mixture into three and adding chocolate chips, lemon zest and almonds to get a trio of different flavours, but we just had them plain as we didn’t have any of those extra ingredients, but we did have marg that needed using up as it was near it’s date, flour, sugar and semolina! You can find the recipe here.

I have finally finished my 4-ply version of What Do Points Make?! I decided to make the fourth colour match on each side to be consistent with what I’d done with each of the other colour changes. I used hardly any of the fourth colour, you can see it on the top outer corners – in fact that yarn still weighed over 100g once I’d finished!

The next step is blocking it and I will do that this week – it takes up quite a lot of space on the floor as I will be pinning it out in the shape in the photo above, unless I decide to fold the fronts over while it’s blocking as in the photo below, but then it has double thickness so takes longer to dry.

I had to cancel and postpone a few things last week as my cold took its course, but I’m much better now and looking forward to teaching moebius knitting tomorrow night!

I think I mentioned that I will be teaching both brioche knitting and moebius knitting at the North West Winter Wool Festival in Blackpool next February. The workshops are now available to book and the times are as follows:

  • Two-Colour Brioche Knitting: Saturday 14th February 2026, 1.30-3.30pm (2 hours), ยฃ25 including yarn and handouts
  • Moebius Knitting: Sunday 15th February 2026, 1-3.30pm (2.5 hours), ยฃ36 including needles, yarn and handouts

I will also add links to these on my Events page of the website. Do remember also that when you book an advance ticket for the North West Winter Wool Festival you will get a code to download the Seaside Winter Cosy hot water bottle cover knitting pattern for free! It can be made in four colours of DK yarn. Two different yarn brands are suggested, but you can use any brand you prefer and there are two finishing option, either to add poppers/press-studs or to seam the bottom edge closed.

When I was invited to take part in Stollen & Wolle once again this year, November 16th seemed a very long way off, but it’s happening in less than 3 weeks! The RiverKnits studio is in a lovely setting in Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire, and last year’s event was super. This year there are eight vendors and the renowned Susan Crawford is a guest speaker, which is even more exciting! If you can get to that area of the country on November 16th I would highly recommend it. Tickets are only ยฃ5 with under 16s and carers attending for free, and the lovely RiverKnits folk have requested that you book in advance if you can as it helps their caterers to know how many people to expect.

I had a chance to get right into my baskets in the lounge this week and found a crochet project that had been languishing there for about two years – using yarn that had been in my stash for far longer! I’d done three different squares, trying out a couple of patterns from a book and a pattern I’d found online and left it at that. Now I’ve chosen my favourite one and I’m using it as the centre of what should become a huge granny square. I’ve now had the sense to label the balls of yarn with numbers so I’m not squinting at them in the lamplight trying to work out which shade come next!

That’s all from me for today. What have you been making recently? Take care and I hope you get the chance to do something that makes you happy this week. K x

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A Slice of Lime?

I’ve been working on an updated version of Elinor Hap Shawl (one of the reasons I’ve been knitting a new sample of it) and it was fascinating to see how I used to write things. It’s funny how when you go to update an old pattern you suddenly notice how your standard ‘house style’ has gradually changed over the past six years! I’m now so used to writing patterns with capital letters for a lot of the instructions (for example: K2, K2tog, yo, K3, yo, SSK), that seeing it all in lower case apart from the first instruction feels strange (that previous example would be: K2, k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk). It’s a fairly niche thing to be interested in, but that might be why I’ve signed up for an introduction to tech editing in October!

We took lots of photos of Elinor Hap Shawl yesterday and I’ve added some of those to the updated version of the pattern, as well as tweaking a few things that needed to be phrased better. The updated version of the pattern will be live very soon – probably tomorrow! By the way, isn’t the colour incredible?! The colour is called A Slice of Lime and it’s dyed by Ripples Crafts. It’s the finest yarn I’ve ever used at 1200m per 100g and the shawl uses approx 2000m (yes, 2km!) of yarn, yet it only weighs about 165g!

Over the weekend we also made a video of the process of blocking the shawl on the hap stretcher and also one of putting the hap stretcher together. The versions of the videos on social media came out really small for some reason. I sped them up in iMovie so they each last just over 1 minute. In reality it was about 20 minutes for each part of the process. I figured no-one wanted to see that! I had to remove the sound anyway as there was a lot of background noise and I wasn’t saying anything particularly useful! It was more along the lines of “Oh heck, we’ve put this piece on upside down…” or other words to that effect!

Here are the videos in case you missed them:

We also took lots of photos of Draig y mor (that’s Sea Dragon in Welsh, there should be a circumflex on the ‘o’, but I can’t work out how to do that in WordPress), including one of it flying in the air and it really does look like a flying dragon!! This new design is currently with my tech editor and I’m hoping to get it ready to launch at one of the shows I’m attending in August. The yarn is a gorgeous 100% Tencel DK dyed by Penny Stitch Craft.

See that photo in the middle of the top row? See the big black dot on my head? That’s a massive bumblebee that was playing around. I’ve got a zoomed in shot of it where it seems to be looking right at the camera!

I’ve realised that even with my reactive glasses I find it hard not to close my eyes outside when I’m having my photo taken!

We’ve had rain for the most of today and I am so grateful that I finally picked the blackcurrants yesterday. To be honest, nearly half of them were already on the ground when I got to them and they were so ripe they were falling from the bush as I touched them. So they got picked, picked over, washed, washed again, dried a bit and then frozen. I realised they were so ripe that they would just go off if I didn’t either immediately freeze them or make jam. It was way too hot for jam making, so into the freezer they went. If I’d delayed picking them any longer and left them out in today’s rain they would have been ruined! So, yay to yesterday morning getting up early and picking them before it got too hot. Boo to waking up this morning with a really stiff and sore back… Must be getting old!

I’ve finally started a 4-ply version of What Do Points Make?! I’ve been thinking about doing this for a couple of years now and it’s coming on a treat. I’ll get proper pics to you next week, but for now, here’s the start of it, doing a very good impression of a top-down triangular shawl. I’m using three skeins from a five skein set of gorgeous yarn from LottieKnits. I’ve had it for seven years, so I doubt she’s making the same colourway now, but she still has lots of lovely stuff! Go and have a look!

Right, that’s all from me for this week. Take care, stay cool and do something that makes you happy this week. K x

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Making Movies!

Today whilst awaiting a UPS collection I have been making videos on how to do a provisional cast-on. I also recorded a bit on how not to do one as well!

When I first encountered a pattern that used a provisional cast-on, I thought I just needed to use a different yarn, cast on in my usual way and then change yarn and possibly needle size. Wrong! It’s called provisional because it has to be undone and removed and it’s really hard to remove a regular cast-on. See part two of the video for evidence of this!

Why did I make a video? Because it occurred to me that there are bound to be other knitters who are encountering a provisional cast-on for the first time. Especially if they are knitting Rhiannon Hap Shawl which launched as a single pattern last Friday and it would be helpful for them to see how it works!

I’m only going to upload Part 1 here, because it takes ages to upload and I don’t want to slow down your ability to load the blog page. Both parts of the video will be on my youtube channel later on.

Because it’s taken a while to get the video recorded, add captions and uploaded, today’s blog will be a little shorter!

I have sad news on the broad bean front. I planted six really happy looking plants into the veg patch last week and now there is just one half eaten plant left. The others have been munched away. I have however picked a lot of gooseberries and the blackcurrants and remaining redcurrants are ready to pick as well.

These gooseberries have been top and tailed and are now in the freezer ready for when it is cool enough to enjoy crumble again. There are more gooseberries on the bushes too – I’m just waiting for them to full ripen before picking them.

Maybe spiky plants are the way forward? Something that the slugs and snails won’t dare approach? Although, having said that, the two newest gooseberry bushes had very few leaves left by the time I got to them – caterpillars I think.

It was a busy knitting week last week. I got the rights back to Rhiannon Hap Shawl and launched that on Friday. Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of the pattern so far!

I posted off the big jumper and emailed the pattern and all ‘associated files’ to the publisher! (Also on Friday!).

I finished the gorgeous Tencel shawl I’ve been working on using yarn dyed by Penny Stitch Craft. I’m going to call it Draig y Mรดr which is Welsh for ‘Sea Dragon’. I love how the edging shaping works at the point of the shawl and it reminds me of dragon wings and I also love how the stitch pattern of the edging looks like waves and the main yarn colour (although called “Oil Slick” which you perhaps wouldn’t want to find in the sea) looks like the complex colours of the sea. Proper photos will follow soon! As will the pattern, once it’s been formatted and checked thoroughly – note to self: contact tech editor!

And… because I finished all those things I have been able to return to knitting the edging on my new sample of Elinor – another hap shawl! I turned the final corner yesterday and I’m on the final side. Only 40 reps of the edging left to do!!

What have you been up to this week? K x

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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