Tag: Makers gonna make

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Old Favourites

Last night I had two sales of my Nevern Throw pattern in quick succession. Now, while Nevern Throw is my most popular design, that actually doesn’t happen very often so I wondered why. A quick visit to Facebook showed me that someone had shared their completed Nevern Throw in the Stranded Knits group and it’s lovely. A range of colours from yellows, greens and blues and really well knitted too. I popped into the group to add my congratulations to the many already there on a great piece of knitting. And woke up to two more sales of Nevern Throw! I know they’re not the kind of pattern sale numbers that will pay the bills, but it does give me a boost when I’m working on lots of new designs currently as well. Nevern Throw was first published in January 2020 by Knit Picks and I self-published it in January 2022 once the rights returned to me. Since then I have sold 867 copies of the pattern either online or at yarn shows – four of which have been in the last 24 hours.

Nevern Throw is also the design at the top of my website and on my banner. I do now have my replacement banner from Instant Print and it is much better. I’m currently tempted to see if I can move the pull up section from my very first roller banner that I broke by falling onto it into the cartridge the blurry one is currently in. I’ve watched the youtube videos on how to do it and it seems you need a ‘locking key’, but it’s just a piece of metal. I’m sure I have a crochet hook of the correct width that I could poke into the hole to stop the art-work/end-piece pulling back inside the cartridge.

I started counting up how many items I’ve knitted in the past two months and it’s no wonder I have a ganglion on my wrist at the moment! There are two shawl samples for one commission (plus the first shawl that didn’t meet the brief, but is still a completed shawl), three accessory samples for another (one of which is a nearly 2.4m long scarf), most of a garment, a hat and part of my short version of Leaf & Vine! Blimey! And we’ve had three shows in that time too! I’m “getting there”, as my mum would say, with the deadline knitting and I’m looking forward to being able to return to Leaf & Vine and to make a start on Sue’s Gwen lace top. That design was published in Knitting Magazine in July, which feels like ages ago now!

I have a new 3-part knit-along design starting in The Knitter next month (issue 233, 234 and 235) which is a shawl in LANGYARNS Naturalis, a roving spun yarn that is dyed with plant dyes. If you get my newsletter you will already have seen the photos (and the offer I have been able to share with subscribers) and you may have seen it being advertised on Facebook and Instagram as the magazine are also running their own subscription offer with the yarn.

Next year I think I want to run my own self-published knit-along design. I may also look at teaming up with one of my yarn-dyeing friends for this – I haven’t mentioned this idea to any of them yet, but I think it could be fun. What do you think? Would you be interested in taking part?

I haven’t done any knitting I can share with you this week! But we have bought some splendid hi-vis. We have to wear these at some of the shows when setting up and packing down and we decided it would be nice to have branded ones. This is a screenshot from the little video we took yesterday. I tried to upload the video here, but it distorted the image from portrait to landscape which looked very odd!

Yarn Gathering is taking place in less than two weeks on Sunday 20th September – it would be lovely to see lots of visitors to this event. Do come if you are free! There are 13 wonderful vendors, spread across three rooms in the Daniel Owen Centre. The full list of vendors and a map of Mold plus more information is on the Yarn Gathering page.

You can also combine a visit to Yarn Gathering with a visit to the Mold Food and Drink Festival which is taking place that weekend as well. Entry to the Food & Drink Festival costs £7 on the Sunday, whilst entry to Yarn Gathering is free!

That’s all from me today. I’m off to calculate and knit a neck band. I hope you have a good week and get to do some things that make you happy. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Getting it Right

Many former school teachers will tell you that the start of September has a funny effect on them. For some it is a sense of renewal and possibility, for others a sense of dread! I have to admit that I have been awake since 4.30 this morning, but not because I have been thinking about my former classroom Septembers.

This September is quite possibly the busiest one I have had since I left the classroom in 2018. I have two yarn shows: Yarn Gathering which I am organising, and Yarndale where I am teaching two sold out workshops as well as having a double stand for the first time.

There are three design deadlines coming up (which is why I haven’t been able to show you much knitting for a while!), a presentation to give on Stitchmastery next week, a yarn shop birthday party to attend which will be lots of fun and my car’s MOT is due. Fortunately that is booked in already. I was also due to be teaching on September 5th, but the shop where the workshops were happening is having a few week’s break so that is cancelled. My next date at Ewe Felty Thing is 5th December where I am due to be teaching Stranded Knitting and Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting. You’ll be able to book a place on those once the shop is back up and running again.

Before that I will be teaching my brioche workshop at Stafford Wool Gathering in October and there is just one place left on that workshop. It’s £30 and the workshop is being held on Saturday 17th October, 1-3pm. If you want it – be quick! This is a new event for us and we’re really looking forward to it.

I have been aware of needing a bit more time and space in my week for a while. Earlier in the year I let the local community choir that I have been leading for the past three years know that I would be stepping down, and tomorrow is my final rehearsal with them. They have formed a committee to take over and I know they will do well. It will be the end of an era in a way for me, as agreeing to run this choir (which started off as half a dozen young children and now numbers about 30 on the register, most of whom are adults) is what got me back into making music regularly. I will still be singing in my church choir, so I won’t be losing touch with music again, but it will be without the planning and admin!

Sue and I have been listening to quite a bit of Dolly Parton this past week following the sad announcement of her death. She was an incredible person and getting to meet her, although very briefly, was a joy.

My replacement roller banner is due this morning and I am looking forward to seeing it. The staff at InstantPrint have been so helpful throughout the process, from my first disappointed email when the banner I ordered after breaking my original one arrived all pixellated around the edges of my logo (as shown in the main pic of today’s post), to helping me get artwork to them that was of the correct resolution for a replacement that I didn’t have to pay any extra for. I still don’t quite understand how the original banner I bought last year looked so good when apparently the resolution on that was not correct either, but I am just glad that they wanted to get it right and get a good quality banner to me.

If you live in the North East Wales/North West England area do consider visiting Yarn Gathering on Sunday 20th September. We will have 13 fabulous vendors, most of whom live within an hour of Mold, showcasing their talents and fibre-based goodies. Parking in Mold is free on a Sunday, entry to the event is free, and you can combine your visit with a trip to the Mold Food and Drink Festival which is also happening that weekend (entry to that is £7 on the Sunday for over 16s).

if you are a monthly newsletter subscriber, keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow. I am launching Spring Breeze Hat as an individual pattern and there will a subscriber only time-limited discount code you can use! This hat pattern was originally published in Knit Now in April. Since then I have added an extra size to the pattern and knitted a sample in each of the four sizes. My samples are knitted in KnitPro’s Symfonie Terra 4-ply yarn, which is a standard 400m/100g 4-ply/sock weight yarn. Here are the extra-large (in Autumn Rose) and large sizes (in Mint Sky). I prefer the extra-large size on me.

Right, that’s all from me for today. I’m off to tackle the rest of my to-do list! Take care and I hope you get to do some things you enjoy this week. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Mr Bump

When I was young I loved the Mr Men books. I’m of an age where they were just Mr Men – the Little Misses series hadn’t been added at that point. I even taught myself how to do joined up writing by tracing Roger Hargreaves signature from the front cover of the books. Mr Bump always seemed a bit of a silly character to me, carelessly getting hurt so often. However, I have been doing a really good impression of Mr Bump this past week or so.

Now I look back on it, my opinion of Mr Bump when I was a child was strange, as I had a habit of regularly walking into lamp-posts – I simply didn’t see them as I was too busy looking at everything else around me. My recent run of “Mr Bumpiness” began with a reversion to childhood. I walked into a lamp-post in the centre of a footpath to McDonald’s just after we’d finished the North East Wool Show (which was great by the way). Unfortunately, said lamp-post had a road sign screwed to it to face the road next to the footpath and so I collided with it edge-on and quite forcefully. The poor lady serving the drive-through customers who saw it happen was quite worried and brought me a cup of ice cubes for my arm when we got into the building. I’m sure that helped quite a bit, although the bruising has been spectacular.

I managed not to injure myself further for nearly a week (apart from a ganglion suddenly appearing on my left wrist) and then on Saturday, during the Pop-Up Wool Show (another excellent event) I misjudged where my chair was when sitting down with my knitting, fell off it sideways and landed on/in our roller banner. Cue another massive bruise, lots of embarrassment and a very broken roller banner – a replacement is due to arrive tomorrow thanks to Instantprint. Sue had just popped outside to eat her lunch and knew nothing of what had happened until she came back to see the banner leaning rather limply against the back of our neighbour’s stand (many thanks to Cuddlebums!). Antidote Yarns and Designs also kindly came over to ask if I needed anything, but all I could think of to ask for was a little more dignity!

My mum suggested I break some matches to avoid a third thing happening. This superstition is not one I’ve ever heard of before even though Mum has always said ‘things come in threes’. I meant to try it, but forgot. On Monday morning whilst removing all the bedding from the bedroom (a new bed was due to be delivered) I walked into the corner of a table in the hallway (hidden from my sight by the duvet, but I should have known it was there) and later on dropped/knocked over a whole pint of water on the dining table. So, it seems I’m either into my second set of ‘threes’ or I’ve just been incredibly unlucky lately with my sudden lack of spatial awareness/co-ordination. I’m just really grateful none of my injuries affected my driving for getting home from our events!

The North East Wool Show and the Pop Up Wool Show were both great and in between these we also visited my Mum and were visited by Sue’s brother and wife for the solar eclipse. All of this meant that I wasn’t able to get a blog post written last week.

Knitting-wise I have been very busy since my last blog post. My shawl design has gone off to the tech editor, I’ve collected the yarn for a big piece of brioche knitting and I’m only ten repeats of the pattern away from finishing it and I’ve got most of the yarn for a new garment design. An additional colour is arriving today.

If you’ve been to any of my workshops on stranded knitting (or any type of colourwork) you’ll know how important contrast in the tonal value of the colours is. If two colours have a similar tonal value the pattern will vanish into the background, even if the colours appear to be different. I learnt this the hard way with a cowl I knitted for Sue. It was in black and red and included one of her poems in morse code. The big writing shows up, but the morse code is virtually invisible because the red and black both had similar tonal values. You can really see the lack of tonal value contrast if you look at the picture in black and white.

It was after knitting a swatch for my new design with the colours I had that I realised there was not enough contrast in tonal value – hence why a new colour is being delivered today. I can’t show you the swatch, but you will see the finished design in a few months.

Next weekend the rights to my Spring Breeze Hat return to me and I will be able to publish the pattern myself. I’ve added an additional size (extra large), which is ideal if you: a) have a bigger head; b) have lots of hair; c) like a more relaxed fit to your hats.

Here is the extra large hat being blocked on a balloon:

I can’t currently find my medium size sample (the one I sent to the magazine) and I’m not 100% sure if it’s been returned yet. With this in mind, the photos for the pattern may have to just include the small, large and extra large to start with and be updated to included the medium when I’ve either found it or knitted a new one. If you’d like a cheeky discount on the pattern when it’s launched as an individual pattern, then do sign up to my monthly newsletter!

That’s all from me today. I am going to aim to be less like Mr Bump for a while! I hope you have a good week and get to do some things that make you happy. K x

Posted on by — 2 Comments

All the Colours

On Friday I went into the garden to pick the blackcurrants. I was too late. With the extreme hot weather the fruit had ripened quickly and then either dropped off the stems or withered away on them. I managed to find one stem of fruit that was protected from the heat by a neighbouring plant and picked what I could from that. We cooked them down and had them with vegan vanilla ice cream (Swedish Glace in case you’re interested – which has been remarkably hard to find in the shops lately!). Having also been too late for the gooseberries this year I am determined not to let these crops go to waste again in the future. I think I will need to have a set day of the week when I check their progress and decide if it’s harvest time. I can start this year with the raspberries. Some of these are already ripening, even though these canes are ‘officially’ autumn-fruiting. On a very closely related note, I am so grateful we had some rain yesterday evening and this morning – we desperately need it!

Last week I told you about a shawl design that I’d had to start again. I am pleased to report that the new version is complete, written up and the shawl is blocking in the lounge. It was harder than I expected to design a single skein (4ply) shawl, in that you need a certain amount of width to get around the shoulders, but with a limited quantity of yarn that requires lateral thinking about the shawl shape itself. I also wanted to ensure that the design allowed for a 10% buffer in the yarn quantity used (ie I only used 90g of a 100g skein). This makes allowances for variation in knitters’ tension, so they shouldn’t run out of yarn. I also made sure the yarn I chose was the type of 4ply I used to refer to as a ‘short 4ply’. Yarn labelled as 4ply weight varies so much in length/meterage; different brands can have between 350m to 420m in 100g. I chose a brightly variegated skein of LottieKnits Little Bird Sock (365m/100g) in the colourway “Catch a Falling Star”. Choosing a highly variegated yarn (and this one contains all the colours!) was also an important factor as I wanted to see if the design would work with a high variegated yarn; if it did I knew it would work with anything! I’m going to knit another sample in a solid or semi-solid colour next so knitters can see how it works on a variety of yarns. Today’s main picture is of my leftover 10g.

As you might imagine, getting this shawl done in a week has meant there hasn’t been much time for other knitting, but I have done a little! Having blocked the shawl yesterday afternoon, I spent the evening working on the small sample of my Spring Breeze Hat. This hat was begun on the day we went on the Waverley Paddle Steamer and I hadn’t much touched it since then. I did realise last night that I don’t enjoy knitting lace on small circular needles, so I switched over to double pointed needles (dpns) and got on a lot better after that. I could have switched to magic loop technique, but my dpns were nearest!

I also got 12 during University Challenge while I was knitting, which is my highest score in quite some time. The Spring Breeze Hat was originally published in Knit Now magazine, issue 193 in April and will be relaunched as an individual pattern towards the end of August.

Last night I also finally got around to blocking the new extra-large size of the hat – this size will be included in the individual pattern, but is not in the magazine version of the pattern.

I am currently preparing for the North East Wool Show at Newcastle Racecourse this weekend, which is followed by the Pop Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight on Sat Aug 15th. We will be bringing 46 different printed patterns (and accompanying samples!) and lots of kits too.

My Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting workshop at Newcastle has been fully booked for a while, but if you want to learn this great technique there are spaces on my workshop at Yarndale (Sunday 27th September, 10-30am-12.30pm) and at Stafford Wool Gathering (Saturday 17th October, 1-3pm), as well as at Ewe Felty Thing (5th September or 5th December, both 10.30am-12.30pm).

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

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Tempus Fugit

Time is a funny thing. It doesn’t seem like a whole week has passed since I was at the dentist with my mum, and yet, at the same time, it feels like ages ago!

On Friday night I went to see The Wonder Stuff in my own home town. They were phenomenal, but the fact that I didn’t know any of the first 9 songs they played (out of a set list of 22!) made me realise that I’d only really listened to the same albums I had when I was a student in the 1990s, and yet they’ve released decades of music since then. I think I will have to explore some of their other albums.

I also realised it’s nearly four years since Tiffany and Agnes were launched on the RiverKnits stand at Yarndale 2022. The reason I was thinking about this is that Becci and Markus have announced that they are closing RiverKnits. They have a sale on with their last remaining yarn, so go and grab what you can, while it lasts! Tiffany and Agnes were specifically designed for RiverKnits yarns and Tiffany has proved to be one of my best-selling patterns. Four years have gone by so quickly since these patterns were launched into the world and, while I am pleased for Becci and Markus that they both have new adventures ahead of them, I am sad that their wonderful yarn won’t be available in the future. If you have a rainbow set of minis from them that you are wondering what to do with, it’s ideal for knitting Tiffany!

This week I’ve been doing lots of design work/knitting – none of which I can show you, but I can tell you a little about it:

I’ve submitted an idea for a new design to a magazine (this process also involves knitting and blocking a swatch to photograph and include in the submission).

I’m three quarters of the way through knitting the second of three samples for a design for a different magazine. Why three samples? You’ll have to wait until January to find out!

I also blocked a finished shawl design that I wasn’t at all sure about, wondering if blocking it would sort out the weird bulges in a few places, but no. It didn’t. I do know what I did wrong though (maths again!) and I spent an hour or so last night knitting tiny versions of different shapes to see what would be the best solution to the problem. I’m now on the right track and can get cracking with that properly – fortunately this particular design isn’t for a magazine, so I can use yarn I have (which is why I could block the first version – I’m just knitting the next version in a different yarn of the same weight), experiment and try out ideas as I go. I do have a brief for what is required and the first version in theory met it, but in practice it didn’t and I wasn’t at all happy with it. Sometimes part of designing is saying, “No, that doesn’t work. Let’s do it a different way.”

This morning I took a good look at my desk and thought that I really need to find a way to actually keep it tidy. I would show you, but there’s so much stuff on there I can’t show you (design stuff etc) that I’d actually have to tidy it up first! “Tidy desk” is a frequent item on my list of jobs for the day, but I never seem to manage to get it fully sorted. I know what’s there and where it all is in the strata, but it doesn’t make for an uncluttered working environment when I’m working at the computer. There are even some Christmas cards at the bottom of a pile on the right hand side of my desk from people I fully intended to write to. Except now it’s July – and nearly August. There’s time playing games with me again. Maybe I need to take everything off the desk and only put back the things I need currently, but I do find that difficult. The rest would probably end up in a pile next to the desk instead… Does anyone else have this problem?

Last Sunday was the final sung service at church until September. The choir gets August off. So, I have brought my cassock and surplice home to wash and to move the neck buttons on the cassock so it feels less like it’s trying to strangle me as I sing! It was made for me, but the only measurements that were asked for were length from nape to ankle and chest. I think that either my neck is wider than ‘standard’ or (more likely) I don’t tolerate non-stretchy things too close to my throat very well.

We are looking forward to our two shows in August, The North East Wool Show in Newcastle and Pop Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight. If you are at either of these two events, please do come and say hello. I’ll be teaching on Sunday afternoon at North East Wool Show and Sue will be looking after the stand during that time.

That’s all from me for today. Have a good week and I’ll aim to have some knitting on the needles next week that I can share. And it will be August by then! Time flies… K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Growing Fast

I finished the back of my short Leaf & Vine cardigan!

It’s going to grow quite a bit when it’s blocked and now the two front pieces need to be knitted. The clever thing about the construction of this garment is that the (very) short sleeves are integral to the body – you just cast on an extra 11 sts at the side.

The neckband is also integral to the main design rather than being added on afterwards. Once you get to the shoulders on the front you cast off all the stitches apart from those used for the neck band and keep knitting them, leaving them on a stitch holder at the end of the first front so you can graft the two pieces together once the second front is complete. This avoids having a seam in the centre back of the neck. This is how I blocked the full length version:

I had to measure carefully to ensure the front and back were exactly the same size. For the short version I am considering blocking the back in the same way and then pinning the front on top of the back to avoid a second lot of measuring. Although, now I think about it, the pins will already be in place so that might actually be more effort than simply measuring twice…

I’m very excited about a new design coming out in Knitting Magazine, issue 271. It’s due out on 16th July and I’ll be able to share some photos with you from it next week. I have to admit that when I opened the pictures I was emailed I gasped! Sue even asked me what was wrong! Nothing at all – the photos are simply stunning and I can’t wait to share them with you.

This year we didn’t plant any veg – time just got away from me. We did plant about six or seven chunks of rhubarb that had been in next door’s garden (the overall plant was over a metre across and it had to be cut up into lots of smaller sections to get it out of the ground). Some of those plants are thriving despite the lack of regular rain, but the veg plot is mostly looking like a borage and deep red oriental poppy field at the moment which the bees are loving – we’ll have to be brave explorers to get in there and harvest some of that rhubarb! The pigeons have been at the redcurrants again. I swear they just sit on the fence waiting for individual currants to turn slightly pink and then eat them. I might be able to get enough for a couple of jars of redcurrant jelly this year if I’m quick. At least they haven’t been at the blackcurrants – I think there will be another bumper crop of these. The gooseberries are almost ready to pick as well.

I had been worried that the new taller fence between us and next door (it’s about 2 feet taller in most places and almost three feet taller for a short stretch!) would cut the light and hamper growth, but the plants just seem to have grown taller than ever this year. I don’t know whether that is because of the heat and sunshine or whether the fence has bounced extra heat to the plants and given them wind protection to enable taller growth. It’s a mystery. I want to get out there and harvest some fruit and deadhead the roses, but I find I can only do shorter chunks of gardening in this weather, so I shall have to be specific about what I want to achieve when I go out there so I can complete at least one thing, rather than ‘tickle’ several tasks without actually completing any.

I’m working on a new design and finding it’s a perfect match with a skein of yarn from Mothy and the Squid that I bought a number of years ago, but hadn’t found the right project for. This is going to be a design for 100g/400m of 4ply yarn. I can’t tell you much more about it yet, but I can show you a little close up of how this yarn looks in garter stitch on 4mm needles. It’s really soft and squishy.

I am going to be doing quite a few workshops in the second half of this year. I have a few spaces left this weekend on my Intro to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting workshops at the Midlands Wool Festival and there are spaces for the same brioche workshop at Yarndale in September and at Stafford Wool Gathering in October. AND I’m teaching Stacked Stitches at Yarndale in September as well!

Most of the workshops I am due to be teaching in the autumn at Ewe Felty Thing are now listed on their website – in September, November and December. I’ll be adding those to my website soon as well. If you’d like to learn how to do stranded knitted, brioche knitting or intarsia at Ewe Felty Thing in Conwy and you’re not coming to one of the yarn shows where I’m teaching, head over to their website and book a place.

This coming weekend is Midlands Wool Festival. It’s a brand new show being held at Wolverhampton Racecourse and we’re looking forward to it immensely. Nearly everything is ready – patterns are printed and kits are boxed. Workshop materials are prepped and the layout is decided. I just need to make sure we can get everything we want to take (including ourselves) into the car…

And here is an amazing offer from the organisers – if you are coming to the Christmas Wool Show in Birmingham in November and have an advance ticket, you can use your ticket for that to also gain free entry to this weekend’s show!

That’s everything from me today. Stay cool this week and I hope you get to do something that makes you smile. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Rain!

A brief catch up with some old friends this afternoon talking about our gardens reminded me that we never did plant any vegetable seeds this year. However, the rhubarb, raspberries and other fruit bushes will no doubt be extremely grateful for the rain we have had today, especially after the extreme heatwave last week. The cooler weather has been very welcome to me certainly.

I had thought I might have been able to show you a completed back of the short version of Leaf & Vine cardigan, but my needles have been busy with something else. A call for submissions came in last Tuesday evening with a very interesting concept, but with only a week until the deadline which is tomorrow I’ve been busy knitting up different samples and working out how best to present my ideas. The swatches dried really quickly on Sunday afternoon, helped by the fact that I took the blocking mat outside and weighted it down on the patio table – it’s a good job I didn’t try doing that today! Of course, as it’s a submission for a possible publication I can’t share any photos with you at this stage, but I’m quite excited about the idea. If it doesn’t get accepted, I’ll definitely self-publish this one!

I have done a little more on the cardigan, even though I haven’t finished the back. There are only about 16 rows left to work on the back now. It’s going to grow quite a lot when it’s blocked.

I also did a tiny bit more on the small Spring Breeze Hat yesterday as Sue drove us down to the Midlands to visit my Mum. It was only a tiny bit as I discovered that it’s quite difficult knitting on a smaller circular needle (3.25mm and 40cm long) when the roads are quite bumpy!

Speaking of the Midlands – it’s not long now until the Midlands Wool Festival! This is a brand new yarn show being held at Wolverhampton Racecourse on July 11th and 12th. You can buy tickets in advance or on the door and it would be lovely to see you if you are local to the area. Our stand will be in the Ringside Suite. I’m teaching both afternoons as well and there are just three places left on each day’s workshop, so if you’d like to learn to knit two-colour brioche, get in touch to book a place!

Next week I’ll tell you more about the other shows coming up this summer and, who knows, maybe I will have finished the back of Leaf & Vine this time?!

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Ticket to Ride

Tickets had been pinned to our noticeboard for many months and then hey presto Monday came and it was the day of our sailing on The Waverley Paddle Steamer. The Waverley is the world’s last sea going paddle steamer, and you can find out more by clicking the link, but I can certainly tell you that this ship provided a wonderfully smooth and quiet ride. I was fascinated to be able to see the engineering in action below the deck we were sitting on, and to see the three massive cranks working. There’s a really cool video of it on Wikipedia that I was hoping to embed here, but it’s not behaving, but if you follow the Wikipedia link and scroll down to engine you’ll find the video there..

The main picture for today’s post is my view of Llandudno pier and the Grand Hotel with the Great Orme rising to the right, taken from the boat as we were about to go around the Orme.

You never know what the weather will be like when you book things like boat trips (or when Sue books them for us to enjoy!), but I was delighted by the cool sea breeze on such a warm day at the start of a very hot week – even though I ended up with a rather pink nose! And yes I took some knitting with me. The smallest size of Spring Breeze Hat still needed to knitted up before the North East Wool Show in early August (I get the rights to this pattern back at the end of July) and this seemed like the ideal small project to have with me whilst queueing and for some of the ride. As I was mostly working on the brim it meant that I could easily knit and still look at the view! As you can see it was quite breezy out on the water – my hair was blowing around everywhere!

The view and the experience of the journey to Colwyn Bay and then back around The Great Orme didn’t give me much time for knitting, but as you know I like to have it with me for all those moments when I need something to occupy my mind and fingers. Knitting whilst queuing is highly recommended – I get far less stressed about the wait when I’ve got my ‘socially acceptable fidgeting’ with me and I end up with knitted goodies at the end of it! I added the first repeat of the lace pattern once we got home and it’s looking good already.

In other knitting news, yesterday morning I took a stroll to the post office with the newly completed design which I can’t yet share with you. Sadly the box was about 2″ / 5cm too long to fit in the ‘small parcel’ category, but I will know better for next time and buy my posting box further ahead and from somewhere with a greater choice of size options! There were only two boxes in our Spar / post office when I bought this one and the other would have been far too small.

A lot of time and attention today will be on staying cool during my other jobs of invigilating exams and teaching piano. It’s definitely a scorcher and any gardening or walking will be done at the very coolest ends of the days this week. I’m hoping we’ll be able to pull some rhubarb as some of the new plants are going great guns (in amongst some oriental poppies and borage that is almost as tall as I am)!

It’s a short one today (I blame the heat!), so I’ll be back to tell you more about the progress I’m making on my short Leaf & Vine cardigan next week – you never know, I might even have finished the back by then! Until then, take care and stay hydrated. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Drawing a Line

Making Tracks was launched last week as an individual pattern as the rights returned to me six months after it was first published in The Knitter magazine. I have to admit that a heatwave (and one that was the UK’s hottest May on record) was probably not the best time to launch a cabled jumper, because although the pattern pages have had lots of views, no-one was in a jumper knitting mood and no copies have yet been sold!

Mind you, with the sudden change back to ‘more appropriate’ weather for the time of year – along with thunder storms and some very heavy showers – you never know! It’s cool enough now to start knitting a jumper and it would certainly be ready to wear by autumn.

I have been blocking something that I cannot show you – you’ll get to see it in October – but I’m pleased with how it’s come out and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. I’ve just taken the pins out and left it to relax on the blocking mats as I want to see how much it pulls back in when no longer under tension.

I’ve already been promising myself (and customers at yarn shows) that I would knit a sample of the short version of Leaf & Vine and I cast on this week. Because the short version still has quite deep armholes, I’m already halfway through the length of the body before I do the sleeve cast-on! Having been knitting longer garments recently, this seems really short, but I must remember that the length will grow when the lace is blocked and the overall measurements are good. I’m knitting it using a lovely light 4 ply yarn that I bought from Jo at Second City Yarns. It’s an undyed yarn in light grey.

I’ve been getting everything ready for our next show, which is The Wool Monty. This is held at Magna in Sheffield and is famous for being super inclusive. We received our lanyards, set-up info (including directions on how to get to the room I’m teaching in on Sunday morning!) and a copy of the show brochure through the post yesterday and I think it’s going to be an impressive event.

I’ve sorted out the kits, so I can bring a good range of kits in one big box, rather than bring absolutely everything in two! I’ve decided on the pattern inventory and printed anything that was needed, and I know that everything we are bringing will fit in the car. I’ve even ironed the black cotton double sheet that goes on the table. Now all I need to do is sort the sample bags out, so that the new patterns are in them and any samples of designs not going with us aren’t!

The weekend after The Wool Monty I am due to be teaching at Ewe Felty Thing once more. The last workshop (on Steeking) had to be postponed as not enough people had booked to make it viable for the shop to run, so I’m really hoping that some lovely knitters will want to expand their brioche knitting skills and/or learned how to use the stacked stitches technique, which is exemplified in the designs of Xandy Peters. If either of these workshops sound like fun to you – please do book a place and come along! There’s cake, drinks, biscuits and laughs as well as lots of knitting and top tips.

Here are just two designs you could knit with these techniques:

Meg March

On the left is Meg March Shawl designed by me, and on the right is Fox Paws designed by Xandy Peters. Pictured is the scarf I knitted using this pattern (photographed before I wove the ends in!).

Brioche designs can be either very geometric or organic in their lines, but the key feature is how the main colour creates lines that can draw shapes. You’re using two colours, but one colour at a time, working each row once with the main colour (the light colour here), then once again with the background colour (the dark colour here).

Stacked stitches is a fabulous technique where, again, you only use only colour at a time. No stranding or bobbins of little colours, just a whole row of one colour that take wonderful twists and turns by working increases and decreases on top of each other – hence the ‘stacked’ in the name!

It’s struck me that all the pictures I’ve shared with you today have clear lines in the designs, just formed in different ways; through cables, lace, brioche and stacked stitches. It never ceases to amaze me how versatile knitting is and how we can create beautiful and detailed fabrics with just yarn and needles!

That’s all from me today. I’m hoping that I’ll have some photos of my grey 4 ply What Do Points Make? to share with you next week. I didn’t want to get ‘official’ pics taken until I’d refreshed the blue of my hair, but that is now done, so we are good to go (in between the rain showers!).

Take care and have a good week. I hope you get to do something you enjoy. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Keeping it Real

Pictured today is a shot of three dark pink peonies in the front garden, surrounded by cowslips that have gone over, some pink primroses and lots of weeds and grass that shouldn’t be in the border. We haven’t done the ‘big weed’ of the front garden yet (the back garden has been mostly tidied up), and this very ‘real’ pic seemed appropriate to the title of today’s post!

There have been a number of news stories and social media posts about AI recently and I felt I wanted to put down my thoughts and feelings around the subject.

There are certain phrases and structures that are beginning to stand out as massive AI indicators in writing, such as three short phrases each on a new line, “It’s not X, it’s Y, and that makes all the difference”, “and honestly?” and pretty much anything described as “quietly” when it has absolutely nothing to do with volume.

I’m now noticing it in so many things I read; newsletters, articles, social media – even BBC news articles seem to use some of these structures and patterns. Quite often I’ll be reading for a while and then spot one of these things and increasingly it just puts me right off reading any further.

What’s the reason for my antipathy towards AI? There are several! It uses massive amounts of water to run the data centres where it takes place. AI is literally costing human jobs – 8000 Meta employees lost their jobs recently as a way of funding the AI part of the business. It’s also built on the theft of real people’s creativity. Articles, books, poetry, art have all been fed into these machines to ‘teach’ them how to ‘create’ the responses you ask for, often without the permission or even knowledge of the original artists. And it all looks and sounds so much the same after a while. More ‘generic’ AI than ‘generative’.

Woolly Wormhead wrote an excellent post on May 11th on social media, asking people not to input their knitting patterns into ChatGPT or other AI systems when looking for help or translation. I second this plea wholeheartedly. If people need help with a pattern there are videos available, tutorials and groups with lots of people (over a thousand people in Woolly’s case) on Facebook very willing to explain things.

There are also apps that people feed their patterns into in order to mark their progress. This worries me too, as I’m not sure what the companies behind the apps are doing with that data. Please don’t feed the machine!

With my patterns, if you do need help, please just get in touch with me directly via the website and I will answer your questions. I’ve been known to draw diagrams to help explain things and even record videos with little demos of how to do something.

The news that Google search is becoming more AI driven is also a concern, especially since the answers given in the AI overview aren’t always accurate. For example, I just typed into Google “What is Kath Andrews’ most popular knitting pattern?” The AI overview came back:

“Kath Andrews’ most popular designs include the Nevern Throw (a stranded colourwork Celtic knot blanket), the Meg March Shawl (a cozy, large two-colour brioche wrap), and Caramel Slice (an approachable child’s slip-stitch cardigan).”

Me being me, I just did a bit of sales analysis to check this out. Now, the first one is correct as I thought – Nevern Throw is my best selling pattern, by quite some distance. I’ve sold 820 copies of this pattern, with 643 of these being online sales (that number took me a bit by surprise!). Meg March Shawl is well admired and has sold 152 copies, with 60 of those being online sales, but there are several other patterns in between Nevern Throw and Meg in terms of sales. But Caramel Slice? I’ve only ever sold 12 copies of that, and only one of those was an online sale. Although I think it’s a good design, it’s hardly one of my most popular! So, that rather throws the AI answer out of the window.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about AI today. What are your views on the subject?

On the more practical side of things, I am launching Making Tracks as an individual pattern tomorrow!
As always, if you’d like a subscriber discount for the pattern, please do sign up to my newsletter (always written entirely by me, occasional typos and all!). The jumper has finished chest measurements of 101.5-174.5cm (40-68.75 inches) with adjustable body and sleeve lengths.

If the weather cools down enough later I will also photograph my grey 4ply What Do Points Make?. That’s likely to be past 9pm though!

Unfortunately, my Steeking workshop at Ewe Felty Thing that should have been taking place this coming Saturday (May 30th) is being postponed until the autumn, as not enough people wanted to learn how to cut their knitting open safely (that’s what steeking is!) to run the workshop this weekend.

I should be teaching Stacked Stitches and Next Steps in Two-Colour Brioche workshops at Ewe Felty Thing on June 20th – there are plenty of spaces. Please do come. Both these workshops are a lot of fun. Stacked Stitches opens up a whole world of amazing designs, mostly created by Xandy Peters, who is a genius! If you have some experience in basic two-colour brioche knitting (straight stripes is sufficient) then you will be able to do the Next Steps workshop and create a little coaster/mat. Again, this workshop will open up a huge range of possibilities for you in brioche knitting patterns.

Before then, the next yarn show we’ll be at is The Wool Monty, at Magna just outside Sheffield, on June 13th and 14th. I’ve never been to this show before, but I’ve heard some wonderful things about it. I’ll have printed copies of the new version of Ice Diamond Mitts, Making Tracks and many many more, as well as kits and postcards. Do come and say hello if you visit the show! I’m teaching my Intro to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting workshop on Sunday morning – and it’s sold out!

I cast off my super secret knit recently which means I’ll be able to show you things that I’m knitting again soon!

That’s all from me for today. It is very hot (it’s 26.2 celsius in the house and apparently ’26 feeling like 31′ celsius outside which is hot as anything for our corner of North Wales in May!). We live only about 5 miles from the place that had Wales’ highest recorded temperature yesterday. I’ve stayed inside so far today in the shade, and I’m trying to remember to drink plenty of water. I may or may not attempt digging up the final mini sycamore tree in the border this evening. Make sure you stay hydrated wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Take care one and all, K x