Tag: Makers gonna make

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Ready, Set, Go!

If you are a newsletter subscriber you may wish to check your inbox – there is a cheeky discount waiting exclusively for you to celebrate the relaunch of Ice Diamond Mitts. I’ve changed the yarn used to the gorgeous Welsh Cambrian Wool and knitted new samples in each size. The pattern has been re-written to make it clear and easier to follow and the lengths for each size have been slightly shortened, making the mitts easier to wear and also ensuring that even the largest size uses only 90m/45g yarn for a pair! You can seem from the photos that the smallest size still needs its ends weaving in and also that it looks really cool if you knit the ribbing in a contrasting colour! I did this partly to see how it would look and also because I didn’t have enough yarn of one colour that wasn’t red for a small mitt.

The photos on the wooden table are of the large size, the ones on the black background are medium and small.

Following hard on the heels of Ice Diamond Mitts will be my own self-published version of Making Tracks, which was first published last November in The Knitter. I just need to insert the charts into my own format of the pattern and add some of my new photos. The rights for this jumper return to me towards the end of this month and so I will have printed copies with me at The Wool Monty in June!

Making Tracks is a cabled men’s jumper with saddle shoulders and a round neck, knitted in pieces and seamed. The jumper is designed in 8 sizes (S-5X), with 10-12.5cm positive ease. Positive ease might sound ‘fancy’ but that just means how much bigger a garment is than your actual body measurements. If you had no ease on something it would be your exact body measurements. (If you have negative ease then the piece is smaller than you are, but hopefully stretchy enough so that it can be put on and then cling to the contours of your body). Positive ease on a garment means you can move in a garment and probably wear layers under it and approx 10cm (4″) is the amount of positive ease for a ‘standard’ fit to a jumper/top.

You may remember my mentioning that this jumper was modelled on a female model when published in The Knitter. It’s the same jumper and it was designed as a man’s jumper, but they didn’t have a male model available for the photoshoot. What those photos do show is that Making Tracks also looks good when worn by a woman. It gives more of a ‘boyfriend fit’ feel, and the sleeves are a bit longer than you might expect on a woman’s jumper, but it still works well!

If you want to knit this sweater for a woman you may wish to check the underarm length of the intended wearer. You can reduce the length of the sleeve easily as there is plenty of straight sleeve knitting between the increases and the point where the sleeve joins the body.

We had a day out yesterday, meeting up with some friends in Coventry. It was a super day. We visited the cathedral (both the bombed ruins of the old cathedral and the new cathedral next to it), walked, feasted and chatted lots. I recall going to Coventry Cathedral once on a school trip when I was quite young – and definitely too young too appreciate the beauty of the modern design when I had grown up going to churches that were hundreds of years old.

It finally occurred to me yesterday why concrete was a good idea for parts of the design of the new cathedral in Coventry. As well as being entirely fitting for the brutalist design, it was probably the only way to get the cathedral built quickly. Entirely stone built cathedrals can take more than a century to build. For example, Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is finally structurally complete with the final piece of the central tower being put into position in February this year (building work began in 1882 and Gaudi took over as chief architect in 1883!), but construction will continue for another decade. The design for Coventry Cathedral was chosen in 1952 by competition, the foundation stone was laid by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956 and the finished building was consecrated in 1962. So there were just 10 years from “this one please” to it being opened. That’s incredible. The building is also full of modern art on the floor, walls, windows and in sculpture. Even the way the organ pipes are positioned looks like a work of art. The 23m x 8m tapestry behind the altar is mind-blowing, not just in how it looks, but in how it was made – in one piece! That must have been one enormous loom!

The ruins of the old cathedral, bombed in 1940, are also a very powerful place. “Father Forgive” was ordered to be carved behind the altar by the bishop of the time. It’s amazing that so much of the outer walls, as well as the tower and the spire survived. The cross has been made with some of the burnt remains of the original building.

It was a visit to Lichfield (including visiting the cathedral) with these same friends that inspired my Lichfield cardigan. So, who knows, perhaps yesterday’s trip to Coventry will result in a new design?

That’s all for today. Have a good week, and I hope you get to do something you enjoy. Perhaps it will be casting on some Ice Diamond Mitts? K x

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Whatever the weather, we knit!

I had to check the calendar this week as it’s been so cold! Even though it is nearly mid-May I’m back in my woollen dress and tights, especially important while doing exam invigilation in a very cool hall. The last thing the exam candidates need to be distracted by would be my teeth chattering!

Are you one of those people who doesn’t knit in the summer? I’m an all-year-round knitter as you might have guessed – and quite often I’m knitting quite thick autumn/winter items during the spring and summer months because of the way deadlines for magazines go, so in that respect the current coolness is not a problem, not when I’m at home knitting with a pile of wool in my lap anyway. It is slightly different when I’m out and about!

The rhubarb that we planted and that seemed to be settling in so well is sulking a bit, but I think that might be the lack of decent rain. We are due some more this week, but if it turns out to be more of a drizzle than a soak I might have to do some watering. The rain we did have recently made the chickweed and goose grass grow like mad, but not the things we actually want to flourish!

It is nice to see the aquilegias in flower again though. Did you know I have a shawl inspired by the colours of aquilegias? That’s the shawl in the main photo for today’s post. Aquilegia Shawl uses a Fibonacci sequence for the zig-zag stripes and is very adaptable in terms of both width and length.

You can tell it’s one of my older designs as my hair isn’t blue in the picture!

On Friday the updated version of Into the Vortex was released, now including all the information you need to knit a version of the shawl using 2 x 100g DK yarn as well as the original two sizes for 4 ply.

I’m planning to relaunch Ice Diamond Mitts next week now as this week has turned out to be quite busy!

If you are hoping to learn two-colour brioche knitting with me at a yarn show this year, there are still spaces at the Midlands Wool Festival (3 on Saturday, 8 on Sunday) and some at the Stafford Wool Gathering. The workshop at North East Wool Show in Newcastle is now sold out. I may put a Zoom workshop on in the summer if there are people interested who cannot attend an in-person workshop. Do let me know if this would interest you!

I finally got my grey 4ply What Do Points Make? blocked yesterday. It was not as easy as expected. Not because of the measurements, but because I got hiccups just as I started to pin it out! It’s not terribly easy to pin out knitting with straight edges when your diaphragm is kicking at you! It is done however, and the measurements are the same as the lace weight version! Do you remember when I knitted my multi-coloured 4ply one in Size 4 and it came out bigger than the lace version? I think that was definitely due to the yarn being a ‘thicker’ 4ply, at 365m per 100g whereas the grey is 440m per 100g. That’s quite a difference really and yet they still both count as 4ply yarn!

Now that I know what type of 4ply yarn maintains the original measurements I can update the pattern – and maybe include a note that if you want to use 365m/100g 4ply then it will come out bigger than stated!

I ended last week’s post saying that I was off to ask for some help with something. I did and got a very kind and helpful response.

That’s all for today as I can’t show you what I’ve spent most of my knitting hours on this week as it’s a commission using yarn that isn’t even publicly available yet! I do like how it’s coming out and hope everyone else will too once it’s published!

Take care one and all and I hope you get time to do something that makes you happy this week. K x

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Flying Solo

Saturday was Yarnies at the Flaxmill and it was a very good day, even though I was flying solo for a change! I’ve got so used to having Sue with me that I’d forgotten just how hard it is to put the whole stand together (and take it down again at the end of the day) when you’re on your own. I’m so grateful that it’s only occasional that I ‘fly solo’ now and mostly it’s something we do together. Shout out to Jo from Jo Knit Sew and the organisers of the show who between them carried most of the stuff out to my car once it was all packed down. Also to Antidote Yarns and Designs who were one of my stand neighbours and offered to keep an eye on the stand if I needed a loo break during the day and provided Candy Kittens during pack down!

Being on my own also meant that I wasn’t able to run the stranded knitting workshop. I remember a few years ago when Sue and I looked after Cat & Sparrow‘s stand at the Summer Wool Show so that she could go and teach a workshop when the person who was going to help her on her stand all weekend was unable to attend at short notice. It was fun, even though it felt like a big responsibility! We got to do it because Rachel had put out a call on her socials asking for help from anyone who would be attending the show. Last year my friend Matthew stepped in as ‘booth babe’ at East Anglia Yarn Show on the Saturday as we didn’t know if Sue was going to be able to make it to the show or not. Amazingly she did get there and they ran the stand between them splendidly in my absence while I taught.

Today I’ve been thinking about the importance of asking for help with stuff and how hard that can be for me at times. It’s always been something I’ve not been that good at (in fact it was once a target in my appraisal when I was teaching full time), and it seems to be something I still need to work on!

I started knitting a super secret commission yesterday. It’s not a gift for someone, but a design using a yarn that’s not even out yet. I’m really pleased with the colours I chose to use and it’s knitting up well.

While I was at Yarnies at the Flaxmill on Saturday I bought some yarn (colour me shocked!) from another Jo, this one being the lovely person behind Second City Yarns, my other stand neighbour for the day and who was good company in the occasional quieter moments of the day. Her yarns are properly ‘woolly’ and her hand-dyed colours are spectacular, but surprisingly it was some undyed yarn that I bought. Two gorgeous skeins to knit a sample of the shorter version of Leaf & Vine. This pattern was originally designed for Knit Picks using Palette, another ‘woolly’ 4ply yarn that comes in 150 colours, and my sample is the full length version in a leafy green. I want a sample of the short one, partly to wear at summer shows when I’m not wearing ‘What Do Points Make?‘ and partly so folk can see the difference in length. Sometimes it’s hard to just imagine these things.

The reason I bought this undyed yarn from Jo is that at 450m per 100g it’s closer to the original yarn thickness (of 422m per 100g) than her hand-dyed yarns which come in at 350m. The hand dyed stuff is gorgeous and absolutely perfect for other designs (and I am brewing some ideas for one gently in my head), but I needed the thinner option. Here it is!

Some exciting news to share with you is that Yarn Gathering will be back this September in Mold! The venue is booked, the licence is paid and the prospective vendors have completed their forms. We are once again at the Daniel Owen Centre in Mold and this year’s date is Sunday 20th September. The page with all the details and vendor info will go up on the website very soon.

The updated version of Into the Vortex should be available later this week, once the final checks have been made. I’ve added in details for knitting a DK version. It’s so gorgeously squishy.

Ice Diamond Mitts will then (hopefully) be relaunched either next week or the week after. I’ve changed the pattern layout and made it easier to follow as well as changing the pattern itself a bit (mostly in terms of length to keep the large size under 50g).

This is the pre-blocking photo of the large size. I also knitted a medium size mitt yesterday evening!

That’s all from me for today. I’m now intending to go and ask for some help with something else that I do. Wish me luck and have a good week! K x

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Wonderful Wonderwool

We had a wonderful weekend at Wonderwool Wales. It was the 20th anniversary of the show and our third time of being there. We were in the same spot as usual, W16 in Hall 3, and I love the fact that it felt easier to unload and set up this time – partly due to familiarity with the process and being in the same space. I think our stand looked the best it has done so far at Wonderwool, what do you think?

Here’s 2024:

And 2025:

And now 2026!

I think you can see that the pull up pattern display stands have been increasing in number! We also vastly increased the number of designs we brought with us – it was 66 this year!

We sold out completely of Lichfield before lunchtime on Sunday and only had one Nevern Throw left by the end of the show. These designs have been reliable best-sellers ever since they came out. It was also lovely to see some of the designs that don’t come out very often, such as the Lighthouse Blanket, get some attention too.

We had a lot of fun during the weekend as well as working hard and it was great to be able to chat with fellow exhibitors, even if that was mostly during set-up, break-down or occasional trips to the loo! Familiar faces of friends visiting the show and knitters who have visited our stand in previous years added to the camaraderie and fun. We laughed a lot during the three days we were there and the main pic to this post, when Sue was playing peek-a-boo, gives you a sense of the mood!

It really helps that the show is very well organised and as well as the main organisers, there are loads of volunteers around in high vis tops offering comfort breaks to anyone on their own and always ready to point people in the right direction.

Sue managed the stand on her own for a couple of hours each day while I went off to unravel some of the mysteries of two-colour brioche knitting with some fab knitters. They did really well and made excellent progress in two hours with a technique that was new to them and uses some unfamiliar terminology too!

I was absolutely delighted to see another Tiffany in the wild. This one was knitted by Kay who was with one of the guilds and popped over to show me her shawl. It’s a fabulous bright version with some extra colour changes added in!

Apologies for the magazine in shot as well – I had my latest designs that are out in magazines on display just underneath where we laid this shawl for the photo.

Sue has a new plan for a series of videos/reels with the theme of ‘swish or waft?’ and I was the guinea pig that had to try it out first. I’m always shy to be in front of the camera for things like this but I think her final video is fun. If you are a stall holder, you are quite likely to be asked the same question quite soon!

This coming Saturday I will be at Yarnies at the Flaxmill at the Flaxmill Maltings in Shrewsbury. I’m actually going to be flying solo for this one. If you are coming to the show, please stop by and say hello. Between now and then I need to go through all the sample bags and pattern cases and put together the patterns and samples I need as I won’t have 66 designs with me as the space is a more modest 4m x 2m. I think we’ve whittled it down to 48. I also need to reprint a few things!

We came home to a riot of yellow in the garden that wasn’t out when we left. Fortunately not all dandelions (though there are some of those too), but lots and lots of yellow poppies. We’ve never planted these, they’ve just self-seeded and spread themselves during the 22 years we’ve lived here, and I love them. The aquilegias are starting to come into flower as well. I will get some photos of them to share with you next week. Until then, take care and do something that makes you happy. K x

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Over the Finishing Line

Today’s main blog post pic is the swatch version I knitted for my submission for the August Moebius Cowl. It’s called August Moebius Cowl, because August Moebius was the name of the man who discovered this amazing mathematical shape! The design is now out in The Knitter (issue 227), complete with a step-by-step masterclass on how to work Rita Buchanan’s moebius cast-on. It’s not as well known as Cat Bordhi’s method, but I think it is quick to learn and slightly easier to get to grips with for those who have never worked a moebius cast-on before.

I was hoping to be able to share my new design in issue 193 of Knit Now with you this week, but there was a delay with its publication. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and checking the shelves regularly! I can’t wait to share that one with you as well.

I’ve completed a couple of projects this week. Neither of them are ‘new new’, but they are new versions of existing patterns, both worked in a different weight yarn from the original design.

First off the needles was my grey 4ply version of What Do Points Make? in size 3. I’m really pleased with this and I’m looking forward to seeing it blocked and seamed and comparing it to the bright 4ply size 4 sample as these yarns were very different even though they are both marketed as 4ply yarns. The grey has 220m/50g (or 440m/100g) and the bright yarn from LottieKnits is a more chunky 4ply at 360m/100g, which is quite a big difference.

Next to be completed was my DK version of Into The Vortex. I completed this while waiting for my car to be serviced. Current me is very glad that past me put lots of guidance into the pattern in Part 7 about what to do when you’re running low on one of your yarns. I skipped half of Part 7, jumped to the Eyelet Border and only did one repeat of the eyelets rather than two. This was because I wanted to see how big I could make the shawl using just 100g of Yarn A, which is RiverKnits Chimera DK. The answer, unsurprisingly, was about 16 rows shorter than the original small 4ply version. The extra guidance in the pattern was to allow for other knitters working on a looser tension or having a skein of yarn that was slightly underweight (that does occur sometimes!) and it was incredibly helpful here too.

I’m also still working on a new sample of Ice Diamond Mitts. This pattern was written for an undyed worsted weight roving yarn with 200m/100g and I wanted to make a sample in a coloured yarn. I’m glad I’ve been doing this as I’ve also discovered a couple of typos in the process!

My first attempt in red was too loose and too long, despite this yarn also being 200m/100g and using the same needle size. My second attempt in green was also too loose and a little bit too long, even though this yarn was thinner as a DK yarn (225m/100g) and on the same needle size as the original. So, I’m trying for a third time using the red yarn again, but with smaller needles this time. So far the fabric and tension looks like a better match to the original.

I’m also altering the pattern slightly this time, shortening the cuff and the body of the mitt because I noticed that the pattern says the large size used 55g of the original yarn. That wasn’t a problem with a 100g skein. However, this red yarn (Cambrian Wool) comes in 50g balls so it would be really annoying to need to start a second ball just for 5g of it. My plan is to adapt the large size so I can make a pair out of just one ball, including a 10% buffer – which means I need to ditch 10g worth of yarn by making the mitts shorter! They were incredibly long to be fair, which might be one of the reasons why the pattern has never sold particularly well.

We are just sorting out the last bits of printing and planning for Wonderwool Wales this weekend and I am really looking forward to being there on the stand and teaching my Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting each afternoon.

My brioche workshops are sold out at Wonderwool (and at The Wool Monty), but there are spaces available for this class at the Midlands Wool Festival (14th and 15th July, at Wolverhampton Racecourse), the North East Wool Show (9th August, at Newcastle Racecourse) and Stafford Wool Gathering (17th October, Staffordshire County Showground).

The weekend after Wonderwool Wales is Yarnies at the Flaxmill, and I am due to be teaching there as well! The workshop at that show is for Stranded Knitting and the fabulous deal at this show is that when you buy a workshop place you get your entry to the show included at no extra cost!

That’s all for this week – I’m off to redesign the cover of one of my older patterns (Calon Cariad) so it fits my ‘house style’ and so the picture on the front cover of the pattern matches the sample on display! Take care and I hope you manage to do some stuff that makes you happy. K x

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Spring Cleaning

The main pic on today’s post is a double rainbow (the outer one is reversed!) that I photographed through the lounge window yesterday. We had the most outrageous weather, starting with sunshine in the morning and followed up with really fierce hail in the afternoon – plus rainbows later on!

I’ve been doing some ‘housekeeping’ this morning. Not the dusting variety, though that does need doing as well, but the ‘sorting out my subscriber email list’ variety. If you’re a subscriber who hasn’t opened any newsletters in the past few months you’ll be receiving an email later today asking you to confirm that you’d like to stay on the email list. If you get that email and want to stay, please click the link or you’ll be unsubscribed by the end of the month.

It’s important that my subscriber list is made up of people who actively want to be there. Apart from anything it costs about £24 per month to have more than 500 subscribers (I currently have about 840ish), so if there are lots of folk who just haven’t got round to hitting the unsubscribe button it gets unnecessarily expensive!

I’ve been working on a new design submission this week. It’s even more top-secret than usual as I’m getting to use a yarn that isn’t even out yet!

What I can tell you about is that I have two new patterns coming out this week! I thought one was going to be out last week, but the kind people at what used to be called W H Smith (I think it’s now T J Jones, but I always doubt the initials) looked on their systems and told me that issue 193 is due out on 16th April, not the 9th as I’d thought. I have a pattern in there and also one in the new issue of The Knitter (issue 227) which also hits the shops on Thursday (16th) and many magazine subscribers will already have it. I’ll share pics of the actual design on my socials on Thursday and here next week.

Things are gearing up for Wonderwool Wales in just a few weeks time. The printer has been working hard, the kits are ready and I’ve been playing with the squared paper again to plan this year’s layout of the stand. Also, because Yarnies at the Flaxmill is the following weekend, I’m also trying to ensure that I’ll have enough patterns and kits for that as well.

On Friday I had the pleasure of photographing my Making Tracks jumper on a friend from my church choir. I may have mentioned before that this jumper was originally designed as a man’s jumper, but for various reasons was photographed on a female model for the magazine shoot. I’m really pleased with how the photos have come out and will share more pics in the next couple of months as the rights to self-publish the pattern return to me at the end of May. The jumper really fitted my friend well – and suited him too!

We have a new dishwasher arriving today. After we spent most of August and September without a working dishwasher (because it kept tripping the electricity) we got it fixed, although it turned out this was only temporarily. A few weeks ago it started tripping the electricity again and so we decided it was safer to replace it rather than try to get it fixed again. We had the old one (11 and a half years old) removed and last week we finally got round to ordering a new one! I’m hoping all goes smoothly.

That’s all from me today. I hope you have a good week and if you’re a newsletter subscriber and get an email from me later today asking if you’d like to stay, please click the link if you do, and do nothing if you don’t! K x

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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