Tag: Makers gonna make

Posted on by — 1 Comment

I Can Sing a Rainbow

These past few days I have been SO grateful to work from home. No hot and sticky commute and I can move between rooms as the sun moves round the house. (Yes, I know, technically, the sun stays put, but it’s an easier way to think of it, okay?) It has still been very hot, and doing the ironing yesterday morning just because that’s what I do on a Monday perhaps wasn’t my best choice, but I have been able to cope with it fairly well.

Today has mostly been overcast, warm and rather humid with occasional bits of rain, but definitely more comfortable. The sun is now making its first appearance of the day (at 5.30pm) and I’m writing this a little later than usual because I had a visitor! Yes, a real-life friend came to the house for a cuppa and a natter (hi Liz – thanks for the cosmos!) and before we knew it three hours had flown by.

Since the weekend I’ve been knitting like mad with the RiverKnits rainbow yarn, as my tech editor has a window next week when she can edit the pattern. I’m now on the final section, working with colour no.12 and about to bring back colours 1, 2 & 3 for a last hurrah.

Aren’t these colours just gorgeous? The knitting is deliberately scrumpled up and inside out as I’m not showing you the full design until nearer publication, but I wanted to be able to show you all the colours together.

The pattern is all written up in my bullet journal, which isn’t a lot of help to Deb, so I also need to type it up, but at least I have written it out properly and not just made a few vague notes or used some kind of shorthand that I then can’t translate. A bit of typing I can do.

Since bringing home those embroidery threads from Mum’s, I have been slightly obsessing over storage solutions. As a result of some googling I am now getting emails from Pinterest with suggestions of things I might like. They’re right – many of these cabinets are stunning.

The boxes and tins Mum’s threads were in were not big enough for both her threads and my existing ones, so I did need a coherent solution. There are two brands, DMC and Anchor. The DMC ones now have a rather splendid home:

This is the top drawer of an old small chest (also from Mum) that had been used to keep a random collection of bits and bobs. Now it’s highly organised thread storage! You see those dividers? I made those from an Aldi bran flakes box. That white line on the pic below is where the bottom flaps of the box were glued together.

When I’ve finished the next box of cereal, I’ll do another set of dividers for the next drawer and fill that with the Anchor threads!

My newsletter subscribers have had access to a special sale during the past week that finished yesterday. It gave them 25% off all patterns by using an exclusive-to-them code. I’m really pleased that some took advantage of it. One Australian knitter is clearly planning ahead as they bought SIX patterns at once! Surprise sales like this don’t happen all the time, but they are one of the benefits of being a newsletter subscriber. Other benefits include introductory discounts off new self-published patterns in their first week. If that sounds like something you’d like, why not sign up? You only get one newsletter a month (unless there’s something really exciting I need to tell you that is time sensitive), so I promise not to clog up your inbox.

By clicking submit, you agree to share your e-mail address with the site owner and MailChimp to receive marketing, updates, and other e-mails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those e-mails to opt out at any time.

With it being properly hot and likely to remain so for a little while, you’ll probably want lightweight knitting to do (if you are a knitter). Laceweight yarn is perfect for this season – and good value financially as well. And just because it is really thin does NOT mean it needs tiny thin knitting needles.

What Do Points Make? (the 2020 MKAL with Yarn O’clock) uses laceweight yarn and 4.5mm needles. Only the largest size of four needs more than 100g of yarn, so it’s cost-effective to make and light as a feather to wear. In fact, I’m wearing this one (in size three) as I type.

That’s all for today – I’m going to go and drink my fourth pint of water. Stay hydrated folks and do what makes you happy. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Gathering it all Together

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Anne at Yarn O’clock and I have been planning something for September. Well, it’s going to be happening!

We are hosting a small yarn gathering in Mold on Sunday 18th September!! We’ll be open 10-4, which will allow you plenty of time to visit us AND the Mold Food and Drink Festival which will also be happening that weekend.

There’s a dedicated page on the website that has the full details and the same page will be on Yarn O’clock’s website too.

On the subject of yarnie events, did I mention I’m going to be exhibiting at the Pop-Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight this year? It’s at Hulme Hall on Saturday 20th August. Although the exhibitor list isn’t fully up to date on their website, I will be there! It’ll be my first event of this kind since the ‘before times’ and my first proper wool show – exciting! I’ve been checking through my designs and planning which ones I will have kits for there. There will also be a completely new pattern launched at the show – with kits! Suffice to say that I came away from Yarn O’clock with bags-a-bulging this morning!

At the weekend I worked out that I’m currently working on four designs, with a fifth submitted yesterday, a sixth swatched that will be submitted next week and two others that will be worked on in the coming months. One of those will be a mystery knit-along, but it won’t be happening until October. This is probably why I’ve not had a huge amount of knitting that I can actually share with you recently…

So here is a sneak peek at my progress with the Rainbow minis from RiverKnits:

I’m loving these greens! With 20g of each colour, it’s possible to plan the design so the colour changes fit in nicely, and with 12 colours to play with I’m always keen to jump into the project bag to check out what the next one is going to be.

What else have I been up to? Well, I’ve started spinning some chunkier yarn. I’ve got 200g of undyed Polwarth that is a dream to spin with and, as I knew it wouldn’t be all knotty and misbehaved, so it seemed like the perfect choice to practice spinning thicker singles. It’s working out really well at the moment, but I’m going to have to weigh what’s left to work out when to start the second bobbin. This yarn won’t be chain plied (3-ply), so the two strands will need to be on separate bobbins, as there’s no way I’m going to wrap 200g yarn round my wrist to bracelet ply it (working from both ends of the yarn simultaneously)!

I’ve sort of found room for all the embroidery floss and other bits and bobs I came back with last week, but I’ll probably end up reorganising the study again at some point as I don’t think everything is in an entirely logical place yet. However, that will need to wait a little while!

My ‘Safe Space’ cross-stitch, designed by Peppermint Purple is making some progress. I’ve decided to do one flag at a time, rather than complete one colour at a time and it’s making it much easier. Of the 33 flags in the design, I’m on my fifth.

I’m so pleased the design includes a map identifying all the flags as there are lots I don’t know. I also didn’t realise before that the gender queer flag uses the same colours as terfs use (the suffragette colours) and which are ALSO my old college colours (purple, white, and green).

I’ve also been working on ironing out the issues with the pdf that will accompany my next Craftucation course (An Introduction to Knitting) – Graeme, the amazing tech wizard behind their website, had to do some rummaging to work out why I was unable to edit it and figure out some workarounds. I can now make it behave and get photos on the same page as their captions (I’d list that under ‘quite important’!) with a little bit of prodding. There’s one more section (5 chapters) left to do and (I’ve done 22 chapters already!) then it can be uploaded for approval and listing.

On Sunday we spotted a ripening raspberry in the garden, so very soon I hope to be able to share pics of our first harvest of the summer with you. The blackcurrants are nearly ready to pick as well!

Take care of each other and stay safe, K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Let’s start (again) from the very beginning…

At the weekend I had one of those moments that most knitters have had at some point. I’d completed something, washed and blocked it, photographed it and THEN I noticed an error.

If this was just going to be a thing for me it wouldn’t have mattered so much, but it is a sample of one of the squares from the Nevern Throw Expansion Pack (coming soon!). And the error was fairly significant – I’d knitted the square from an old version of the chart. I mean, I could have decided to just go with that version of the chart and forget about the new version, but there was a reason I’d altered it and I wanted it to be correct. So, now it’s all been frogged and reskeined and is dry yarn again, ready to be used once more. I found a little more of the same yarn and so have been able to start again – this time definitely working from the correct chart! The first third of it is in the main blog picture.

I remember the Yarn Harlot writing on her blog (possibly more than once) that the thing about being a fast knitter was that she was able to make bigger mistakes more quickly – it certainly felt a bit like that for me! The lesson I need to learn is to throw out old print outs once I make updates – or at least label them as not being the most recent version!

I’ve been doing some other stranded knitting as well. When we were at the RiverKnits Open Day last month, Sue chose some yarn from the Travel Knitter for me to use knitting up her poem that I’d translated into morse code. It has begun! Her name will certainly be nice and clear. I’m hoping the morse code will become clearer as I go on. It’s quite odd to think that I’m quite literally knitting the poem backwards as each round (line) goes from right to left and from the bottom to the top, so I will knit the first word of the title last!

The spinning is slowly making progress. This is (still) the gradient yarn from Cassiopeia Yarns that I bought at Wonderwool in April. It’s not until I look back at the photos of its progress that I realise just how much the colour has changed – it’s so gradual and subtle that you hardly notice at the time. I’m hoping to finish and ply this by the end of the month.

This was the view I had the other afternoon when I was doing some work in the study. That pigeon looked really comfortable on Medium’s head and sat there for quite some time! He’s called Medium, because when Sue bought him he had a label on his underside that said “Medium Lion”. The rose is The Poet’s Wife and it’s settling in nicely with lots of buds ready to bloom.

The shawl in Aysgarth yarn from RiverKnits is complete! Like, really complete. Washed, blocked, ends woven in, gauge measured etc. The pattern is written up and with the tech editor! Isn’t the Sloe Gin colour gorgeous?

That means that I’m on to the Nene rainbow minis – yay! I’m so excited with these colours and I love that I get to knit in a rainbow in June, Pride month.

Leaf & Vine Cardigan is out!! The physical book is not out for another week or so, but you can see (and buy) the individual pattern and the whole Haven: Knit Lace Patterns eBook of 13 lovely lace designs on KnitPicks.

This afternoon I had a very productive meeting with Anne at Yarn O’clock. We are planning something exciting and yarnified to take place in Mold during the weekend of the Mold Food Festival – there will be more details coming soon! (I’ve linked to the food festival’s picture gallery page, just because the home page is very meaty).

Random observation of the day: “The Humming Chorus” from Madame Butterfly sounds awfully like “Bring Him Home” from Les Mis!

Take care one and all, and remember the sunscreen and water. K x

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Here Comes Summer

Designing for external publications has quite a long lead time. Even more so when it’s for a book rather than a monthly magazine. Last month I was able to share with you my excitement about my Ceridwen wrap being on the front cover of The Knitter issue 176.

*This* month I am finally able to share with you my latest design for Knit Picks. Leaf & Vine is knit using Palette, a wonderful non-superwash 4-ply weight Peruvian Highland wool, that comes in over 150 colours.

Leaf & Vine is going to be in a collection called “Haven: Knit Lace Patterns”. It’s a lightweight summer cardigan with very short sleeves incorporated into the body and it comes in TEN sizes with finished chest measurements of 38-71″. It’s intended to be worn with 7-10″ positive ease (that means 7-10″ bigger than your own body measurements).

The photo on the left is one of Knit Picks’ own photos on their model. The photo on the right is a close-up of my sample (in a different size) on my mannequin. I took this photo in mid-November – when summer seemed so very far away!

These are ‘sneak peek’ pics as the book that the pattern is in is published tomorrow (about 11am PST – which is about 7pm British Summer Time).

For those of you who don’t know, Knit Picks is a large American yarn company. They publish various pattern collections in books each year, featuring their yarns, which run to a specific theme. For example, Nevern Throw was in “Entwined: Celtic Cables Collection”. They also have an extensive range of individual patterns.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the physical book as they are always really great – super layout, fab photography and high quality paper and printing – and you CAN get the physical book posted to you in the UK without excessive postage charges. I’ll be posting more about Haven and Leaf & Vine in particular in the coming days with links to the patterns once the book is out.

Mum’s bedsocks had a mini hibernation recently while I was working on a couple of other designs (and racing to finish Sue’s embroidery), but I’m back on them again now. I started the second sock on Sunday whilst watching My Name is Leon – at various points I had to put the knitting down as I was so gripped by it (and at times because of tears). If you have BBC iPlayer, look it up – it’s brilliant.

It’s a good job that I’m back on the socks as I need to have something small to knit with me this afternoon. The dentist appointment has finally arrived and I have no cold and the precautionary lateral flow test I did this morning was clear. I’m finally going to get my filling fixed…!

If you follow me on social media you’ll have seen a few random close-up shots over the past couple of weeks of some purple and silver grey knitting in progress. It’s a design for RiverKnits using their Aysgarth yarn which is 100% Wensleydale wool. The colours are called Sloe Gin and Antique Pewter.

This morning, I cast off! I now need to block it and finish writing up the pattern before it gets sent off to the tech editor. You will get to see the whole thing sometime in September!

One more viewing recommendation before I go and floss one last time. We recently watched “Falling for Figaro” on Netflix and it was brilliant. I absolutely loved it and heartily recommend you to watch it if you get a chance (it’s got Joanna Lumley in it too).

I think that’s all I’ve got time for today – wish me luck at the dentist and take care of yourselves. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

New Tricks

Last night’s workshop of Beginner’s Crochet was great fun. There were a couple of people there who had done some crochet years ago and some who had never even held a hook before. By the end of our two hours they had all crocheted at least two rounds and were feeling more confident with trebles and chains. Folk even asked when the next class would be, so I must have been doing something right! Many thanks to Liz for sending me the pic of her finished granny square once she got home (that’s the main pic!).

All those attending were brilliantly positive and determined, even when finding something tricky initially. As adults we can forget what it feels like to learn a completely new skill and how frustrating it can be when it doesn’t click immediately. But the satisfaction when it does is immense. It’s only relatively recently that I taught myself to crochet right-handed, having done so left-handed for decades. It really did feel like starting from scratch – and I *knew* what I was supposed to be doing with my hands! But practice and time make it feel more natural, as with any new skill.

I’m so proud of what everyone achieved. If you are a crocheter (or are simply good at seeing patterns) you might look at some of these pieces and think you spot some ‘errors’ – and that’s completely right. As with the brioche knitting workshop a few week’s ago, unless something was going to cause a major problem later on, I encouraged people to avoid undoing their work, or to try and make it ‘perfect’. Leaving in ‘errors’ helps you see how you’ve progressed and also see what happens when you do a particular thing. For example, the centre bottom image has more trebles in the chain spaces than you would do in a granny square – but it would make a great flower!

Much thanks as always has to go to Anne from Yarn O’clock for booking and organising the evening, keeping everyone supplied with drinks and biscuits and for being generally fab!

The next workshop is on closed ring cables – there are spaces! If you are near Mold and are free on 21st June 6.30-9pm, have a look at the full details on Yarn O’clock’s website.

Next week I will be able to share something very exciting with you – a new design is being published on Wednesday 15th June. We have been asked to keep ‘sneak peeks’ to a minimum before then, so newsletter subscribers and blog readers will hear about it first in the early part of the week.

Last Wednesday we had a visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We’d not been there before and although we walked miles (literally) and saw lots and lots, it seems there is still a huge amount to explore, so we will be going back again! There was even gorgeous vegan cake in the cafe. Some of my favourite sculptures were the Barbara Hepworth ones – and Ronnie enjoyed them too!

And on Friday we had an early morning walk around part of the Great Orme to celebrate my lovely wife’s birthday. We walked about a third of the way round and then back again. I’ve been all the round the edge of the Orme in a car, been up to the top in a car, a cable car and on foot, but it was the furthest I’ve gone round the edge on foot (must remember the walking shoes next time to avoid a repeat of the big blisters).

It was quite a wind-swept experience, but lovely to sit on a bench with a flask of tea with a view of nothing but the sea in front and the Orme behind and to the sides of us. We also saw seals, cormorants and… a peregrine falcon!!! We wouldn’t have known what we were looking at if I hadn’t asked one of the two men who were sitting on folding chairs with cameras that looked like paparazzi ones with the huge lenses on the front (apart from the camouflage wrapping!) who seemed happy with the photos they had been getting.

Finally, you might be pleased to know that I did finish the embroidery by my Friday deadline! Sue is very pleased with it and it is currently drying on a towel before being pressed and stretched over mounting board prior to framing. The pattern is “Hint of Chocolate Limes” from Peppermint Purple. This was my first experience of blackwork embroidery and I loved it. I will be doing more.

I’ll be showing you LOTS of knitting next week! Take care and stay safe. Kx

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Falling into Place

I’d wanted to make a joke about getting all your ducks in a row, but since this photo is of goslings, that doesn’t really work, does it?! These little beauties in the main pic were following in their mama goose’s wake in the pond on our town common on Sunday. Just as they are lining up neatly behind her, so things this week seem to be working out well for me so far (sshhh!!!).

Yesterday morning I was waiting for a phone call. An old college friend (who was also our best man back in 2005) had texted the day before to ask if I would be at home for a call about 9.30am. I thought it must be fairly important if he needed to ‘book’ the call in advance. By 10am I was beginning to wonder if I’d got the day wrong, or if something had come up that was preventing him ringing.

And then there was a knock on the door. I answered it, imagining it to be the postie – there have been a fair few parcel deliveries in the past week. But no. It was my friend, on our doorstep, a total surprise!! Especially when you realise that he lives in Kent and we are in North Wales! Turns out he’d been on retreat nearby and was ‘calling’ in on his way home.

It’s the sign of a good friend that, even when you haven’t seen them for years, don’t talk that often on the phone, you can pick up as though no time had passed since you last saw them. It must have been pre-Covid when we last met up. Cups of tea (coffee for him) were drunk, news and gossip and hugs were exchanged and then, less than an hour later, he was on his way. It was a truly lovely surprise – a little gift of someone else’s time.

Speaking of gifts of time, the embroidery is coming on. I had worried on Sunday that I wouldn’t be able to finish it in time for my wonderful wife’s birthday on Friday as I was going to run out of green thread, but Sewcraft Swindon came to the rescue. I ordered some yesterday morning and today, it arrived! So, there is still a good chance of it being finished. It won’t be framed, but it will be ‘done’.

It’s proved to be so much quicker to do than the embroidery of Mum’s photo, partly because it’s working at a larger scale – each square on the chart is over two threads in each direction, not just one – which means I can more easily see what I am doing! Always useful! The main reason though is linked to this design being geometric – there are patterns that are repeated and can be memorised, so I don’t have to refer to the chart for every stitch. In fact there are whole sections now where I don’t need to look at the chart at all, just do a quick check with one of the sections I’ve already completed. The photo embroidery by its very nature is rather random in the placement of each colour (and there are 46, I think), so there is no getting away from the chart (all 16 pages of it) even for a moment.

And I do like patterns. I’m good at spotting patterns – and errors in/interruptions to repeated patterns as well. Patterns that can be repeated and memorised make knitting a joy, and they are pleasing to the eye as well.

The Wensleydale yarn (Aysgarth) from RiverKnits that I showed you last week has started to be knitted up in a new design with some delightful repeated patterns. I’m not going to show you the whole design until it is published (probably in September), but I can share little snippets with you. It’s an unusual yarn as it doesn’t have the elasticity that I associate with wool when in the skein or being knitted, but once it is part of a knitted fabric it has a wonderful softness. I love this colour too – it’s called ‘Sloe Gin’ and has a gorgeous range of purples in it! (See, I haven’t *just* been stitching this week).

And, when blocked, the way the pattern opens up is astounding – it’s almost like linen with added fuzziness and shine!

I shall also be able to finish Mum’s socks now too. I’ve been waiting for her to measure either the length of her foot or the length of her favourite bed sock so I can be sure the new socks will fit well. 10″ for both, apparently, so on we go! These are Raggsocks from Midwinter Yarns.

There’s no date as yet for “An Introduction to Lace Knitting” Craftucation course going live. The accompanying PDF is having some formatting issues (e.g. image captions appearing on a different page from the image itself) which require the brain of a clever tech bod (thanks in advance Graeme!). Hopefully it won’t take too long.

On our second (yes, really!) walk into town today, I decided to photograph the postbox topper that’s been outside the Spar for a good couple of weeks. I’m not sure which group made it, but it looks very splendid. Even if the Jubilee isn’t your thing, it’s nice to see something cheering the place up and being left in place undamaged too!

There’s been a definite purple theme to the knitting in this week’s post hasn’t there?! Not at all consciously – just one of those things.

In the meantime I have another live workshop with Yarn O’clock next week – Crochet for Beginners! Being left-handed I am most used to crocheting left-handed, but I can also do it right-handed, which is really useful. I’m looking forward to helping the students develop skills and confidence over the course of the two hour class. As the workshop is on Tuesday that means next week’s blog will be on Wednesday – and then I can tell you all about it and show you how they got on.

In the meantime, take care, make stuff and hold your favourite folk as close as you can. K x

Posted on by — 2 Comments

What a Week

RiverKnits‘ Open Day on Saturday was wonderful. A gorgeously sunny day that wasn’t too hot, with friendly, welcoming people to chat to and relieve of their yarn (usually in exchange for money!).

I got to meet some lovely dyers I hadn’t encountered before, such as Larissa from Travel Knitter, from whom I got this intensely coloured sock yarn. This will become a cowl with a poem by my lovely wife that has been translated into Morse code!:

and Ishrat from Fruitful Fusion, whose colour palette was so varied. I fell for this skein of 4-ply, called ‘Spring Bloom’, which reminds me very much of the colours in our front border:

It was lovely to see Becci and Markus again and make some plans (intrigued? good! I’ll tell you more soon). I came away with these wonderful skeins of Aysgarth and something else that I’m not going to share with you yet!

I also bought some of the Open Day Show Special yarn, dyed jointly by Becci from RiverKnits and Lola from Third Vault Yarns, and called ‘Ankh-Morpork’ in reference to the covers of the Terry Pratchett Discworld books that inspired the colourway. A skein of Cormo in the darker batch for me, and a skein of Corriedale and Mohair for Anne, whose birthday it is today! (Happy Birthday Anne, glad you love it!). This is my skein:

As well as all of this yarny goodness, I treated myself to some new washi tape from Katie Green Bean. I was tempted by this at Wonderwool and seeing it again I couldn’t resist. Washi tape with hand drawn sheep! How could you resist??

So, we had a great couple of hours there and also chatted with Sharon from Dragon Hill Studio, talked to the sheep, listened to Johnny from Garthenor Organic talk about the process of transforming fibre into wool and went for a walk around the little village of Weedon Bec and along the canal towpath.

The walk was particularly important as it had taken three and a half hours to get there (traffic delays plus a much-needed service station stop added to the two and a half we had expected) and then nearly three and a half to get home (more traffic). Another time I will work out a route that bypasses the M6 completely…!

And then last night was the first of a series of three workshops in Mold, in conjunction with Anne at Yarn O’clock. We had the cafe of the Daniel Owen Centre, which is a good, well-lit space with plenty of tables that they didn’t mind us moving around to suit.

The workshop was two-colour brioche knitting and the six ladies who attended were wonderful! Despite being a bit flummoxed initially by the Italian two-colour cast-on, they all persevered with good humour and made great progress! Everyone got the main fabric sorted out, learnt how to do an increase and all tried a right-leaning decrease. We didn’t get as far as the sewn cast-off, but they have a reliable youtube link to refer to if they want to try it and several other options were given as well.

The next workshop is in two weeks at the same venue and is Beginners’ Crochet – there are still a couple of spaces on that one.

In designing news I have completed the charts for my Nevern Expansion Pack and will be knitting a couple of samples of the (six!) new squares soon. Two of them are based on this part of the Nevern Cross:

The veg patch is filling out, the embroidery I started recently (main pic) is going well (and the deadline is looking slightly more reachable) and I’ve even got the rest of my summer clothes out of the vacuum pack bag in the wardrobe!

So that’s been the week in my little world. I’ve deliberately not written about wider events as some of them are beyond words, but if you have been impacted by what’s been occurring around the world recently, I am so sorry.

Hold your loved ones close when you can and tell them you love them. Stay safe and make stuff. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Rounding Up

Last week I promised a round-up of the Calon Cariad shawls, didn’t I? Well, I’ve had a scour through the images posted in my Facebook group, posted on Instagram with the hashtag or sent to me and this is a good mix! I know for certain that Anne’s (top left) is finished, but I don’t have a picture of it post blocking.

Shawls knitted by: Top, L-R: Anne, Sandra, Patricia; Middle, L-R: me, me, Katrin; Bottom, L-R: Markus, Karen.

I think you’ll agree they all did a fabulous job! I know there are some other knitters out there who also made a start on their shawl and if you are one of them and have some progress to show, please send me a pic!

Speaking of progress… things are happening in the veg plot! As well as the chives flowering profusely, the broad beans are starting to make their presence felt more and I’ve planted the edamame beans and the squash and courgette plants. The rhubarb is also finally finding its feet after we split the crown and moved it, giving various parts away and the raspberries, red and blackcurrants and apple tree all look like they’re going to be quite productive this year!

It’s not a massive garden, but it’s got a lot in it (including the ground elder which I’ve chosen not to show you)!

I made some ‘same-day’ sourdough rolls yesterday – it’s a quicker process which uses more sourdough starter than the regular recipe (100g instead of 50g) and they came out of the oven a mere 13 hours after feeding Audrey2 (my starter). My lovely wife chose her two favourite ones this morning for her lunch before I’d remembered to photograph them! They are lush.

I have been doing quite a bit of knitting this week, but sadly none of it is stuff I can show you at the moment. I’ve also been doing lots of Excel spreadsheet magic, calculating (and recalculating) the sleeves for the sweater I’m working on. It makes life so much easier when you can make the formulae do the hard work for you (and when you know the ones you need), and then also round the results up/down/to a specific multiple. I’m going to cast on the sleeve for the third time later on and hope that it will be third time lucky. Fortunately, WYS Fleece DK is a very forgiving yarn!

The workshops I mentioned last week are filling up. The Two-Colour Brioche class is full (which is good as that is the first one – next week!), Beginners’ Crochet has one or two spaces left and there are spaces on the Closed Ring Cables workshop.

And on Saturday I get to see some sheep! We are going to the Riverknits Open Day which I’m really looking forward to.

I’ll tell you all about that next week – the blog post will be on Wednesday next week and I’ll tell you about the Brioche workshop then too!

Til then, take care and make time to do some of what makes you happy. K x

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Cover Story

If you saw my newsletter yesterday, you will have seen that it is ten years (almost – it was June 2012) since my first pattern was published in a magazine and it made the front cover. That was Knit Now, Issue 11, with New York Nights.

On Thursday 12th May, the Issue 176 of The Knitter will hit the shops and the pattern on the front cover is one of mine!! It’s the first pattern I’ve had published in this magazine and this is something that has been a goal of mine for a little while. The styling is beautiful and it suits the model so well.

As you can imagine I’ve been very excited about this design and to finally see it yesterday when the magazine came through my door was a bit of a dream! I’ll be writing more about this and the wonderful yarn I got to knit it with from Thursday.

To celebrate, I treated myself to a pair of earrings from a local shop. Shaz’s Shabby Chic has recently moved to new, bigger premises, and it was my first time visiting the new shop yesterday. I found these gorgeous silver earrings with a Celtic knot engraved into them, made by a local jewellery maker, and I love them.

The cold has very nearly gone by the way – it was ‘just’ a cold, thank goodness, but it was still a bit grotty. I am very glad to be able to go about my day again without having to cough or blow my nose every few minutes!

I promised you a round-up of the finished Calon Cariad shawls from our KAL, and I am aware that I have not yet delivered – this is something I definitely will include next week. If you were taking part in the #CalonCariadKAL, please do send me a pic of your finished shawl (or as far as you’ve got with it) as I’d love to show them all together.

New workshops are now available to book via Anne at Yarn O’clock! Spaces are limited, so if you want to come, book a place soon.

May 24th, 6.30-9pm – Two-Colour Brioche Knitting, £35

June 7th, 7-9pm – Beginners Crochet, £30

June 7th, 7-9pm – Beginners Crochet, £30

June 21st, 6.30-9pm – Closed Ring Cables, £35

The workshops will be held in the Cafe of the Daniel Owen Centre, Mold. Full details are on the Yarn O’clock website.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Be Careful What You Wish For

Yesterday afternoon I was bemoaning the fact that I had a dentist appointment for one (maybe two) fillings this morning. One was the large molar I broke back in February, the other an upper tooth with fractures that were discovered during an X-ray at my last appointment.

I didn’t want to go to the dentist today as I was nervous. I have limited movement in my jaw so holding my mouth open for long is painful (and it was a 40 minute appointment!) – that was worrying me more than the injection and more than the fillings themselves.

And then yesterday evening I began to feel ropey. During the night and this morning I could barely swallow – my throat feels like it’s full of razorblades. I’m now sneezing very loudly and repeatedly. Bugger. It seems I have my wife’s cold. I say ‘cold’ and not Covid as we’ve both tested negative recently, though I will check again tomorrow.

So, I rang the dentist first thing and croaked that I would not be able to make my appointment. It’s been rebooked to mid-June. I promise not to wish I didn’t have to go next time!

On the positive side of things I have only one chapter (16 minutes) left to capture still pics from for my Introduction to Lace Knitting Course and I’ve been swatching for my next two in-person knitting workshops – closed ring cables and 2-colour brioche. The first isn’t for another couple of weeks, fortunately.

I cast on Mum’s new bed socks last night – for some reason I had to do it three times as things kept going amiss. That should probably have been a sign that I wasn’t well, shouldn’t it!? I used the alternate cable cast-on that I learnt knitting a Woolly Wormhead hat as it gives a lovely smooth edge to a ribbed cast-on. I also went up a couple of needle sizes for the cast-on to ensure they stretch enough that Mum will be able to use them even when her legs are bad.

So, it’s a short one from me today. Stay safe, keep well, wear a mask when you can and keep knitting! K x