Poetry – Kath Andrews Designs

Posted on 16th April 202430th April 2024 by Kath Andrews — 3 Comments

After the Storm

I’m glad the wind outside has dropped since yesterday. For 24 hours we had winds over 40 miles an hour and we’ve been very lucky that nothing has been broken, just a small tree in a pot on the patio that got blown over into the border.

It was a day to settle down into the knitting. I’m working on a new design with baby alpaca laceweight yarn and I’ve very nearly finished the first section now. The photo just below the title (which you may not see if you receive this blog by email) shows a full ball of alpaca on the left for comparison and what was a full ball on Friday morning on the right. There’s 12g (of 50g) of that ball remaining currently (along with four full ones).

I was hoping to start it while I was at Mum’s last week, but I didn’t have anything appropriate for a provisional cast-on with me. When you do a provisional cast-on (i.e. one that will later be undone so the live stitches that remain can be picked up) you need a yarn that won’t felt or stick to your main yarn. One that isn’t fluffy, or too thick – for something that is referred to as ‘waste yarn’ it is funny how important it is to have the right characteristics. Once I got home I had the pick of my 4ply leftovers and a merino superwash 4ply that I knew to be quite slippy was the perfect choice.

Because I couldn’t get started on that project at Mum’s, I worked on the other project I’d taken with me (I don’t make the mistake of only taking one project away with me anymore), so there has been quite a bit of progress on my Persian Tiles blanket, designed by Janie Crow. I’m following the original colourway more or less, using West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab DK – do follow the Persian Tiles link to check out some of the other colourways!

I know they look like flowers now, but they will ultimately become octagons.

I blocked my final sample before Wonderwool over the weekend. Petulia came out in September with RiverKnits. It’s really two patterns in one as the different sizes of the shawl are also different shapes. RiverKnits have kits for sale for both sizes on their website. I recently finished knitting the smaller, symmetrical version of the pattern and I’m really pleased with it. Both versions of the shawl use the same lacy brioche leaf motif, in different arrangements.

Photos were taken yesterday and added to the pattern, so the front cover looks a little different than it did seven months ago, but it is the same pattern inside (with a couple of previous typos also now corrected). Now you get to see both versions on the front cover!

Copies have been printed and I will have them with me at WonderWool – and, if you want to use the same yarns I did (Chimera and Nene 4ply from RiverKnits), you’ll be able to buy those directly from RiverKnits who will also be at the show!

Petulia is the third of my Discworld named shawls that I designed for RiverKnits. The first two were published in September 2022; Agnes and Tiffany. These two designs ‘bookend’ the designs on my Shawl & Scarf Patterns page, being the first and last alphabetically.

Preparations are nearly complete for WonderWool (I think). I’ve got to the point where I’ve updated my packing list and started drawing possible stand layouts on squared paper – the stand is 10 x 14 feet – that’s nearly as big as our lounge! As I think I mentioned previously, I’m trying to get ahead of myself as I don’t know if I’ll need to do any extra trips down to Mum’s before the show. If Sugar Loaf (the adult version of Honeybun Cardigan) is back from the tech editor in time to print I’ll bring that with me too. I may bring the sample with me anyway even if the pattern isn’t printed and ready to sell, so folk can see how the design works on a ‘grown-up’ scale. The photos below were all taken at the same time and the colour has come out differently in each one. I would say the reality is nearest to the top left image.

I spent quite a bit of time on Friday working on my website, setting up a WooCommerce store, and getting the first few products uploaded. I then realised that every time I pressed ‘publish’ for one it was sent out as a social media post! That would have been fine, except neither the basket or checkout pages would load on mobile devices, so it wasn’t really working. I turned the product pages into drafts and tried to find out what the problem was, but it seemed to make a few other things go wonky instead. And then I couldn’t check whether the basket worked without pressing publish again – and getting another social media post going out (to four different platforms, no less)…

Anyway, by Saturday lunchtime I still couldn’t fix it and it seemed weird to have a ‘basket’ option on the main menu of the website when you couldn’t add anything to said basket. Also, in the process of all this, the Payhip pop-up window plug-in stopped working as it was incompatible with something ‘Woo’. You can possibly imagine my ~~joy~~ frustration.

So! I have deactivated the WooCommerce store again for now. The price buttons on my pattern pages take you directly to the relevant product in my Payhip store now, rather than giving you a pop-up Payhip checkout window, and you can add patterns from my whole store to a basket and check it all out at the same time, which is useful if you did want more than one pattern.

I will investigate the WooCommerce option again at some point, but possibly when my head is clearer and things aren’t so busy.

Excellent news this week is that my lovely wife, Sue Finch, has had her second full collection of poetry published. Welcome to the Museum of a Life is available from her Payhip store, Amazon and all good book stores – your local bookshop can order it for you if you give them the title and author.

That’s all from me for today. I hope you all have as good a week as you can and that you get a chance to do some stuff that makes you happy. Take care, K x

Posted on 17th October 202325th November 2025 by Kath Andrews — 2 Comments

Over The Hill and Far Away

Our weekend trip to Gloucester was very successful and Sue’s reading at the Gloucester Poetry Festival was brilliant – I’m so very proud of her. The picture above is part of Gloucester Cathedral’s tower, and yes, the sky really was that blue on Saturday afternoon, despite the torrential rain the day before. It was lovely to see the Malvern Hills again (through the rain) as we drove down, and to see Moel Famau in sunshine as we neared home! If you have a few spare minutes, do read Sue’s blog post from yesterday – it includes the first poem she read on Saturday. We enjoyed lots of readings from lots of other poets as well during the day and evening on Saturday, and I was quietly knitting on Mum’s bed socks throughout.

I now have a finished pair! The sock blocker gives more of a realistic impression of how they’ll look in use – the change between syncopated rib (leg) and stocking stitch (foot) makes them look quite odd otherwise!

I’m not going to weave in the yarn ends at the toes until Mum has tried them on. They go down to 20 stitches and look quite pointy from the top, and I want them to be comfortable for her.

I continued to knit and document my progress on my Barragán Shawl while we were away (you can still order your own yarn kit or get it free with a subscription from The Knitter). Even though I’m only doing 10 rows per day at the moment it’s growing well. Today’s rows have yet to be done, but this is what 130 rows looks like:

This photograph was taken in the morning light and is pretty true to the colour of the yarn.

Something else exciting that happened while we were away was that I picked up a new-to-me car! I’d test driven it the week before when visiting Mum and it’s perfect. Exactly the make and model I thought I needed and I can’t believe the boot space. And it’s blue. You know me and blue – I do like it. Of course now I want to experiment (play) with putting all my show stuff in it to see the best way of getting everything in. All my stuff in one car – with the passenger seat free for Sue as well. It’s been a pipe-dream.

I wore my Umbriel for the first time yesterday and it’s very cosy. Today I’ve managed to get some pics of it. It’s got generous ease which is exactly what I wanted as I will be wearing it over layers. I do like the picked up, top down sleeve construction in the design. I think this is a construction I will explore in my own designs in future – no sewing the sleeve head into the armhole after knitting it, cos it’s all made in one piece!

While we were taking pics, I also got some of Lichfield. It’s starting to pill (bobble) a bit, but I think that’s because it’s not a high twist yarn, as well as the fact that I’ve been wearing it a lot.

Sales of Bodelwyddan are pottering on – please do spread the word about the October fund-raiser for Treasure Chest YGC. 50% of Bodelwyddan sales during October are going to this charity, which helps to support folk who are going through/have been through treatment for breast cancer in Denbighshire. I was asked to design these socks last year to be part of the fund-raising and so far we’ve sold 9 copies, raising £22.50. I’d love it to be more!

I’m wearing my pair of Bodelwyddan socks today. This is the largest size in the leg, decreasing to the next size down for the foot.

Next month, which somehow is only a couple of weeks away, I get the rights back for Branwen, the first knit-along shawl I designed for The Knitter. This is one of the gorgeous photos from The Knitter.

Branwen will be going out into the world as a single pattern for the first time. There is likely to be an introductory discount for my newsletter subscribers, so if that sounds appealing, why not sign up for my newsletter?

When I write to you next week, I shall have turned 50! The lead up to this milestone birthday has been very good so far and I’m looking forward to starting my next decade in a much better place than I started the last one. I’m even going to be doing some singing again.

Til then, take care, do stuff that makes you happy and stay safe, K x

Posted on 2nd August 2022 by Kath Andrews — Leave a comment

The Kits Are Alright!

Four small cream bags lined up each showing two of the four half balls of yarn they hold, a larger blue bag on each end holding two whole balls of yarn.

The past few days have been mostly about prepping for the Pop-Up Wool Show at Hulme Hall in Port Sunlight on August 20th. I’ve been checking my stocks of kits, gift tag sets, patterns etc and making lots and lots of lists! I’m quite proud of my kits. They all come with a cotton project bag, metal stitch markers (if needed and the correct number for the pattern), a printed pattern and yarn in majority natural fibres.

Today a folding 6 foot table was delivered. Not only do the legs fold away, but the whole thing folds in half so it can fit in the car!

I’ve also borrowed back lots of knitted samples from Yarn O’clock and borrowed a couple of little stands to add to my display set-up.

The Mini Socks Advent Calendar looks great on the tree!

Mini Socks Advent Calendar, Kath Andrews, on tree

I also took pics of it hung on the mantlepiece and a door, as not everyone has a tree they can hang 24 mini socks on.

Mini Socks Advent Calendar, Kath Andrews, hung on mantlepiece

The kits are all made up and include stitch markers and the tags for the numbers, as well as 10cm pieces of ribbon to tie them to the hanging loops and one long piece of ribbon to hang them from.

This is what a four colour kit looks like:

The striped sock has been test knit (by Anne at Yarn O’clock) and she made hers super stripy, as one of her yarns was variegated. Doesn’t it look cute?

Striped Sock from Mini Socks Advent Calendar

There have been a few things happening this week that are not wool show related. I finished the Morse Code Cowl! It is currently drying having had a bath this morning. I was very pleasantly surprised that no dye emerged while it was soaking, despite the yarns being such deep saturated colours – excellent yarn from The Travel Knitter.

Morse Code Cowl Front, poem by Sue Finch, knitting by Kath Andrews

Morse Code Cowl Back, poem by Sue Finch, knitting by Kath Andrews

I know the poem will be impossible to read, partly as it curves around the cowl, partly as it’s in Morse Code and partly as there is not a lot of contrast between the two yarn colours, but it’s satisfying to know that it really is Sue’s poem. This is the actual poem that I knitted into the cowl:

This Was Once a Good Poem
but it has eaten cheese and pickle rolls for a week now
and it can’t work out why the vitamins aren’t working.
It rocks in the chair until its eyes are too tired to see
and has scared itself with thoughts of Autumn spiders
under glasses in the hallway.
It is wondering if it is true that conkers in corners
keep arachnids at bay
and is now standing in the dark
sniffing last year’s horse chestnuts
desperate to find their scent.
Sue Finch

I also took delivery of some yarn for a project I won’t be able to show you for AGES, but it’s going to be a fun one. The yarn is gorgeous – Fleece from West Yorkshire Spinners in Ecru and Fellside – and I’m looking forward to casting on later today.

West Yorkshire Spinners Fleece in Ecru and Fellside

We harvested our broad beans at the weekend, along with the first two of our squashes/courgettes. The broad beans were pitiful in quantity, but tasted good. This is the entire crop in the left-hand photo!

And on a slightly less healthy, but very fun, note – did you know you can now get BLUE Jammie Dodgers?! They are filled with coloured, berry-flavoured apple jam.

Anyway, today’s post was going to be a short one – but it doesn’t seem to have turned out that way! Take care one and all, and if you happen to be in the Port Sunlight area on August 20th it would be great to see you!

Posted on 8th March 20229th March 2022 by Kath Andrews — Leave a comment

Just Because I’m a Woman

Today is International Women’s Day. A good day to celebrate not only the famous women we admire, but also the real life women in our daily lives. The ones who inspire us, impress us, love us and live with us. The theme for International Women’s Day this year is “Break the Bias!” – the link takes you straight to their website where you can find out more about the work they are doing. Go and read it – I’ll still be here when you’re done.

Today’s post title is a great song by Dolly Parton, a woman who knows what it is to be strong, so of course I HAD to use the photo of when Sue and I had a Meet & Greet with the great lady in June 2014 – it would have been rude not to!

When I was born, and my mum realised I was a girl, (her first thought on seeing my long back was that I must be a boy), the first thing she said was, “Poor little thing, she’s got to go through all this.” While my “all this” hasn’t involved childbirth, there have been many things in my life I wouldn’t have had to deal with had her first guess been correct. Then again, I’m sure I’ve had a very different experience in many ways from the one my mum had – although there have been many similarities too. My mum is certainly one of the women I think of today and I have been spending some time working on the embroidery of her. You can just about begin to see the outline appearing now.

A piece of cream linen with patches of tiny black, dark green and dark brown stitches. The fabric is marked off in squares with fine black thread and pale blue thread marks the centre lines. The image of a laughing woman can just be made out in the emerging picture.

I’ve completed two colours (I think I’ve completed them anyway!) and have just started the third – of forty-five…!

I see so many amazing, creative, strong, funny and resilient women sharing their work, brilliance and selves online everyday, even though I don’t see many people in ‘real life’ on a daily basis and it’s hard not to be inspired by them.

The one woman I see more than any others is, of course, my wife. She is astonishing. I am in awe of what she does in her day job, and that she then manages to write such great poetry and be an all round fabulous human too? It’s mind-blowing really. She’s reading some of her poetry tonight actually, at an event with Gloucestershire Poetry Society. It’s online from 7pm-10pm GMT (UTC) and it’s free!

And as for me? I have been true to my word this week and started recording again for my Introduction to Lace Knitting course. I’m all set up to record the next section tomorrow as well, all being well.

And what about the knitting, I hear you ask? That has been very busy too! I have:

swatched a shawl that I can’t show you
worked on a sweater design that I can’t show you
started some socks
recorded a short video for one section of the Calon Cariad Knitalong &
finalised the fancy bits of a pattern that is being released next Monday! Newsletter subscribers, you already have your discount code for this one.

Do you want some photos of the things I can show you? Go on, then.

The front page of a sock pattern lies on a pale gold carpet. On the right side is a photo of the finished socks. On top of the left side of the page lies a toe-up sock in progress on dpns. The yarn is maroon and silver held together at the toe and changing to two colour brioche after the ball of the foot. There’s only about an inch of brioche before the needles.

The socks are Good Riddance socks by Lauroftheblings Designs and I’m using up sock yarn and also other 4-ply leftovers from previous projects and designs.

A hand knitted shawl in progress in neon pink lies on a wooden desk. The bottom part of the knitting has rows of lace hearts, above which is a stocking stitch section. The tips of the needles are in the middle of the shawl (mid-row)by the two central contrasting stitch markers made from bright yellow Lego heads. At the top of the image closed captions in white text read; 'The instructions say "Work to two stitches before'.

The video was to explain and show how the two central stitch markers need to be moved before the final heart motif is worked. I’ll be working on the heart motif later on. This is a screen shot from it.

The new pattern is Nos Da and is out on March 14th. It will be available on Payhip, Lovecrafts and Ravelry AND… if you click on the buttons on my website now (on a computer at least, not yet sure if it works on mobiles) – you NOW GET A PAYHIP POP-UP WINDOW!!! This means you can buy a pattern or kit directly without having to leave my website first. So, yes, I upgraded to the ‘Business’ level plan here on my website and there are lots of new things I get to try out! Look:

A screenshot of my Nevern Throw pattern page on the website, with a Payhip pop-up window superimposed.

The world is still a complicated and confusing place and I’m not running any fund-raising efforts or giving a percentage of sales for Ukraine. Why not? Well, simply because my sales aren’t big enough to make it come to anything worthwhile. Instead, I’ve just made a simple donation to the British Red Cross who can get the money to where it needs to go and support those people who need it.

Take care and keep knitting. I’ll see you next week. K x

Posted on 23rd November 2021 by Kath Andrews — Leave a comment

Slow Down

I managed to log myself out of my own website about half an hour ago and have only just managed to get back in. First world problems, I know, but it was frustrating – and there are exciting things I want to tell you about!

(You know when you end up swearing at the computer and have five tabs open that all purport to help you change your password, but just seem to send you round in circles, that you probably need to take five minutes to breathe!)

Anyway…

As you can see from the main pic, the sourdough is going well – lunch was delayed until this one was cool enough to cut! But on to the knitting stuff…

Have you heard about Fasten Off Yarn-a-long 2021? It’s a month-long community event for both knitters and crocheters that takes place completely off Ravelry (which as we know has many accessibility issues on its website and many people struggle to use it since its redesign). You can get involved on Instagram, Twitter and Discord and there will be games and prizes up for grabs.

There are over 80 independent designers participating, of whom I am one, and the first part of the YAL involves a great big pattern sale!! Designers decide which of their paid patterns to include in the event and they get a 25% discount during the period of the sale which runs from 30th November to 6th December.

I’ve decided to include ALL of my paid patterns that I have the rights to (even the collections); so that’s everything except Nevern Throw, Of Night and Light (I get the rights back in January for these two) and Soft Syncopated Brioche Scarf (which is free anyway). All my patterns are on Payhip, Lovecrafts and Ravelry.

As Fasten Off Yarn-a-long is intended to be inclusive and accessible, only patterns that are available somewhere other than Ravelry will be included. Unfortunately, Lovecrafts doesn’t offer designers the option of adding a discount code, so the code (which I’ll post next week) will be valid only in my Payhip store, but it’s a great opportunity to bag a fab discount!

What else has been going on? Well, I’ve finished the pattern for next week’s deadline. Hurrah! I’ll probably only check it over another five times before I convince myself it’s ready to email. It looks great and I’m really excited about it and I can’t believe I have to wait until June to show you!! Why is the deadline so far ahead of publication? This company (in the US) does their own sample knitting as well as the tech editing and photography, so they need to allow time for their test knitters to make the items as well as all the other steps in the process. Being in the US I am truly grateful they have this system as I would be very nervous of posting a finished sample all the way over the Atlantic. All I need to send them is the pattern and other associated files.

My other secret project is growing too – this one WILL be posted off, but it’s staying in the UK and the deadline isn’t until April. It’s nearly a quarter complete though and I am very happy with how the stitch patterns are behaving in this yarn.

A hat in progress lies on a light gold coloured carpet. The hat is a sideways knit beret in shades of pink, purple and white like raspberry ripple.

My hat (above) also grew by another panel over the weekend, as we had a big adventure in Manchester. My lovely wife has a poem out in a new book called ‘Queer Writing for a Brave New World’, published by Out On The Page and there was an event for contributors at The Modernist, followed by drinks at No.1 Canal Street. All of which was very good and also very good knitting time for me 😊🧶! It was strange being in a big city again – something we haven’t done since before Covid and I was glad we worked out a route from the car park to the shop via the roads parallel to the main streets, so we avoided as much of the crowds as we could. By the way, if you like poetry, photography and other writing, there’s a launch on Zoom tomorrow evening!.

And with this gorgeous photo I shall finish for today.

Stay warm, stay safe and keep knitting. K x

Posted on 14th September 202117th November 2021 by Kath Andrews — Leave a comment

Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye

It’s been a funny couple of days with a bit of generational role-reversal going on. Tonight it’s going to be me and Mum’s cat keeping each other company. I tried spinning when Cleo was around on Sunday and she wasn’t sure about it at all – though I swear my wheel doesn’t squeak – so we’ll see what she makes of it tonight. She has left my fibre and knitting completely alone over the past couple of days which is impressive I think – so much so, I’m tempted to catnap Cleo up to North Wales!

The main pic of today’s blog is an embroidery I did years ago – it’s a sepia-ish portrait of my dad in his WWII uniform (yes, really). I used to have some software that you could upload a photo to and it would give you a cross-stitch chart. The picture would have been far too big as cross-stitch (which goes across two threads at a time, so I just did tiny diagonal stitches across one thread at a time. The finished embroidery is only 7cm by 9.5cm! I don’t have the software any more, but I’d love to do one of Mum as well while my eyes can still take working at such a small scale.

I have probably mentioned that my lovely wife, Sue Finch, is a poet (and if not, I should have!). At midnight tonight, IAMB Wave Seven goes live and she will be part of it! Audio recordings of 15 poets reading their own work alongside the printed text. If you like the spoken word it will definitely be worth clicking that link. Here is Wave Six to give you an idea of the brilliant quality you can expect.

The large version of Into the Vortex is complete and is going to be blocked in the next couple of days. After a quick test on the extra sections, they will be added to the main pattern for all to enjoy – keep your eyes peeled for updates!

A vortex shaped shawl in a light sand and shades of teal lies on a dark grey floor. The shawl uses garter stitch, slip stitch patterns and lace.

That’s all from me for today. Stay safe folks and keep doing what makes you happy, K x

Tag: Poetry

After the Storm

Like this:

Over The Hill and Far Away

Like this:

The Kits Are Alright!

Like this:

Just Because I’m a Woman

Like this:

Slow Down

Like this:

Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: