Tag: Shawl Knitting

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Licenced to Crenellate!

On Friday I will be (re-)launching Crenellate! We had lots of fun at the end of last week taking new photographs and I have been scouring through the pattern to make sure everything is listed in the abbreviations and the pattern is presented as clearly as possible. As the pattern has already been published in a magazine (this was published in Knit Now, Issue 179 in March 2025) this should be easy, but I still like to make sure everything is correct and it all fits my own ‘style’ of layout.

A friend of mine told me that in the medieval period a licence from the king was needed to be allowed to add crenellation to a property. I didn’t know this, but find it very interesting and will definitely be reading more about it, especially since I’m finding my recent audiobook listening is becoming a lot more historical fiction based.

As it happens, much of my Crenellate design is very straightforward. Sue had a look at the printed pattern and asked, “Do the charts really only use these symbols?” Yes they do, because it’s a textural pattern with no lace.

In fact, here is the chart key:

Crenellate just uses knit and purl to create the textural design, with yarn overs (yo) creating the increases for the shaping. The blue and red outlines show the sections of the chart that you repeat. That’s it. And, of course, if you’re not a fan of charts, the pattern is also written out in full.

The textural design is one of the aspects of Crenellate that make this design one of my easier patterns to knit. It’s a top-down triangular shawl with the body of the shawl simply increasing in size until the border. The border is also straightforward, even though it has a very fun shape! The border is all garter stitch, with the crenellated shaping created through casting on and off to change the length of the rows.

If you are a newer knitter there are three things in this design you may not have encountered before.

The first is the ‘garter tab’ that begins the shawl. Lots of top down shawls begin this way and I’m going to be recording a little video for my website and youtube channel to show how it works. Essentially, you cast on a few stitches (usually about 3), knit a few rows of garter stitches (often 6, giving three garter ridges) which creates a tiny garter stitch square (or tab, hence the name). You then knit one more row, but instead of turning and knitting back, you pick up some stitches down the side of your little square, then pick up some stitches along the bottom from where you cast on. This means you’re now working around three sides of the square and it becomes the centre top of a triangular or semicircular shawl!

The other two possibly less familiar things are both included in the border. One is a wrap and turn short row, which is used four times in the whole shawl and is described step by step in the abbreviations. I’m going to add a new video on my youtube channel for this as well. The last is the joining stitch to join the border to the body of the shawl as you knit it. That sounds more complicated than it is – it just means you knit the last stitch of the border together with the next stitch of the body of the shawl. As these are in different colours it’s easy to know when you’ve got to that point in the row – you’re knitting two stitches together, one of each colour.

Crenellate is worked in DK yarn so it’s ideal for the cooler weather we’ve started to experience. The original sample was knitted using West Yorkshire Spinners Elements DK which is a wool and Tencel mix, but it would work very well in other fibres too, including pure wool for a super cosy version.

Newsletter subscribers already have their exclusive discount code for Ravelry and Payhip which lasts for 48 hours from 10am on Friday until 10am on Sunday. The sample and printed copies of the pattern will also be at Yarndale this weekend. The timing is a bit of a gamble as I’ve not done an online launch at the same time as a yarn show before and I’m hoping that the two events will boost each other, rather than cancel each other out.

All the patterns are now printed and ready for the show and I now just need to plan the layout for our spot. We are in D5 this year, which is very near the Wharfdale entrance, and almost as far away from where we were last year as we could be!

think we may well be one of the first stands people come to if they come in this way to the show so we will need to make sure the stand is attention grabbing. We may well need extra woolly layers to wear as well being near the entrance, but that’s not going to be a problem!

There are still a few spaces left on my moebius knitting workshop on Saturday 10.30am-1pm. We will explore the unique structure of a true Moebius ring, where the knitting grows from the centre outwards, and discover how this technique can be used to make wonderful neckwear and more. You’ll learn two Moebius cast on methods and create a simple headband. From there you can tackle a range of moebius designs! Go to the Yarndale website to book your place if you’d like to learn this amazing technique – it’s a whole lot more than casting on and then twisting your knitting before you join it!

Who is coming to Yarndale at the weekend? Do come and say hello if you are there. Remember, we are on Stand D5.

Until next week, take care and do something that makes you smile this week in this mad, mad world. K x

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All Fired Up

Yarn Gathering went really well on Sunday. We had plenty of visitors despite the rain, and everyone commented on what a good range of vendors we had. It was a shame that one of our number (Tecstiliau) was unable to make it on the day, but hopefully they will be able to join us next year!

I’m really only properly tidying up the study after Yarn Gathering today, as yesterday was a trip down to the midlands to visit Mum. Fortunately my car is sturdy enough that we didn’t feel too much buffetting from the wind! Part of the tidy up process after a show involves analysis of sales, what went well and what stayed on the shelves – and then a look ahead to what needs printing for the next show!

One of the more popular patterns on Sunday was Fiery Dragon Skin Cowl. It’s a design that gives you a lot back for what you have to do and that makes it ideal for newer knitters who want to try a new skill, like slipping stitches with the yarn at the front or trying the ‘knit 1 under’ stitch where you put the right needle underneath the strands of yarn to create the wonderful textured effect of the fabric.

I had an email from Anthony last week, who had previously shared his gorgeous multicoloured Fiery Dragon Skin Cowl with me, and had allowed me to share it with you, with an update on the cowl. He had entered it at his local show the day he emailed – and came away with first prize for the knitted or crocheted item class! How fantastic is that? He also told me that his mother, who taught him to knit, had entered the jumper she knitted for him (which he is wearing in the picture below) the previous year in the same show, and she won second prize! A talented family. Anthony’s mother no longer knits so it is now up to him to maintain the family tradition. I think they both deserve a resounding hurrah! Many thanks to Anthony for sharing this wonderful news and for allowing me to share it with you all.

If you have any exciting news of items you have knitted from my designs please do share it – even if the exciting news is simply that it’s finished! You don’t have to have won a prize – I’d love to hear about your knitting progress.

Some news of my own: I’ve decided to mostly wind down my kits. I’ve got about a dozen left at the moment. I will continue to keep a few pride flag kits in stock as they are great little gifts and ideal for beginners and maybe some Bryn or Twisted kits, but for the most part, I am aiming to focus on just patterns. Yarn shows have plenty of yarn options for folk to buy once they’ve chosen a pattern from me and I always think choosing your own colours is a large part of the fun! This will simplify things quite a lot in terms of packing the car (and be a lot lighter too) and it will mean less space is taken up in the house with storing the kits, tins and yarn. Also, many of the shows I apply to are in a ‘pattern only’ capacity, so it will mean that what you see from me at different shows is more consistent. I will bring the kits I’m not going to continue with to shows until they are sold and you may even see a few ‘last chance’ offers on some! If you’re coming to Yarndale, keep an eye out for a bargain!

Speaking of Yarndale, there are still 5 spaces on my moebius workshop. So if you’d like to learn this amazing mind-bending cast-on technique (which is a lot easier to do than you might think!) have a look at the Yarndale website and maybe book yourself a spot. The workshop runs from 10.30am – 1pm on Saturday and, as well as the class handout, you will receive approx 60g of aran weight wool (100% wool) to use in the workshop.

This afternoon my Crenellate shawl sample arrived home! There was the quietest tap on the door and when I opened it I found a packet leaning against the wall with my shawl inside. This is wonderful as it means I can take some new photos and get the printed version of the individual pattern ready to re-launch. I should have it with me at Yarndale in a couple of weeks! I’ve got some ideas about where to do the photographs – tied in to the name of the shawl. I wonder if you can guess where in my corner of North East Wales we will be heading to snap the new shots? These photos are of the shawl in a bit of a heap on my desk – I promise the new shots for the printed pattern will look a lot tidier! The colours on the right are the most true to life.

Until next week, take care and do something that makes you smile. K x

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A Slice of Lime?

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

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

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

Here are the videos in case you missed them:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Rhiannon

I am getting ready to launch Rhiannon Hap Shawl as a single self-published pattern later this month. Rhiannon was a great queen from Welsh mythology and this dramatic hap shawl is named in her honour.

Rhiannon Hap Shawl was first published in four parts as a Knit-along in The Knitter Magazine in the latter months of last year. As always occurs when a pattern is published in this way, I received emails from knitters eager to get their hands on a copy of the full pattern and in October I was explaining that folk had two options; to buy all four issues of the magazine as they came out to get each section of the pattern, or wait until late June 2025 when the rights would return to me and I would be publishing the shawl as a single pattern. And no, sorry, I couldn’t just email a pdf of the whole pattern there and then.

Last October, June 2025 seemed like such a long way off, but here we are! I am on the final checks of the layout of the pattern in my own house style and new photos have been taken. Next week I will be sending out an email to my newsletter subscribers with an exclusive introductory discount code to use on Ravelry, Payhip or my website, so make sure you’re on the list if you’d like one of those.

I thought I’d spend today’s blog post answering a few of the questions people have asked me about lace shawls and hap shawls in particular when we’ve been at yarn shows.

  1. What is a hap shawl? This is a great question and one I was asked at Yarnies at the Flaxmills in Shrewsbury last month. A hap shawl is a traditional structure for a shawl. It is square (and a half hap is a triangle on the diagonal of the square) and it is worked in a particular way. The central square is knitted first, then stitches are picked up all the way around the four sides of the square. These stitches are then knitted to form a border. In Rhiannon’s case there are two border patterns! Some hap shawls stop at this point and cast off, but you can also knit an edging. Rhiannon’s edging is a knitted-on edging that uses up one stitch from the border with every other row and works its way around all four sides with some fancy footwork to get around the corners. Once the edging is complete you cast off 16 stitches and seam the diagonal edges of the edging and border sections together.
  2. Is it hard to knit? Not really! All of the lace is created through yarn overs and just three types of decrease: K2tog (knit two together), SSK (slip 2 sts one after the other to the right needle then knit them together – which can also be worked as slip 1, knit 1, pass the slipped stitch over), and Sk2po (slip 1 st, knit the next two together, then pass the slipped stitch over). I agree with Woolly Wormhead that definitions of whether a pattern is difficult are very subjective, but I think if you can do these stitches, and want to make the shawl you will be able to! The central square has a straightforward repeated lace pattern that is a traditional stitch pattern. You do need to count your stitches carefully when you pick up around the edge for the border sections, but again, it’s a straightforward lace pattern that doesn’t involve any stitches that are too complex and there are lots of repeats! You do need to use a circular needle as there’s no way you’d get all those stitches on a straight knitting needle – and it wouldn’t work when you’ve got stitches that go around all sides of the square. The knitted-on edging is the only section that uses some lace stitches on the wrong side of the knitting as well as on the right side, but again there are no difficult stitches. It’s a 12 row pattern repeat so it’s easy to remember after a few times through! When you get to the corners, there are some short rows, but the pattern takes you through them step by step and explains which type of short row to use where.
  3. Do I have to be able to read lace charts? No! Everything in the pattern is written out as well as charted. If you are using the charts you do need to read the written pattern as well as there are a few ‘uncharted areas’ such as garter stitch sections between the stitch patterns.
  4. How do I block it? This is where you wash the shawl (gently), and pin it out to dry to stretch and open up the lace stitches. A shawl can grow dramatically during this process. I’m lucky enough to have a hap stretcher, pictured below (a traditional frame with nails around the edge that you can adjust to different sizes), but you can also pin the shawl out on a spare mattress or on the floor, if it’s covered in carpet. Don’t try pinning it out on a laminate or wooden floor! Another method folk use if they are short of space is to fold the shawl in half and pin it out as a double layer or even hang it on the washing line with pegs on the points. The washing line method doesn’t give as precise a finish, but it is a good back-up option.
  5. Do I have to use the same yarn as you did? No, you don’t. I knitted Rhiannon in laceweight 100% Alpaca yarn, but you can use laceweight wool or other fibres. In fact, this was the first time I had knitted lace with alpaca and I was holding my breath when swatching and blocking to see if the yarn would hold the stitch patterns – it does! My shawl used 220g/1760m of laceweight yarn on 3.75mm needles. You could use 4-ply yarn if you prefer, but remember you will need at least double the weight of the yarn to get the same meterage – and you might need slightly more length as well as weight. The fabric would be less gossamery, and more substantial, but you can still use the same size needles.

I’m sure there are lots of other questions I’ve been asked at yarn shows and events that I’ve forgotten about for the moment. If you have any other questions about knitting lace shawls, pop them in the comments and I’ll answer them!

I’ll update you on the progress of the veg seedlings next week. Until then, take care and remember to sign up for the monthly newsletter! K x

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April Already

Menai is being launched as an individual pattern on Friday 4th April – sign up to the newsletter before then for an exclusive subscriber discount code!

It seems very appropriate that the launch of this design as an individual pattern happens in the spring as it is covered in growing leaf shapes!

With everything being quite busy lately, I completely missed that my latest design for Knit Now, Crenellate Shawl came out over a week ago! Knit Now Issue 179 is the one to look for.

Crenellate is a textured top down triangular shawl that uses just knit and purl stitches with yarn overs placed at the edges and centre spine for the shaping. It’s knitted using West Yorkshire Spinners Elements DK which catches the light beautifully.

This photo shows the textured pattern really well. I took this shot while the shawl was blocking and drying so the colours are a little darker as the yarn is damp here.

The camellias are starting to look good as I had hoped. The pink one flowers before the red one with larger flowers. The red one certainly knows which side the sun hits it as that side is becoming covered in blooms and the other side is still very much green.

The daffodils and front borders are looking good too! The red cowslips always surprise me as I forget they are there. Do excuse the weeds and grass in the border – there hasn’t been any time for gardening this week.

Very soon I need to get the veg patches into use, which will mean deciding which veg we want to grow this year. There hasn’t been a lot of time to think about growing our own veg lately, but it would be nice to get that part of the garden up and running properly. Everything was a bit of a disappointment last year as most of the plants got eaten, so we’ll probably try for different crops this time.

There were some more long car journeys this week, down to the midlands to visit my Mum, then further down to Kent to help my lovely mother-in-law celebrate her birthday and then back home again. I tend to listen to unabridged audiobooks when I’m driving and I’ve been expanding my eras of historical fiction.

On the way down I listened to The Bookseller of Inverness by S. G. MacLean, set in the wake of the 1746 battle of Culloden, and on the way home I started listening to The Forbidden Queen by Anne O’Brien, telling the story of Katherine de Valois who becomes the wife of Henry V and mother of Henry VI. Both are hugely enjoyable and I recommend them, in whatever form you enjoy a book. Usually the historical fiction I listen to is Tudor or Elizabethan, so it’s nice to fill in some of the gaps on either side!

Anne at Yarn O’clock is busy getting ready for my trunk show there on April 12th! This window display is full of my designs!

Pictured are Into the Vortex, Nubble Slip Stitch Mitts, Llanberis, Twisted, Ice Diamond Mitts, What Do Points Make? and Calon Cariad. I’ll have paper copies of all these designs and many more with me on the day, and also lots more samples for you to see in person. I’ll be there all day from 10am -4pm and I hope folk will find time to pop in and say hello! The shop is on Earl Road in Mold and there is lots of parking in the town. As it’s being held on a Saturday, you’ll also be able to enjoy Mold’s street market.

I told you that I have two design commissions that I’m working on. One is a lace pattern that needed to have a small rejig in terms of size to make it a little narrower, but since then it’s been coming on a treat. I’m nearly at the end of the fifth pattern repeat of seven. Once all seven are complete, there’s just the final part of the chart to work and the top border and it’s done bar the blocking.

I’m using Jamieson’s of Shetland Ultra Lace for this design and I’m really enjoying it. It’s a yarn with a lot of personality and is able to withstand being pulled out and re-knitted quite happily, despite being a laceweight yarn. It’s the same yarn I used for the original three colour version of Maid Marion, my Pi shawl. If you come to my workshop on lace knitting next month (May 28th) at Sew Woolly in Cheadle, you’ll be using this yarn too! I’ll tell you more about my workshops there next week.

Until then, take care and remember to sign up for the newsletter if you’d like a discount for Menai! K x

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Melting

The centre square of Elinor is nearly halfway done! The yarn is working up nicely, although I had to switch from using the yarn from the centre of the ‘cake’ to the outside as it kept snarling up and getting in a massive tangle as I pulled the strand of yarn from the centre. 

There has been slower progress in the last couple of days – I’ve only done 4 rows – as we’re down at Mum’s doing the most enormous sort through of some of her stuff; fabric, garden tools and clearing out cupboards in the garage that haven’t been opened in years. That hasn’t left much time or energy left for lace knitting, especially as it’s so hot it feels like we’re melting! I’m typing on the iPad today, so I’ll add links into the post in a couple of days when I’m back with my laptop.

If you’re on social media, you may have seen that on Saturday I launched a YouTube channel! There are currently 10 videos on there that are also on my website as free tutorial videos – and I’m hoping that, as YouTube is the go-to place for many people, these videos will have the opportunity to reach a wider audience than if they are just on my own website. There will be more added to the channel, including a look at my design process and introductions to some of my designs.

Bargello Aurora Wrap, Cowl & Scarf is now live! Yesterday I did a post about why you might choose to knit the wrap and there will be posts later in the week about the benefits of choosing to knit the cowl or the scarf.

My complete pattern for Barragán is very nearly ready. It was originally published as a four part knit-along in The Knitter between September and December last year, using two colours of McIntosh BFL 4ply.

I’m adding in the needle size that the wrap/shawl was originally designed with (3.25mm), which uses 161g of each of the two colours of 4ply yarn. When the pattern was published in the magazine it was accompanied by a subscription offer of 150g of each colour of the yarn for the shawl, so I had to reduce the needle size to 3mm to reduce the tension and therefore the quantity of yarn required. Even with the reduced needle size it was a little ’tight’ on yarn, and I certainly know of one knitter who ran out as their personal knitting tension was fractionally looser than mine, even though the 150g subscription skeins were on the generous side and actually weighed a little more than 150g. See? Tension again – it really does matter!

Therefore, whilst I am also retaining the smaller needles and lower yarn quantities as an option in the pattern, I am strongly recommending that if you do have 200g of each colour of yarn, to use the larger needle size and have a relaxing time knitting. Or, if you only have 150g of each colour, to use the smaller needles and to also follow the newly added instructions for making Part Three of the shawl shorter by working one less repeat of the stitch pattern. That way, a knitter can create a completed shawl with the available yarn without the fear of ‘yarn chicken’.

McIntosh will be offering Barragán shawl kits with 200g of each colour from here on, but I wanted to keep the lower yarn quantity in the pattern as an option in case anyone is gifted the yarn from the subscription offer.

My next yarn show is in just a couple of weeks! The Pop-Up Wool Show is a 1 day event, on 17th August, 10am-4pm. The show is held in a beautiful building, Hulme Hall in Port Sunlight, which is only a stone’s throw from The Lady Lever Art Gallery. You could visit both! Entry to the Pop-Up Wool Show costs £4 and tickets are available on the door as well as in advance. It’s always a great show, so if you can make it over to Port Sunlight on August 17th, please come and say hello!

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Full Circle

In early June 2018, one of my shawl designs, Maid Marion Shawl, was published in Knit Now Magazine. It was my first Pi shawl design (a full circle design worked from the centre outwards), and I remember drawing out the first charts for it on squared paper in April 2017. One of the magazine’s images of the shawl popped up in my lovely wife’s phone memories this week.

The shawl itself is not the main focus of today’s blog post, although I am very proud of it. Instead I am going to write about the circumstances of its coming into existence.

I had sent my submission to the magazine in the same week of October 2017 that I finally admitted to myself and the GP that I needed some help. Things were very dark for me. I was struggling to sleep and to function, let alone enjoy life. They suggested signing me off work for a little while, which I declined. A week later however, I was in the GP carpark having seen them again to accept being signed off, but having a melt-down as the slip was signing me off for a whole month, not the week (or possibly two ) I had anticipated. I didn’t understand how I could be away from work for a month – there was far too much to do and so much I was responsible for. But, my amazing wife talked me down, said the doc wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t necessary and, of course, the place would continue to function without me. As it turned out I was signed off for the rest of that term and had a staged return to work after Christmas.

I don’t remember receiving the acceptance email for the shawl submission, but I must have had it, and there are pics taken in the December of the yarn having arrived (Jamieson’s Ultra) and showing the start of the central part of the shawl.

Somehow I knitted the shawl – and it was finished and blocked by mid-January. Again, I don’t remember it, but the photos are there:

I’m not going to say that the power of knitting got me through, because that would be trite, but it was one of the things on my very simple daily to-do list while I was off work: get up, shower, Headspace, read, walk, knit. I do remember that list as I wrote it out every day and crossed off the things I managed to do.

I left the classroom at the end of that academic year, realising a permanent change of pace was needed and I focussed on getting better, then moved into designing full time as well as giving knitting workshops.

It wasn’t just the time off and the change of direction that helped; there were the meds too, and I used the Headspace app every day for over a year, although I’m not sure I ever really got the hang of that. But it wasn’t a quick fix. Things took time and the good friends who stayed in touch made all the difference. In fact, it’s only just over a month ago that I finally got off the meds – reducing the dose of anti-depressants down to nothing is a slow process if you want to avoid the side-effects.

Looking back I could have reached out for help much sooner, but I had felt that admitting there was a problem would be a problem in itself – and if I could just get to the end of each day that would be enough. It wasn’t. Life is so different now, but it’s still not easy to talk about.

This period of my life is not something I’ve written much about before, but well-being and mental health awareness are so important and rightly being talked about more these days. If just one person reads this and it encourages them to ask for help or support from someone else, that will be worth it. It’s also a reminder that folk never know what others are dealing with.

As for Maid Marion Shawl, it’s still a great design. It can be knitted in lace weight or 4ply (you could even try it in DK if you go up a needle size or two), and you can use 1, 3 or 4 colours. It’s up to you. The pics in today’s post are all from Knit Now Magazine, showing the 3 colour version in Jamieson’s Ultra (lace weight) yarn.

By the way, if you’ve never heard Full Circle by Dolly Parton – do have a listen. It’s yet another one of her brilliant songs.

Until next week, take care and do something that makes you happy. K x

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Change

I have enjoyed our walks the past few days and I am so grateful that we can get into country lanes quite quickly from our doorstep. These are some of the lovely sights I’ve seen recently on two separate walks. I love watching the clouds in the late afternoon – the light on them is magical, but fleeting.

There’s activity in one of the fields that may be the beginnings of a new housing estate down this lane, so I’m not sure how much longer we’ll have this peaceful route for, but I’m determined to make the most of it while we can.

There are signs of spring in the garden too which is really encouraging. (Yes, I know, I really need to cut those hellebore leaves back, and I will, soon!) There’s lots of work that needs to be done in the garden and I feel a bit guilty that I haven’t been out there much, but now there are increasing hours of daylight, hopefully I should be able to!

Yarn arrived at the end of last week for two new designs and I’m about to get started with one of them later today. I won’t be able to share the designs with you until publication (July and September respectively), so instead, here is the yarn itself. Isn’t it fabulous?!

I can hardly believe that in three days time I will be in the Norfolk Showground Arena, setting up for the East Anglia Yarn Festival! I printed out a few extra copies of patterns today, and have been planning the layout of our space. It’s 2m x 2m and I want to make the best use of it possible.

When we go to Wonderwool Wales next month it will be a very different set-up. The space we have there is 4m x 3m! I had applied for a 3m x 3m space, but they only had a 4m space left and asked if I would be willing to take that. Yes please, and thank you!

I’ve been working on a shawl design this week and it’s coming on really well, despite having had to rip out approx. 100 rows and rejig things a bit. It’s a semi-circular shape, and I was using a standard half-pi shawl construction but, because the fabric is not lace, it doesn’t stretch out in segments in the same way that, for example, my Tiffany shawl does. This has led me to experiment with the spacing of the increase rows and it’s looking SO much better now than it did. Now there are no funny sections where everything is stretched out and then goes all puffy (and there were…) – so I count that a big success!

One of the things I really need to be better at is trusting my gut when it’s telling me that something isn’t working out quite the way I’d thought it would. I was about 20 rows away from the weird puffy increase row when I thought it wasn’t right, but did I stop then? No. I kept knitting, initially telling myself it would block out. When I was coming up to the next increase row and I could tell the fabric was going to do the same thing, but possibly more-so, I had the brainwave of changing the rate and placement of increases. I tried it out and it worked a lot better, but I still kept going, ignoring that earlier section. Why did I do this? Then one evening I sat down to work on it, saw the part I wasn’t happy with and suddenly realised it would be a good idea to use the same tweak to the increases there as well. So, out 100 rows came! The small balls are all ripped out knitting. The large white ball only has the ripped out yarn wrapped around it.

All of these small balls have now been re-knitted and I have to say, this is a great, sturdy yarn. It hasn’t minded a bit! It’s Donegal Rich Tweed 4ply by McIntosh and it’s behaved perfectly well being knitted, ripped out and re-knitted.

I’m really looking forward to showing you this shawl – I love how the three colours and the different slip stitch patterns work together.

Until next Tuesday – when I shall have lots to tell you about EAYF – take care and do stuff that makes you happy. K x

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Fourth of July

Part of two strips of Mystical Lanterns crocheted blanket laid flat on a pale gold carpet. The crocheted motifs each contain four colours and the colour combos are randomly selected from over 20 colours.

Some days don’t begin quite the way you’d want them to. I’d been looking at the netting on the currant bushes yesterday and thinking that the wind / local cats had dislodged some of it and I needed to sort it out.

Then this morning, what do I see? A dark brown bird had got inside and was struggling to work out how to leave. Cue me dashing down the garden in my nightie to help it out. It was a thrush and I’d not seen one for a while. Once it located a gap in the netting, it claimed its independence and was back up on the rooftops pretty quickly! From the kitchen I’d thought it might be a female blackbird, but you can’t mistake that mottled feathered breast up close!

While I was down the garden I decided to try to re-secure the netting to avoid a recurrence and I thought I’d check out the progress of the veg. I found a courgette just about ready to pick (so I did). Large teaspoon for scale.

But the broad beans look rather pathetic and more worryingly were covered in light grey feathers… I wondered if the sparrow hawk had been back, but if it had been I probably wouldn’t then have found most of the poor wood pigeon at the bottom of the path. I’ve tidied it up now, but it was not the most pleasant start to the day – for me, the thrush or the pigeon!

I’m quite impressed that after all that, I *still* managed to write my newsletter and get it sent before my 9.30am haircut.

On a more exciting note, I got my subscriber and contributor copies of The Knitter through the post yesterday – and my design is on the cover!

Meet Lichfield – it’s the spotlight pull-out so there’s no page number. Issue 191 will be in the shops on Thursday 6th July, or if you’re a subscriber too you may already have it!

Why Lichfield? Well, the border design reflects the stone niches carved on the front of Lichfield Cathedral.

It hardly seems possibly that only three days ago (on Saturday) I was recording a video on how to pick up stitches at the very edge of garter stitch, including picking up front and back in the same stitch. Any yet now I only have 16 rows left to do of the 50 rows in the border of my Marianne Half Hap Shawl!

At this rate I will have finished it before the end of the Summer KAL, which runs until the end of July. But that’s ok – there’s another of my designs that I want to knit a new sample for too so I can start that 😉.

Remember, if you are taking part in the Summer Knit-along by knitting any of my designs, you can share your progress on social media with the hashtag #KathAndrewsSummerKAL and/or sign up to come to the mid-KAL Knit and Knatter on Zoom next week. (Weds 12th July 7.30-9pm BST). Tickets are free (although you do have the option to pay £3 if you really want to.

One of the things I’m really trying to do this month is to not ‘waste’ time. I don’t mean I’m not going to relax or do things like read, or even sit and ponder the nature of the universe. What I’m trying to move away from is losing an hour or so scrolling random social media posts or playing online games – it’s quite shocking on occasion to look up at the clock and find it’s at least an hour later than you thought it was!

So, instead, my July plan is to:

1. Finish my Velvet Sixpence Polwarth fibre spinning – I’m really enjoying it and it’s coming along well.

2. Finish reading Melmoth by Sarah Perry. I started this book a while ago and it’s taken me ages to get halfway through it- so this month I will finish it!

3. Complete another 2 strips of my Mystical Lanterns crocheted blanket. I joined the first two strips together yesterday and I really like it so far.

4. Get back to my embroidery of Mum which has been sadly neglected. I’m going to take a slightly different approach and aim to complete two 10 x 10 squares of the chart rather than work on a single colour. I did this for the partial squares down the right hand side and it was really motivational to see a small area completed rather than little bits all over that don’t look as though much has been achieved.

I’m also intending to re-oil the bamboo kitchen worktops and keep a note of how far I walk each day with the aim of regularly walking further by the end of the month.

Those are my non-work-based plans! I’m trying to use SMART targets (that used to make me roll my eyes when I was in the classroom) as I’ve figured out that if I have a plan that isn’t ‘specific’, ‘measurable’, ‘achievable’, ‘relevant’ and ‘time-based’ – it’s far less likely to happen!

We’re also working away in the background to bring Yarn Gathering to you again this September – I’ll be able to tell you more about that in the next couple of weeks (yay!).

Do you have any plans for July?

Take care one and all, hold each other close and do stuff that makes you happy. K x

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Let it Grow!

We’ve had rain – and the garden is very happy about it! There’s even some new life emerging from the champagne rhubarb crown.

The netting is definitely helping the currants to stay on the bushes and not get eaten by the birds. I saw a really good homemade fruit cage online the other day – made of two simple metal arches covered with either polythene or netting. It might be worth a try next year.

I’m not sure the broad beans are going to come to much – I think I sowed them too late. You can just about see the plants with a few very small pods in the left hand pic below! This morning I podded and blanched a batch of beans from elsewhere having saved the best eight to dry and sow next year. I might even do what my grandfather apparently used to do and plant them on (or near) Boxing Day!

An update on the quilting. After returning home from Mum’s I discovered that I did indeed have a walking foot for my sewing machine (it had come with one) and I’ve tacked the other two placemats. The backing fabric for these two is different from the first one, although it does still feature houses.

However, I only thought to look on Sunday morning for whether I had any quilting needles for my machine (they have a different type of tip to stop the wadding getting pushed/pulled through the outer fabric), and it turned out that I didn’t. I ordered some and they arrived this afternoon so I shall be getting on with completing the set of placemats tomorrow!

I finally got back to doing some spinning yesterday. I hadn’t done any for a while and I’m not quite sure why as it’s really hypnotic and relaxing – especially with the Polwarth fibre I’m using at the moment. This was dyed by Velvet Sixpence and it’s a joy to work with. I’m going to aim to get this spun up, plied and skeined in the next couple of weeks.

I’ve been really enjoying knitting up my lace-weight version of Marianne Half Hap for the Summer Knit-along. I got a little done during the Zoom Cast-On Party – lots of chatting and fun was had. and as you can see from the progress shots, I’ve done quite a bit more since. The yarn is gorgeous (Northampton Shear Shetland from RiverKnits) and still slightly greasy – in a good way! – so my hands are getting moisturised as I knit!

I also discovered an error had been quietly sitting in Row 33 of the central triangle (!); it said to place a stitch marker when there were 11 sts remaining on the needle, but it should have been 10… This seems like a small thing, but it could cause confusion and frustration to a knitter. An update has been sent out to everyone who has bought the pattern on Ravelry, and updated files are available to download from Payhip and Lovecrafts as well.

My sock design is all written up and I’m now knitting up one of the smallest size, just to check a few things. After knitting the socks in Zauberball Crazy, it’s nice to see how the design works in a more solid colour too.

An interesting difference between these yarns is that although there is very little difference in the meterage of the two yarns – the Zauberball is 420m per 100g and the other yarn is a high twist 400m/100g, they seem to have quite a different gauge. The Zauberball definitely felt like a thin 4-ply as I was knitting it. I will knitting the start of the large size in a ‘standard’ sock wool such as Regia or West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply as well and see how the gauge and size compares. I want the pattern gauge and sizing to relate to most standard sock yarns so folk can reliably choose a size and it will work.

What’s the most important aspect of socks (knitting or wearing them) to you?

That’s all from me for today. Take care of yourselves, K x