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!
So, after last week’s own goal of knitting from the wrong chart, I’m all sorted again. The correct chart has been completed and blocked (and I’m so glad I bothered!) and I’m halfway through one of the other new charts in the Nevern Throw Expansion Pack. Yes, I really do use that many pins when I want completely straight edges – especially when the vertical edges have the two yarns twisted at the end of every row.
I’ve been helping Mum sort through some of the mountain of craft supplies she has – some of it has gone off to the church fete and some of it will be re-homed with me! (I will find room, I will find room).
Having rediscovered stitching, Mum has let me raid her embroidery floss collection (and there was a lot!). These beauties are now joining my stash:
I’ve finished her socks and have been able to get the toe shaping just right, with the classic and very scientific approach of getting her to try one on and pinching the end until it felt like it fitted. She’s very pleased with them. So, it’s not all been a one-way street.
I’ve also finished the fibre I’ve been spinning for the past couple of months (I posted these shots on my socials yesterday):
And! The rainbow of Riverknits Nene minis is starting to turn into something fabulous… Here’s a sneaky close-up to tempt you!
My phone’s personal hotspot is being a little temperamental today, so I’m not going to write much more, but I hope that, despite the awfulness of much of the world at the moment, you are able to find some moments of peace and tranquility. I find that looking at and playing with yarn helps.
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
If you follow me on social media (Twitter, Instagram or Facebook), you will have seen my post yesterday explaining that this week’s blog post would be delayed a day. If you’ve been waiting and didn’t know, I’m sorry. It will be worth the wait though, promise!
On Sunday I went to Wonderwool at the Royal Welsh Showground, Builth Wells. It has long been my favourite yarn show, partly because the scale of the buildings means you can move about freely and there are plenty of areas of seating as well as a HUGE number of vendors exhibiting their wares.
It was wonderful and slightly overwhelming to be back at a real live yarn show. It’s the first one I’ve been to since Yarndale in September 2019, in the ‘before times’ and I haven’t seen this many human beings in one day since then. There were people who I’ve only communicated with online before, via Zoom or social media, that I was able to talk to face to face for the first time. I think it says something about how effective Zoom and FaceTime are that it didn’t feel as though I hadn’t ‘met’ some of these people ‘in the flesh’ before.
So, as you can see from the main image, I came back with quite a haul of goodies. Let’s have a look at them, shall we?
Fibre for spinning first!
This is a wonderful braid of British Bluefaced Leicester dyed by Sealy MacWheely. It was my first purchase of the day and the colours and softness just made me grin. That and the lovely Katie who dyed it was so great to chat to. 😊 I’m thinking a chain ply would give me a great striped yarn, but I might just do a 2-ply and go for some funky barber-pole stripes.
This little beauty is a Merino gradient dyed by Cassiopeia Yarns. Again, it’s utterly soft and I’m going to adore spinning it. This one is definitely going to be chain plied as I want to maintain the gorgeous gradient effect from one end to the other. Maybe superfine for a lace shawl?
Rachael from Cat and Sparrow sold me this wonderful braid of Polwarth. The colourway is called ‘Ar Lan y Môr’ which is Welsh for ‘Beside the Sea’ and it is also the name of a traditional Welsh folk song. It was only today that I realised this is the same colourway I bought from her before via the online version of the Knit-Tea Retreat last year, which is now a yarn that Mum is gradually knitting into a cowl! Rachael is one of the people it was hard to believe I’d never met ‘in real life’ before as we’ve chatted online quite a bit and it was super to chat face to face on Sunday.
I’d not come across Velvet Sixpence before, but this braid told me it was definitely coming home with me! Another Polwarth (SO soft and a delight to spin), I think this one is going to become something for my lovely wife, as orange is very much her colour.
So, that was the fibre – now on to the yarn!
The first ball of yarn that came into my possession on Sunday was free!! I went up to the Simply Knitting / The Knitter stand and was offered the opportunity to spin the wheel. Whichever colour the arrow landed on indicated the basket from which I could select a ball of yarn. Cool, eh? I was delighted to find this ball of self-striping Novita yarn. It’s an aran weight 75% wool, 25% polyamide which will make either some chunky bedsocks or a hat. The yarn is actually striped with three distinct shades of blue and a green, although at first glance you might think the palest blue is white. And I had a chat with Kirstie and the ladies too!
Now this yarn is something special. Northampton Shear laceweight yarn from Riverknits. It was lovely to meet Becci and Markus in person and chat away. Again, I encountered them first through the Knit-Tea Retreat and then followed them on social media (that sounds a bit like stalking, doesn’t it? I promise it wasn’t!). Markus joined in with our most recent KAL – Calon Cariad – and he knit his from this very yarn. The shawl was on display as part of their stall which was very exciting to see and I wish I’d taken a photo – though you can see it if you look at the Riverknits Instagram page. Northampton Shear is a single ply yarn that is 100% Shetland wool from Braunston, Northamptonshire that is spun & hand dyed in the UK. The way the dye is picked up over the natural colours of the wool is stunning, giving a really, rich layered effect.
This skein of ‘Dark Forest’ from Mothy and the Squid was one of the later purchases of the day. I love the range of greens in the yarn and also the black that stripes through it in places. Being a Superwash Merino / nylon mix this will make long lasting socks, but it is also soft and silky enough for something close to your neck.
I’d not heard of The Crafty Bird before, but the range of colours she had were lovely. This is ‘Crisp Autumn Day’. It’s another Superwash Merino / Nylon mix, but it’s a different base from the green above. It’s also slightly thinner as 100g brings a very generous 425m.
I love Kauni yarns with the really long colour shifts, though I’ve only used their 4-ply so far. SKD Yarns sell this and it’s really quite funny to have travelled nearly 100 miles to buy a ball of yarn from people who are based less than five miles from where I live! The colours are really me. It was my cheapest wool purchase of the day, at £8.42 for 800m laceweight – an absolute bargain!
I’ve made a pair of Raggsocks from a kit from Midwinter Yarns before and they are my mum’s favourite bedsocks, guaranteed to fit no matter what her ankles are up to. So, I thought I would make another pair and this colourway is just right for her. Mr Midwinter looked very dashing in his kilt and I spoke to a lovely lady (not Estelle, but possibly her mum) who almost got me buying a sweater’s worth of their Ulligen Recycled Yarn (made from scraps of wool from the textiles industry that would otherwise go to waste) for a ‘Confetti’ sweater by Veera Valimaki. I resisted the urge (just about), but I’m sure it’s a yarn I will be using at some point – it was fab.
Finally, there were some non-wool purchases – apart from the cup of tea and vegan fruit cake that were very much appreciated!
First off all, I bought a pattern from Anniken Allis and had a nice chat with her. I know I design lace shawls myself, but this is a shape I’ve neither knitted nor used myself before and it really intrigues me. The lace patterns in it are beautiful too. I think the wedge shape in the centre makes it a Faroese style shawl. Maybe I will use some of the laceweight yarn I bought on Sunday for it and make a double Wonderwool momento!
As I was travelling from Wonderwool to Mum’s on Sunday afternoon, and it was her birthday on Monday, I really wanted to be able to find her a little gift from the show as part of her birthday present. These hand coiled coasters from Lilliputwight were perfect! They’re in the centre of the picture here. Unfortunately I didn’t take a separate photo of them before I left Mum’s yesterday. She is very happy with them – particularly as they go very well with her quilted placemats and the coiled rope means they have a much more ‘grabby’ surface than the glossy picture coasters she has, making them practical as well as beautiful.
You couldn’t miss the amazing hand-turned pot in the picture above, could you? It’s stunning and the blue/green is from two resin inserts that were sandwiched into the wood before turning. This was a gift for Sue, my lovely wife. It was given immediate pride of place among her pen pots (which is what I thought she would use it for), though I’ve yet to show her the magic that occurs when you place a light inside the pot – it glows through the resin! The pot was from Turning Amber Woodcraft, the husband to All Wool that Ends Wool who were right at the end of Hall 2.
What a haul, eh? As well as talking to lots of stallholders, one of the lovely things about a show like this is striking up conversation with likeminded people when you sit down for a cup of tea. I encountered several friends during the day as well which was great – it’s always good to see some familiar faces in a crowd!
Yarn shows are also a place where you can wear your hand-knits knowing they’ll be appreciated by others for the work that has gone into it as well as the colour of the yarn or pretty shape.
I chose to wear my Meg March shawl and got so many compliments on it. I know that knitters always want to know the pattern name of pieces they admire, so I went prepared by taking some of my Moo business cards. I’m glad I did as I ended up handing out quite a few and even sold two copies of the pattern during the day to people I’d spoken to! (Thanks Sealy MacWheely and Roy!).
It was quite a day – a real grand day out. Wearing a mask for the whole day was no problem – though I did nearly forget I was wearing it at one point when I went to sip my water – that could have been messy.
So, you can see why after that and a couple of days at Mum’s I was not really capable of writing this post when I got home yesterday evening – it’s taken two and a half hours as it is!!
The rest of today will be spent catching up with stuff, patting yarn and fibre and continuing to work on the still photos for my new online course.
Take care, stay safe and do what makes you happy, K x
Today has been good – despite the apparent chaos of my desk!
I got an email this morning that made me VERY excited and I can’t wait to share the news with you – soon I hope!
Also, after several days pondering the front neck shaping and the armhole depth on my current sweater design I was able to spend some serious time crunching numbers and playing with the coloured pens again. It’s taken several hours comparing lots of different size charts and sweater designs of similar construction, but I now have something I’m really happy with. (There will be a saddle shoulder above this, so knitters please don’t worry if it looks a little short to you!)
It does mean there’s a knock-on effect on the numbers for the sleeves – and my spreadsheet for the sleeve increases was a thing of beauty, but there’s no reason the new and improved one can’t be too!
My secret knitting is all finished and blocked and I love it. Just the ends to weave in now – and because it’s structured with the stripes going along the length, rather than the width, that means there are only 34 ends! My latest socks had more than that!
I also got out into the garden this afternoon and FINALLY sowed the courgette, squash and broad bean seeds. The broad beans have gone straight in the ground, while the courgette and squash seeds have gone into multi-cell trays in the mini-greenhouse. I even dug its plastic cover out of the garage. The cover has to come off in autumn and winter as, living in what we still believe to be one of the windiest towns ever as we do, it does try to make the whole structure take off or blow over. And that’s with the bottom shelf weighted down with every heavy stone and brick we can find! It was good to get outside in the sunshine and do something that will hopefully bring us some food in a few months!
Speaking of the sunshine – we did get our trip to Prestatyn. In fact we went twice and had a lovely time. We had a very chilly paddle on the second visit (having been more organised and brought a towel that time), Ronnie (our Rhino) practised his gymnastics and dancing and we really enjoyed the peace and the sea air. We also discovered Rhuddlan Castle – though sadly it was closed to visitors. I also completed a lot of my hat and I am still pinching myself that I made this yarn!
And here is the top of the finished hat. That is the beauty of a 12-point right-leaning spiral as designed by Woolly Wormhead. I love how the stripes gradually get wider as the number of stitches reduces.
On Sunday I am going to Wonderwool at the Royal Welsh Showground in mid-Wales. I am both excited and a little nervous about this as I haven’t been to an event with so many people attending since ‘the before times’, but I was pleased to see the organisers saying they would appreciate it if people wore masks in the exhibition halls. The great thing about Wonderwool is that the halls are so big there is always a good sense of space – not something that can be said about all the yarn shows I’ve been to, as some are really constrained by the limits of the building. I hope to have lots to show you and tell you all about next week!
I should have saved last week’s blog post title (A Little Fall of Rain) for today. We were going to have a day trip to Prestatyn and have lunch on the beach. Except it’s been raining. All day. Fingers crossed for drier weather in the next few days. 🤞
Today’s title is just as fitting though (Check out Waiting for the Phone by Jeff Ronay)!
We had planned to have a seaside day yesterday, but ended up waiting for a plumber for the second day in a row. On Day 1 (Sunday) we had a leak from the pipe into the toilet, so I rang the Home Emergency line of our house insurance. Yes, it was covered if I paid a £25 excess charge, yes, they could get someone to us – he was with us and done within four hours of my first phone call. Though the number of times I had to explain on the phone that no, we didn’t have another toilet, it is our only toilet would make you laugh if it wasn’t true!
However, it seemed we had merely swapped a big leak for some new piping and a smaller, slower leak. We hoped it might just be condensation on the new copper pipe, but it wasn’t. So, on Day 2 (yesterday, Monday) I rang again at 8.45am. Same procedure (except no queries about the number of loos this time) – the contractors would ring within two hours and tell us when the engineer would be there. But… Three hours came and went and no phone call.
I rang the insurers again. Got put through to the ongoing claims line to find out what was happening only to have a phone line so distorted I could barely make out what the chap was saying. I’m pretty sure he said to hang up and he’d ring me back. Except he didn’t. So, 40 minutes later, I rang again (bear in mind I’m not a massive fan of official phone calls). This time I got Tracy, who put me on hold while SHE rang the contractors and then connected me directly to them. Brilliant – thank you Tracy! Our plumber (Ben – a different chap from the day before) arrived at 3.30 and was able to fix the problem quickly, having agreed that the new nut shouldn’t be wet and dripping water on to the floor.
In theory this was all good knitting time, and in fairness I did get quite a bit of my secret project done (10 very long rows), but being in ‘waiting mode’ for that long? It’s exhausting and for some reason it stops me from being able to settle properly to other tasks. It’s been such a relief to get up today knowing we won’t have to have an another day of waiting for the phone – or keep checking the floor for puddles (they’re all gone!).
Today I plied the sparkly yarn that I’ve been working on for a while. I did include the clump of multicoloured long curly locks that came attached to the fibre batt in one of the singles, though I’m not sure I handled them very well. Looking at Hairy Dog Crafts‘ website, who prepared and dyed the fibre, I think they must be Valais Blacknose – they certainly had a longest staple (length of fibre) I’ve yet experienced. So, I now have some ‘fluffy unicorn’ style yarn sitting on my lazy Kate – the main fibre was a mix of Merino, Corriedale, ‘glitter’ (Angellina?) and Rose Fibre. It will be really interesting to see how it looks once it’s been skeined and washed.
As it’s that time of year I made hot cross buns – a week early, but never mind. They were (and still are) delicious. There’s something about the smell of mixed spice laced dough baking as well that just makes me smile. In case you’d like to try them, this was the recipe, ‘Easy No-Knead Sourdough Hot Cross Buns’. I used all white bread flour and vegan butter (Flora Plant B+tter) in these ones.
And I finished my Good Riddance socks by Lauren Rose (Laur_oftheBlings Designs) – since I hadn’t even turned the heel of the second one when I last wrote I’m quite impressed with myself on this. The ends are still waiting to be woven in though.
These did use a goodly amount of my leftover 4-ply yarns, but I still have a huge amount remaining – a full bag of little bits, as well as several bigger part-balls in one of my yarn storage boxes. I may have to make a second pair. And make more hexiflats (I prefer not to stuff them, so I call them hexiflats rather than hexipuffs!) to continue expanding my Beekeeper’s Quilt.
The transcription of my Introduction to Lace Knitting course is nearly done. Of course, this is the stage where I’m looking at the videos at my most critical and half wishing I could re-do some of them – especially the wet-blocking. Unfortunately, once a lace item has been blocked it never returns to that pre-blocked state, so it’s possible I’d have to re-knit the whole project just to block it again… I think I need to get a more objective pair of eyes on it!
If you want to see the Nos Da baby blanket in the real world and are in the North Wales area, I am glad to say it will be taking up residence at Yarn O’clock in Mold very soon! The hedgehog will be staying at home though.
That’s all from me for today. It’s time for a cuppa and to finish off those transcriptions!
Whatever you do this week, hold your loved ones close (whether human, fur-babies or stuffed hedgehogs!) and do what makes you happy. K x
Last week I finished by telling you I had marmalade to make when I got home. And indeed I did. However, the lovely Chris from Hampton Farm Shop had popped in the last few of the Seville oranges in addition to the ones I’d asked for, so rather than 1.4kg (3lb) of oranges, I had 2kg (4.5lb)!!
Marmalade was made on Thursday AND on Friday. It’s rather gorgeous in both colour and taste and I have found a solution to the skin withering tendency of the oranges when squeezing and chopping them – wear gloves! Obvious really, but it’s taken me until now…
This coming Friday sees the launch of our latest KAL – Calon Cariad and I’m really pleased that a number of people will be knitting along with us. The invites to the Cast-on Party on Zoom have started going out and I have got my chosen yarn all balled up; three skeins of CoopKnits Socks Yeah! in Xenon, which is a truly NEON pink.
I’ve also finally done some more embroidery and I *think* I may nearly be done with the black thread.
The spinning is coming on too – the 15 minutes per colour seems to be working well!!
I’m also working on a new pattern that is due for release next month (if you’re in my Facebook group you’ll have seen a sneak peek pic of it!).
I have blocked my Water Dragon Shawl and I love it. I still have the ends to weave in, but apart from that it is done! The top left image is straight after I cast off. The next is whilst blocking and the other two are after blocking.
This month’s pattern (due at the end of the month) is the re-launch of Of Night and Light, the colourwork vest that appeared in Knit Now Issue 134 last October – the rights return to me this month and I will get the pattern formatted into my standard layout and some new photos taken over the next couple of weeks.
But it’s not all been about the new things this week.
Today I have been mending my favourite cardigan (again). It’s three and a half years old and I wear it A LOT. The repairs and re-knits it has had deserve a post all to themselves and that will be what I tell you all about next week.
Have a good one and do stuff that makes you smile. K x
Last week I finished by promising to tell you about the spinning and baking I’ve been doing, as well as how the workshops went and all about next month’s knit-a-long!
Let’s start with the workshops. It was probably the longest amount of time I had (a) been on my feet and (b) spoken for, in over three and a half years. In other words, since I left the classroom!
Five hours of workshops went SO fast. Not just for me, but also for the lovely knitters who were there. In both the morning and afternoon sessions phrases such as “It’s not that time already, is it?!”, “I’ve never known two and a half hours go so quickly” and “Really? Only 10 minutes left? No!” could be heard. (Of course, because we were all so focused I completely missed the opportunity to take any photographs of their progress. Must do better next time!).
Lots was learnt, including the magic that is mattress stitch as part of the Finishing Techniques workshop. I love seeing the faces of knitters during this process. Most don’t believe they won’t be able to see the lime green yarn they are seaming their grey squares with, and when it proves to be true, it’s just a delight. Also we unpicked why different types of decrease are used and the importance of mirrored decreases to make your project look balanced.
The Introduction to Sock Knitting in the afternoon went even faster than I had anticipated, and everyone turned a heel successfully. I had an email yesterday from one of the attendees that made me so happy and I’m going to share part of it with you (with her permission):
“Thanks a million for all your guidance on Saturday. Just learning to knit on 4 needles was great, but to become a wool engineer apprentice and turn a heel was brilliant!”
Yvonne
We didn’t manage to get the graft done at the toe, however, so I promised to record a video showing how this is done and I have now uploaded this to my social media platforms. I wanted to get this up as soon as I could for my workshop attendees, but now I also need to add closed captions to the video.
This is the third little techniques video I have recorded and put on Facebook etc and this morning it occurred to me that they should really be on my website too. So, the Knitting Tuition page now has a new section: Free Video Tutorials! I’ll get the captions done on the toe graft video before uploading that one, but there are two others you can have a look at already. It will give you a little flavour of my Craftucation courses as well (though none of the videos are duplicated from there).
Another addition to the website today is a section for next month’s Knit-A-Long! We are knitting Calon Cariad together, a lovely shawl whose name means ‘The Heart of Love’. We begin on February 11th with a Cast-On Party on Zoom at 7pm!! We’ll run the KAL over five weeks and there will be prizes 🎁. If you want to join in, the click ‘going’ on the KAL event and/or the KAL Cast-on Party event on my Facebook page, or just send me a message! All the details are here.
There are even kits available – I’m especially fond of the Erika Knight Wool Local which knits up beautifully in this pattern.
In other news, I have finished the scarf sample for Small Acts and that just needs blocking and photographing properly. I’m aiming to get the pattern out by the weekend. If you’re a subscriber look out for an extra (short) email with a discount code!
Spinning is fun at the moment and I have starting on my second batch of Colours of Cambria fibre (this colour way is ‘Coast’). I wanted to create fairly regular repeats of the colours but I am not confident at judging the quantity when dividing the fibre into sections, so I came up with another approach. I set a timer on my phone for 15 minutes. I spin one colour from the sequence during that time and when the timer goes off, I stop and break that colour, ready to start with the next one when I spin again. Not only is this hopefully going to give me some good stripes/blocks of colour in the yarn, it also encourages me to spin more on a daily basis, even when I am busy, as 15 minutes can usually be slotted in somewhere!
I made the sourdough bagels that I have been wanting to try for a while. They weren’t as hard as I had anticipated, but I do think I over-baked them a little. It was a good taste, and nicely chewy, but a little too crunchy/firm on the outside. Next time, check five minutes sooner!
We even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Little Orme where we saw the largest group of Seals I’ve ever seen there. They looked so happy and relaxed on the beach and were chatting away to each other quite a lot! It made us relax too, and even though there were quite a few people up there on Sunday (some even had telephoto lenses and tripods for their cameras, so the word about the seals must have got about), it was really peaceful. We sat on a bench and ate a little homemade picnic, all wrapped up against the wind and it was lovely. The perfect balance to the ‘business’ of the day before.
Take care, stay warm and do more of what makes you happy, K x
This has rapidly turned into a week of finishing things.
On Saturday I plied the yarn I’ve been spinning, I skeined it on Sunday and washed it on Monday. Today it is dry and it is glorious! It’s Cambrian Wool which uses fleece from Welsh Mules. These are a cross between Welsh Mountain sheep and Blue Faced Leicester. The back of the packet the fibre came in says; “These sheep produce wool with beautiful sheen and incredible bounce and a long staple length”. The fibre came in five 20g coils, each of a different colour and collectively named ‘Mine’, from Hilltop Cloud. The colours really remind me of a trip to Parys Mountain a few years ago.
I have the skein next to me as I write and I can’t stop looking at it. The long staple means that it’s fairly easy to spin without the fibre vanishing out of your hands and it does have the most incredible sheen and is SO squishy. I think it’s about a DK weight, which is what I was aiming for, so I am a happy spinner here. 😊
Also finished is the Percy Pig jigsaw that I was given for Christmas. It’s the smallest of the jigsaws at 500 pieces, but I think was far harder than any of the 1000 piece ones will prove to be. I was convinced I’d made a mistake in it earlier on as I just couldn’t find one particular piece, but once I had placed all the pieces that were laid out on the table, that gap was still there! Perhaps there was a piece missing? I’d checked the floor already. I even swept my arm (carefully) underneath the green felt cloth the jigsaw was on in case it had become caught on the fabric as I unrolled the jigsaw. But no. And then I found it! It was upside down (of course) and wedged underneath a wooden coaster on the tablecloth. It was very satisfying to put that last piece in. I’ve left the puzzle complete until my lovely wife comes home, partly so she can see it and partly so I can be a little bit proud of my perseverance every time I go into the kitchen.
ALSO finished today… drumroll please…is the second secret project! It needs washing and blocking, but the actual construction is DONE, including a graft. I’m really pleased with it and I hope the magazine will be too. The next step is to block it, measure it, finish typing up the pattern and contact the mag to see if they want it now or if I should hold on to it until nearer the deadline (which is April). Unfortunately I can’t share pics with you yet, but it is lovely, though I say it myself.
Finally, I have finished the squares for the (full) Finishing Techniques workshop. Fourteen of them, two each for the six class members and two for me, all ready to be seamed and have stitches picked up from. They are currently blocking in the lounge. That’s seven hours work there!
There are still a few spaces on the Introduction to Sock Knitting workshop on the afternoon of Jan 22nd if you are near Mold at all that day.
A not-yet-finished thing that has nevertheless been making progress is one of my projects from Fasten Off YAL, the Water Dragon Shawl by Red and the Wolf Designs. I knitted three rows last night. That doesn’t sound like much, does it? But each row is now 1121 stitches long and takes about an hour. There are 14 rows left. I’m hoping to get it finished by the end of this week. Because it is so long I’m photographing it with the needle looped in a coil, showing all 70 stitch markers in use. Some things I knit as gifts (there’s one of those in progress at the moment too), and some things I knit for myself – this one is definitely one of the latter – it’s mine!
The blue of the yarn isn’t showing up quite right today, but that might be the light – it’s very sunny! In fact, I’m now going for a quick walk to make the most of it.
I hope you have a good week, enjoy the sunshine if you get some and keep doing what makes you happy.
I’ve just re-read my post from this time last year. On Dec 22nd 2020 we had been told that non-essential shops were closing (again), and most people’s plans for Christmas had been curtailed, cancelled or, at the very least, altered in some way. Fast forward to today and we are in an exhaustingly similar position, but with Covid case numbers at a point I never imagined they would actually reach. I will be surprised if they don’t go over 100,000 cases a day this week. Ronnie (pictured) is clearly feeling it too.
So, I’m even more grateful to have had my booster jab last Tuesday. Side effects were one afternoon of being really cold and a couple of days of being foggy-headed (I forgot to go to the hair-dressers – and only remembered seven hours after the appointment!), which is fine by me considering what it might help me avoid. My lovely wife has managed to get hers as well. Thank you NHS Wales.
On a more creative note, I’ve been swatching like mad for my new design idea – I keep wanting to try out tweaks and different combinations of colours. I managed to get my responses to the tech edit that came in last week done, though it did involve a few more hours of number crunching. Fortunately the foggy head was wearing off by then!
The socks are so *very* nearly finished. Here they are. Just one toe to go, right?
Actually, no. I got the recipient (my lovely wife, of course!) to try the first one on, and the toe was a couple of rounds short. Not loads, but enough to feel a little tight. This would no doubt consign them to the back of the sock drawer, which is not the aim of knitting socks – they need to be worn and worn out with joy and comfort. So, once I have completed the second sock (later today), I will be undoing the first sock toe and re-knitting it to match. They’ll still be done in time.
I got some spinning in this morning for the first time in a week or so.
I’m not one hundred percent sure what’s happened to stop me spinning so regularly of late, but maybe it’s something to do with the big pile of knitting project bags by the sofa? It’s daft though, because I set the timer for 20 minutes on my phone this morning and got a good chunk of fibre spun up. It’s much more productive than spending the same amount of time playing games on your phone and that is SO easy to do (and then some).
There was a request for dystopian sci-fi recommendations on Twitter recently and I remembered a book called Wool, by Hugh Howey that stayed with me long after I had read it. Having recommended it I then looked it up as an audiobook and I’m right back in that world, just over halfway through. Quite why listening to dystopian fiction seems appropriate right now I couldn’t tell you, but maybe it’s something to do with the national mood?
I’m hoping to be with mum over Christmas as long as the lateral flow tests keep showing negative and we don’t get told we can’t travel. Whatever you’re planning, I hope you enjoy it and stay safe at the same time.
See you on the other side – my next blog post will be Jan 4th 2022, when it will be marmalade making season again! Kx
