Tag: Spinning

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What a difference a ply makes!

I’m not sure I will ever get over the thrill of seeing fluffy fibre turn into actual, knit-able yarn. Or the fact that I seem to be able to achieve this magic trick myself now.

This afternoon I balled up the yarn I finished spinning last week, using my ball winder and swift (wonderful time- and wrist-saving inventions!). This was not because I intend to use it imminently, but because I wanted to get a better idea of the colour changes, especially in the larger skein. That’s the fractal spun one.

Two skeins of handspun yarn lie on a wooden desk. The one in the upper part of the image is much larger than the other. They are spun from the same fibre and are a mix of yellow, green, maroon and purple/blue. The upper skein is 2-ply and mostly has different colours in each strand. The lower skein is 3-ply and mostly has the same colour in all strands.

How does fractal spinning work? Well, you take a braid of fibre and split it lengthways, keeping the two pieces as equal as possible. One of those lengths will be spun as it is, with no further splitting. But then you take the other piece and split that in half, and then take one of those pieces and split that in half as well! All these splits take place lengthways down the fibre, so each division gives you a narrower piece of fibre, but they are all the same length and hopefully all have all of the colour changes. This gives you one piece that is 1/2 the width, one that is 1/4 and two that are 1/8.

On one bobbin you spin the widest piece, the half. One the other bobbin you spin the other pieces; I did both smallest pieces first followed by the 1/4 width one. After spinning these as singles they are ready to be plied together. Because there is less fibre of each colour at a time (thinner, remember?) on the 1/4 and 1/8 width bobbin the colours here will change more rapidly. This means that when you ply them together you get the colour changes happening on both strands of yarn, but at different rates, giving a very dramatic result! Shown below is the bobbin with rapid colour changes which I spun first, with the remaining fibre draped around the flyer. The Southdown fibre (that’s the sheep breed) was hand-dyed by Katie Weston of Hilltop Cloud and was a delight to work with.

A bobbin with singles on it shown horizontally and still on the wheel surrounded by the remaining unspun fibre. The yarn and fibre is in blocks of maroon, yellow, purple, rust and mossy green.

Of course, my initial split of my fibre wasn’t exact and I ended up with quite a bit of the single ply yarn with the longer colour changes left over. I decided to try chain plying this to create a 3-ply yarn (thicker than the 2-ply fractal) that changed colour very gradually. To chain ply you make a big loop and pull a strand of yarn through it, creating a new loop through which you pull a strand of yarn – it’s a bit like a giant crochet chain, which is being twisted as it goes onto the spinning wheel. Because it’s all coming off the same bobbin there are some places where one strand of the three is a slightly different colour (that would be the strand pulled through the loop) and it gives a fabulous graduated effect. Also, a really nice plump yarn! Next time I do some chain plying I will make a little video as I think that would make my explanation clearer.

I didn’t initially sit down to write a whole post about spinning today, but it seems I have. There has also been lots of knitting on one of my ‘secret’ projects this week, which of course I can’t show you or tell you much about, other than that I have started the final piece of it and completed the numbers for the pattern. I promise to have also knitted something else by next week that I *can* show you!

The yarn arrived for my other commission piece (aka secret project 2) last week as well. It’s been spun in the grease and smells wonderfully sheepy! I’m really looking forward to getting started with that, but again it will something that I can’t share with you until next June and that feels like a very long way away at the moment!

Audrey2 is behaving well and I got a beautiful loaf on Friday – I’m hoping for a repeat performance later on today.

A malted sourdough boule sits on greaseproof paper. In the background is an earthenware salt pot.

And I even spent an hour in the garden this morning, clearing the vegetable patch of weeds and spent plants!

That’s all from me for today. Stay safe and I hope you are able to do some things that make you happy this week. K x

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The Hills are Alive

My plan to weave in a section of yarn ends on my advent sweater (Serenity by Joji Locatelli) each day worked a treat. I seriously underestimated how many there were; I’d forgotten that as I had worked each colour from the top over the back and each side of the front, several colours had six ends not two. It turned out that there were over 80 in total! However, I did a sleeve’s worth and so on and the ends were soon completed. It is such a gorgeous sweater to wear and the yarn is so very soft.

We took this picture on Sunday, during what we call our ‘country walk’. We are so lucky that we can get onto lanes like this within a kilometre or so of our front door. The main pic of today’s post is the view of Moel Famau, to the left of where we were standing.

A woman wearing a hand-knit sweater and a linen dress stands with her back to the camera and her hands in her pockets in a country lane. It is a sunny day and the jewel colours of the sweater almost glow.

Last week I asked you to keep your fingers crossed for me regarding a submission I’d sent, that I was due to hear back about by Friday. Well, it worked! I had an acceptance email on Wednesday morning!! Since then, I’ve been grading the pattern (10 sizes for this one) and starting to write it up and I am now waiting eagerly for the yarn to arrive in the post.

Can you believe that my flowers from last week are still going strong? The yellow roses have opened up and become all frilly on the edges and the deep red carnations are a lovely contrast.

My Fiery Dragon Skin Cowl is done and very cosy in my hand-spun yarn. I still have to pinch myself a bit that I only started learning to spin this time last year and I am making yarn I can use when knitting up my own designs. That disbelief is going to get to a whole new level once I have finished a project with yarn from Doris, isn’t it?!

A hand-knit cowl in hand-spun shades of blue, green and greeny-gold wool is on a mannequin covered with black fabric. A cream wall is reflected in the mirrored door behind.

In the meantime, here is my current spinning, some Southdown fibre, from Hilltop Cloud. The two bobbins are intended to have stripes of different sizes as I am attempted fractal spinning; you split the fibre lengthways, then one half lengthways again and then one of those lengthways again. The horizontal finished bobbin contains the singles spun from the fibre that was split more often and the bobbin still on the wheel is being spun with the other half of the fibre, so there are much longer stretches of colour.

A close-up of a bobbin in progress on the spinning wheel, with the other bobbin balanced horizontally above it to show the contrast. The wheel treadles and rest of the background are out of focus.

As I’m waiting for yarn to arrive for two commissions at the moment, I decided to cast on something small in the mean time. I posted about this sock on social media the other day and I’m pleased with how it’s coming along. It did take me a while to adapt to using the KnitPro single 25cm long circular needle, especially trying to work out which hand the shorter needle tip felt best in, but it’s feeling more natural now. That’s a 2mm needle in the pic with 80 stitches per round. I did once have 2mm bamboo needles, but they did not last very long. Sue likes her socks knit to a tight gauge – it makes them last better – and bamboo just snapped in my hands. The stripy yarn is fabulous isn’t it? This is Zandra’s Rainbow, one of the Zandra Rhodes colourways on their Signature 4-ply yarn for West Yorkshire Spinners.

A brightly coloured stripy sock in progress sits on a wooden desk in front of its ball of yarn. The yarn is pink, yellow, dark blue, maroon, scarlet and olive green.

I have spent several hours on the embroidery so far. You can see progress from last week, but no sense of the image yet. But this is only working from the central page of nine…

A close-up image of a very small scale embroidery in progress. The fabric is a cream coloured linen with black, dark brown, grey and green threads. Bright red threads mark the central lines of the design.

There has been slightly less baking than I would have liked recently, but Audrey2 is waking up again after a short time in the fridge. Hopefully I will be making another loaf in the next couple of days. I was feeling more than a bit off-colour yesterday, so there was definitely no baking, or much activity at all!

That’s all from me for today. I hope you all stay safe, stay well and do what makes you happy. K x

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Yellow Roses

Do you like my roses and carnations? They were a gift from my lovely wife to celebrate the launch of “Of Night and Light” in Knit Now last week. After all the excitement of the magazine release last Thursday, I have been getting on with some new projects and returning to some not so new ones.

My advent sweater is dry so now I have the ends to weave in – approximately 50 of them! I might take a similar approach to the one I used to use for writing school reports; decide when I want it finished by, work out how many I need to do each day and get that day’s ‘portion’ done in the morning while the light is good in the front room. If I take next Wednesday as my deadline, then if I do about 7 each day it will be ready – that doesn’t sound half so intimidating as 50!

When I finished spinning my Merino d’Arles, dyed by Anne Murray, back in March, I knew what pattern I wanted to use it for. My Fiery Dragon Skin Cowl seemed ideal for the colours of the yarn and the fact it is very textural meant that irregularities in the yarn wouldn’t matter so much. It’s coming along really well and I am so pleased with the effect. It’s slightly thicker than the yarn I designed the pattern for originally (Painted Desert by Knitting Fever), but that’s ok. It’ll be a little warmer. This is the first time I’ve used my hand-spun yarn for a knitting project, as opposed to a swatch and it’s so satisfying.

A textural knitted cowl in progress lies on a wooden desk against a closed laptop. It is in shades of blue, green and grey-gold with a tucked slip stitch pattern. The yarn is hand-spun.

Another new project is the embroidery of Mum’s photo – I’ve actually started it! It doesn’t look like much yet and it will take a good while before the picture takes shape, but it has at least begun. The embroidery hoop is helping enormously as is the re-printed chart. The first one had 70 x 100 squares per page (4 pages) and it was just too small to keep track of with 40+ different symbols. Now the chart has 50 x 75 squares per page (9 pages) and I can actually see the symbols without them swimming about. Thumb for scale!

Cream linen fabric with red running stitches to mark the centre lines is held in a wooden embroidery hoop. There is a sprinkling of tiny dark green, brown and grey stitches on the fabric. A thumb is placed on the fabric to highlight how small the stitches are in comparison.

There are a LOT of colours involved too. I love the fact that I can use this box mum finished making recently (after starting it well over 10 years ago) to store them in:

An open dark blue fabric covered box is shown from above with a lot of skeins of embroidery thread propped inside. They are in shades of green, brown, grey and neutrals. The box is octagonal in shape and is leaning against a laptop.

The sweater design I’ve been working on for a while now has completed Back and Front sections, all written up. The sleeves have been charted with all the shaping and I’ve started writing them up. I redid the front of the round neckline with my coloured pens and graph paper and now I’m really happy with how the nine different sizes relate to each other as well as all having a pleasing curve. The really tricky part was working out the most logical way to write it out – that was yesterday’s task and fortunately was a success!

Glancing out of the window I see it is raining. Again. I’m so glad I had a walk before lunch, but it does put me off doing much in the veg patch today. Maybe it’ll be dry again later in the week. One of our tomatoes has ripened – I can see it from here! So, it was worth tying them up to get some sunlight. I think I should probably get them in soon and finish ripening them on the window sill.

Audrey2 (my sourdough starter) is getting all grown up now. I’ve made three good loaves with her (after one dodgy one and some flat-as-pancake rolls) and she’s doubling in size and then some when fed. Not wishing to be caught out with fruit flies again like I was with Audrey I have dried some starter and the shards are now safely in a jam jar should they ever be needed. When I read about drying out sourdough starter and seeing that it would take 2-3 days I thought it must be a typo since any starter left on a spoon or spatula goes rock solid so quickly, but no. It really took 3 days. Hurrah for a silicone rolling mat and pop up food cover that could be moved around as necessary.

Do you remember I said I was going to plan a new workshop last week? Well, it’s done! Great project, loads of skills and if I can complete it in one hour (taking my time and not rushing), then knitters taking the workshop will be able to complete it in two and a half. More details coming soon. It’s also given me a really rather fab idea for a kit to launch next year…!

That’s all from me for today. Stay safe and do what makes you happy, Kx

P.S. Keep your fingers crossed for me on Friday – that’s when I find out about the latest design I submitted!

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Oh my Gourd!

I have *a lot* to tell you about today – looking back over the week it hardly seems possible so much has happened in fact.

Can you believe that tomorrow will be the 1st birthday of my website going live?! I’m quite amazed at what has been achieved in that time, but also that it’s only been a year. I started writing this blog a week later and I have only missed one Tuesday (between Christmas and New Year).

Speaking of the website, I have revamped the home page and updated the Knitting Tuition pages. It may not seem like much, but I think it’s better and I’m pleased that the tuition pages are now laid out in the same way as patterns etc.

After last week’s post I started looking at what cross-stitch software is available these days. I tried out a couple of free online ones, but the result of the uploaded photo was really pixelated, even at the best resolution offered. So, I decided to spend a little money. Only a little – £30 – got me MacStitch which had some great reviews (this review also includes a discount code!) and I’ve been able to get a detailed chart from the photo I’ve chosen, along with choosing the brand and type of embroidery threads I wanted to use. Not only did this provide me with the codes for the different colours required, but having put in the thread count of the fabric I’m going to use it even gave the yardage used for each colour! To two decimal places!! I will be using far than stated less of course as I intend to work in tent stitch again, so the two embroideries make a pair. The threads are due to arrived tomorrow (and I have plenty of even-weave fabric squirrelled away in my old college ‘tuck box’). I let you know how I get on.

The photo I chose to use is of Mum when she was in her twenties. I know she had started teaching as she’s wearing the jacket that she spent half of each of her first two month’s salary on!

New coaster designs have been uploaded to my website and to Payhip. All based on the same image, but with different phrases to accompany them. The company I bought this and a couple of other rubber stamps from is an ‘angel’ company, which means you can sell items made using them with no worries over copyright. Once stamped, I carefully burn over the image with my pyrography pen, add any text and then wax the coaster, buffing it up to a sheen. It takes a steady hand!

I’ve also blocked the large version of Into the Vortex, had the finished pattern checked over by other eyes than mine, and uploaded the new pattern file to Lovecrafts, Ravelry and Payhip. This now contains both sizes of the shawl, as well as helpful tips on how to adapt the pattern towards the end if you are running low on yarn. Here you can see the original and large versions side by side to more easily compare them.

Sue has been photographing flying shawls as well – she loves doing this and the results are always amazing.

The garden continues to produce edibles – yesterday I picked another colander full of raspberries, four green courgettes and one enormous yellow one that I can’t call a courgette any longer, but it doesn’t look much like a marrow either, so it will have to just be a gourd. Oh my gourd, indeed! It’s huge and very heavy. The large marrows harvested a little while ago are keeping well. We are having another one tonight: roasted and then stuffed with last night’s bolognaise sauce, topped with breadcrumbs from my sourdough disaster loaf and baked til golden.

Yet to harvest are some blueberries, more raspberries, a few more courgettes, three apples (that’s all I can see on the tree) and, if I can get them to ripen, some tomatoes! They were hidden amongst the borage and courgette leaves, but I think if I support the plant so they get some sun, there might be a chance.

There has even been some more spinning and plying happening and the Tour de Fleece 21 BFL fibre I bought from Hilltop Cloud is now yarn! I’m very pleased with it, but it’s still damp, so photos next week. On the theme of spinning, I have mentioned on my socials that I visited Fibrehut in person last Wednesday for the first time. This was significant for me as they are the company I bought my wheel from nearly a year ago. I did buy more fibre – of course.

I have other exciting news to share with you as well – but I have to wait a little longer. All I can say for now is that October will be a celebration!

Take care everyone, and stay safe. Do what you love as much as you can. K x

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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.

A black and white headshot of a woman with silver hair lying on a rosemary bush with her hands behind her head. She is smiling and her eyes are closed and she wears a sweater with the word 'Poet' embroidered above the left breast. To the right of the headshot is her name: Sue Finch.

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

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Could It Be Magic?

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you’ve been fighting to try to make something technical work, but it won’t? For the past week I have been unable to access Microsoft 365 on my MacBook. That meant no email, no Word docs, no Excel… Basically I could do no work that involved those things, unless I could do it via my phone, which bizarrely (and thankfully) remained unaffected. It’s so strange to have a window repeated pop up to tell you there is no valid subscription for that email address when you know there is, cos it’s working fine on another device!

So last Friday I contacted Microsoft via their ‘chat support’. The person I was communicating with said there was no valid subscription showing up at their end (I explained in various ways how that could not be the case), then said it was a known issue for people who had purchased through the Apple App Store, but would be sorted out very soon and I would be notified by email when it was fixed. His other suggestion was to ring Apple, ask for a refund and re-purchase directly from them. I was reluctant to do that – it’s a family subscription and I didn’t want to risk impacting my lovely wife’s ability to access her files.

Four days later when I still couldn’t get access to my files (other than to look at them), I looked up Apple support. There are three options – online chat, give them your number and they’ll ring you or email. Well the online chat hadn’t solved my issue when I contacted Microsoft so I opted for the phone call. A friendly person asked what the problem was and asked to access my screen, for which I gave permission. Their mouse pointer was big and red so I could very easily see what they were asking me to do. I went through the same process as I have been doing for DAYS to no effect and then they asked me to try clicking on “restore previous purchases”. I was doubtful this would have any effect either as I had tried that myself too, but I was wrong! Some magic must have been woven by the wonderful Apple Support employee (though they claimed it wasn’t when I asked) because it worked!! Word, Excel and Outlook are all now fully available to me again on my MacBook – I am SO relieved.

It made me feel a bit like the pupils must have when I was teaching and their computers were misbehaving; they would ask for help, very frustrated, yet when I came over to talk them through it, all of a sudden the computer did what it was supposed to.

Another bit of magic has been the transformation of Doris’ fleece from raw fleece, to washed fleece, to spun yarn, to knitted fabric. I’ve only done a small swatch so far (using all of the little skein I’d spun) and I can tell that the areas of fabric with less twist in the yarn are much softer as it allows the wool to bloom. It’s not the most evenly spun yarn, but it’s a little swatch that I’m very proud of nonetheless and I’m already thinking about what full-scale projects I will make with it.

The large version of Into the Vortex is coming on and will be finished by the end of the week (yay!). Now that I can use Word again I’ll be able to type up this version of the pattern, get it checked through and tested and then add it to the main pattern file. I posted a pic in yesterday’s subscribers’ newsletter (hurrah for Mailchimp) and also showed them some sneak previews of some new coasters!

Now, since it’s such a beautiful day outside, I think I’m going to take my journal and knitting outside and sit on the patio (under the sunshade) and finish the final part of the shawl.

I hope you get some time this week to stop and rest – and maybe even experience a few things that might just be magic!

Take care and keep knitting, K x

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Three Shelves Full

Just a short one today, though lots has happened in the week (and I did manage to avoid falling over again!).

Doris’ fleece is now clean and drying. I posted about the cleaning process yesterday on social media, so for now, here is a photo of the final drying stage; on a heated airer, with tea towels between the fleece and the bars. The heat was only on for about an hour and a half and it made a big difference. It’ll stay there now til tomorrow.

Creamy-white sheep fleece lies drying on a three-tier heated airer in the kitchen. It is sandwiched between the fridge-freezer and the oven. Tea towels poke out between the fleece and the bars of the airer.

Audrey, my sourdough starter, had a disaster. This morning I found a fruit fly in the sealed jar… So, she has had to go away. Sadly I hadn’t got any dried starter as back-up so I shall have to start again from the beginning – Audrey is gone, long live Audrey 2!

The full fancy version of Into the Vortex was published on Friday and the large version of Into the Vortex is coming on nicely – so far there’s an altered Part Seven and a brand new Part Eight.

Four images of Into the Vortex shawl posed on Desdemona the mannequin show some of the wearing possibilities. One uses a shawl pin (bottom left), another has the small pointed end draped over the left shoulder (top right), a third has the point of the wide end draped over the right shoulder (bottom right)and the fourth is worn more like a scarf with the shawl bunched up more on the shoulders (top left). Images taken on a sunny day on the patio by the brick garage wall.

Part Nine will be coming into being this evening. I’m hoping there will be enough yarn for 11 parts in total, but we shall have to wait and see. There are currently 165 stitches on the needle and it’s amazing how much extra yarn one stitch extra every other row takes up over a section.

165 stitches sounds like nothing though compared to the i-cord bind-off for the Brioche + Mystery Shawl by Suzanne Sommer (Sosuknits) – there were over 1000 for that once I’d picked up along the top edge! It does look splendid, even before blocking. I’m hoping to block it before the end of the week. The gorgeous mixture of 4-ply yarns are: Artist’s Palette Yarns’ Smoothie Sock in Ocean Sky (light blue) (no link as they paused trading in 2019), Lottie Knits‘ Little Bird Sock in Nightshade (dark blue/purple), The Knitting Goddess‘ Britsock in Blackened Yellow (olive green-ish) and Triskelion Yarn‘s Elen Sock in Freo (magenta). The yarns all played very nicely together!

A close-up of a shawl worked in a mixture of garter stitch, two colour brioche, bobbles and an i-cord edging. The four yarn colours are combined in different ways to create a variety of effects.

Tomorrow will be a busy day – it’s price rise day for my knitting patterns! That means I will need to go through 42 of my 46 published patterns on three platforms and here on my website and alter the price for each of them. If you’re canny and you have your eye on a pattern, you might beat me to it. There’s nothing as fancy as automation here, it’s all done by me, one at a time. Remember you can get an on-going discount code (for ALL purchases, not just patterns) exclusive to subscribers by signing up to my monthly newsletter; the next one is coming out on Monday 6th September.

That’s all for today. Stay safe and keep knitting, K x

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It’s Too Darn Hot!

I made it to my mum’s! It’s only the second time I’ve seen her since last September and I brought a homemade loaf with me which has almost been finished already. The air-con in the car was very pleasant during the journey so I didn’t notice the effects of the 29 degree heat until I arrived and got out of the car. And it carried on getting hotter. By yesterday afternoon the temperature gauge in the garage was reading over 34 degrees!!

We knew it was going to be hot while I was here, so at the weekend Mum had sensibly suggested that I didn’t made chutney in the middle of a heatwave. I’ve got the ‘store cupboard’ elements and jars at home, she is handing over the very enormous and beautiful cooking apples and garlic that she’d got in for me to take back. We both have the same preserves book:

Front cover of Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1968 (12th edition)

Mine is about 50 years younger than hers, but it’s still in print because it’s brilliant) and so she went through the recipe with me, pointing out what could easily be tweaked and adding more info to that given in the ‘method’; “Until required consistency is achieved” is a little vague for me, but Mum said that it can take ‘a while’, but it won’t reach a setting point like jam or marmalade and as long as it blobs off the spoon in the same way as you’d like it to land on your plate then it’s done.

So, instead of sweltering in the kitchen I had a potter round the garden this morning – it’s amazing. You see that Paper Bark Tree (Acer grisium) – the really tall one? She grew that from seed. I know!

A photo of my mum's garden showing the Acer grisium that she grew from seed.

I’ve also helped sort through a few bits and pieces and swapped the handspun yarn that Mum chose on my last visit for the much softer Polwarth. Although she’d really liked the changing colours of the first yarn (that WAS my first yarn off my wheel if you remember) it had too many over-spun sections to create a soft enough fabric when knitted. This one definitely has the seal of approval.

A handspun skein of Polwarth wool in shades on blue and sea-green on a white window-sill.

My own knitting that I’ve brought with me is the Brioche + Mystery by Suzanne Sommer. I’ve got all four colours in play now and I’m very much enjoying it.

A close-up photo of Brioche +Mystery in progress. Dark purple and light blue fill most of the image, with olive green and magenta stripes outside it.

My own MKAL, Into the Vortex is nearly at the halfway point (that was quick!) and Part Three spoilers will be published on Thursday. For now, here is Part Two.

Parts One and Two of Into the Vortex MKAL on a dark wooden table.

Both the yarns are by Riverknits, the first one (shown last week) is Chimera and the dark blue is Nene 4-ply. Both gorgeous yarns to work with.

The courgettes were gorgeous by the way – as was the gooseberry crumble. The blackcurrants and redcurrants will definitely be picked once I’m home – possibly a very early morning or late evening job if this heat keeps up.

Stay safe, stay hydrated and treat yourselves gently, Kx

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On My Own

It’s amazing how quickly you adjust to new routines, isn’t it? Having initially found it very strange NOT to be on my own during the day, now that my lovely wife’s self-isolation is over (all negative tests too thankfully) and she is back at work today, I now feel a bit like I’m bouncing around an empty house.

Into the Vortex MKAL is still going well – Part Two is out and I love seeing people enjoying it and sharing their progress. If you’re knitting along with us remember to share your pics (with a spoiler warning ideally) on social media using the hashtags #kathandrewsdesigns & #yomkal. Here’s Part One as completed in Riverknits Chimera:

I had jab number two (Astra-Zeneca) this morning (YAY! If you haven’t had yours yet, please do as soon as you can) and, of course, I took my knitting along again. They had opened the centre up to walk-ins as well as appointments from today and the queue was enormous – right to the very end of the car park. I had enough time before reaching the door (45 minutes) to slowly knit 20 rounds on the second sock. I’m now almost at the toe, which should mean that Sue gets a new pair of socks to come home to tonight. So far, I just have a sore arm so, on the basis that the same side effects as after the first jab might creep up on me, I’m getting as much done as I can while I can!

Last week I went out to check the courgettes and promised to let you know how they are doing. There are five plants and I saw two courgettes growing well with lots of flowers on the other plants. Maybe we’ll be able to harvest some at the weekend. I had managed to rescue a pumpkin plant from the snails/slugs that had eaten all the other seedlings and get it into the ground, but that has now gone the same way as the others. Half the gooseberries were picked on Sunday and there will be crumble tonight. Yum!

The blackcurrants can be harvested soon – and there might even be a few redcurrants left by the time they ripen as long as the pigeons leave us some. There are also some broad bean plants that are rather on the bonsai side and some purple mange tout plants and a couple of tomatoes. Nothing seems to be getting very big this year – apart from the raspberry canes which are suddenly about 6-7 feet tall! And the potatoes growing in the sacks. It must be all this rain.

I’ve been spinning every day so far this month and my latest yarn is lovely, though I’m still not sure I’m getting enough twist into the ply. 200g of Blue-faced Leicester from Fibrehut in Purple Rain.

I’m not exactly doing the Tour de Fleece, but seeing other people’s posts online has certainly been encouraging. Next up will be one of the lovely braids I got from Hilltop Cloud.

This time next week I *should* be at my Mum’s, making chutney. With any luck I’ll be able to write my blog as usual from there and will share how it goes!

Stay safe, wear a mask, and keep knitting, Kx

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Behind the Screen

The past few days have been somewhat heavy on computer work with understandably less time available for engaging in the fibre side of fibre arts.

I have finished updating the layout of my website! I am so much happier with how it looks now and each pattern and kit has its own page rather than being a major scroll-fest. This means I have created something like 60+ new pages, but they have a clear and consistent appearance (hurrah for WordPress’ reusable blocks) and it means I can add more photos to each pattern so people can see items from different angles etc.

This is what the main pattern page looks like now, with all patterns organised by type:

Once you click on one of the category images you see the individual patterns within:

And clicking on the pattern image gives you the detailed info about it:

The website update also means that when I finally take the plunge and add a shopping cart, it’s set up in a much better manner ready for that. For now, though, the buttons still take you to my Payhip store. Adding a shopping cart is one of those chicken and egg type situations. It costs more and you need to be on a higher level plan, so do you a) wait for your sales to increase to be able to justify the increased cost or b) do it anyway in the hope that people being able to buy directly from the website will in itself increase sales? Decisions, decisions.

Did you see the sneaky way I also showed you my latest pattern release just there? That’s right, Angel of the North is out and about in the world 😊 You can get the pattern from Payhip, Lovecrafts or Ravelry (the usual eye strain/vision difficulty warnings apply to ravelry – and their current homepage image is REALLY bright!) and one lovely knitter has already purchased it.

So, that just leaves the launch of Into the Vortex at the end of next week – a 7 part MKAL to keep you going through the summer. I guarantee it’s not something that you’ll be melting under while you knit if the weather is hot. You can buy the ‘pattern’ now – what you’ll get at this stage is the info about what you’ll need etc and then pattern updates will be released to you each Friday.

I have started spinning some new fibre – some beautiful BFL (Blue-face Leicester – that’s a sheep breed), dyed by Fibrehut in gorgeously subtle shades of blue/lavender. It’s called Purple Rain. Fibrehut is the company I bought my wheel from and, even though they are only a few miles away from my mum’s I haven’t yet been there in person. Because, well, Covid. I hope to go there soon though, on one of my upcoming visits to see Mum.

I have also been working on a sock for Sue – don’t worry, she will get two eventually! I’ll post pics of progress of this next week.

While I’ve been doing all this, the audiobooks that have been keeping me company have been more Terry Pratchett (Making Money, Going Postal) and Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code. The latter author has me cringing with his descriptions of the (rare) female characters in comparison to the male ones, but it was interesting this morning to hear that one of the reasons women had been burnt as witches was for the ‘heretical easing of childbirth pains’. I have no idea if this is accurate or not, but it was an uncanny link to an awful lot of what I have read lately about the current lack of pain relief used for women’s medical procedures.

On that cheery note I shall leave you for today! I have a schematic to draw.

Stay safe, use sunscreen if you’re out and about, and do more of what makes you happy, K x