Tag: Stitching

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The Longest Night of the Year

It’s not quite the longest night yet, but it’s close. If you haven’t heard the Mary Chapin Carpenter song of this name, I highly recommend a listen. Here’s a link to it! This morning it was still quite dark at about 8.30am, but now the sun is shining on the garden and I can even see some substantial patches of blue sky.

My plan of doing a 30 mins of embroidery at a time, rather than aiming to complete a set amount seems to be paying dividends. Although my December aim of spending 30 minutes every day either spinning or stitching hasn’t been achieved, I can definitely see progress in the picture on the right, compared with the one on the left taken two weeks ago. Slow and steady will get me there!

Yesterday morning I took part in a video discussion panel along with two other designers, Woolly Wormhead who is a Hat Architect, and Leela Francombe of Leela Mary Knits who specialises in brioche shawls. Sadly Little Seal Designs was unwell and unable to join us. This Zoom event was part of the Fasten Off Yarn-a-Long and was one of several that are taking place during December.

We were asked lots of questions that we each answered in turn about our designing, and how we came to be in this business and it was a really interesting and fun hour.

9am on a Monday morning (as it was in the UK – it was 8pm for Leela in Australia and 10am for Woolly in Italy) may not have been the time that most people would be available to log in and join us, but never fear! The discussion panels are all recorded and uploaded to YouTube, so you have the chance to watch it whenever you have the time. Ours is not there yet, but it will be soon. You may even get some sneak peeks at upcoming designs! All the discussions from previous years are there too, with a wide range of knitting and crochet designers talking about their work, so it’s worth a look.

Last Wednesday I decided to learn a new-to-me technique – working colour work brioche cables! If this sounds like a brain-bender to you then you are correct, but I jumped in (like I do) and got myself a copy of Dulcify by Synaptic Stitches, which is a great looking hat pattern, found some appropriate yarn in my sport-weight yarn box and cast on.

Last night I finished it! The crown did get quite tricky, managing the three yarns and DPNs as the stitch count got smaller and smaller, but I did it and the resulting hat is very cosy. Because of the stranding of the cable colours, you don’t end up with a reversible fabric as you do with regular two colour brioche, but the stranding helps maintain the structure of the hat and stops it getting too baggy or stretchy.

Hat selfies are not my strong point, but this gives you a good idea of what my version of Dulcify looks like:

I will definitely try this technique again in the future! I’m quite tempted by the Banneton pattern by the same designer and I like her ‘pay what works for you’ model with coupon codes right there on the pattern page to give 15%, 25% or 50% off the list price. Two colours of yarn only are used in Banneton, along with some intricate cabling.

If you’re on ‘the socials’ you may have noticed that I joined Threads a couple of days ago. It seems like a friendly and chatty place! If you’re on there, feel free to say hi and/or follow me.

Last week I told you about some of the 7 (!) yarn shows I’ll be at next year. I’ve now started thinking about how my design work is going to map out in 2024, and which of the calls for submission that have recently come through I will submit ideas to.

Currently I have a design coming out in May with Knit Now, and I also will be working on another shawl using McIntosh yarn. I’m hoping to have some more work published with The Knitter too.

As you know, I’m also working on the adult version of Honeybun, which I need to finish and get tech edited. I’ll have the rights return to me of four other designs which I’ll then be able to publish myself.

I want to work on some more options for Bargello Aurora – creating a cowl and a vertically knit scarf. Although a knitter could create these from the pattern as it is, it does help folk if there is a sample they can see to show them what the finished item will actually look like, along with precise instructions! So that’s quite a few things already (even the patterns that are coming back to me will require a certain amount of work to get them into my own pattern style, possibly with new photography) and I’ve got lots of other ideas floating around in my head! I think the best plan will be to write it all out in my new journal – I may even need to park some plans until 2025!!

This is my last blog post for 2023 – I’ll be back on January 2nd to tell you all about the exciting exhibition in Oswestry that I’m taking part in next month. In the meantime, I hope you have a good Christmas/Yule/Solstice, however you celebrate it, hold your loved ones close and I’ll see you on the other side. K x

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It’s All Happening

The Honeybun sleeves are cast-on and growing!

I finally cast them on yesterday, having decided that the calculations are now good, certainly up to the armholes. I’ve decided to knit them both at the same time, which creates a bit of a yarn tangle at times when the contrast colours are being used, but it should be much more manageable once I get the last one of those done, and I’m back to just one ball of yarn per sleeve. If you knit garments, how do you approach sleeves? Do you knit them one at a time or tackle them both together?

The second half of our Twisted workshop last Thursday went really well – and at least one of the knitters has a completed moebius brioche cowl!

Many thanks as always to Anne at Yarn O’clock for hosting us and keeping everyone well supplied with hot drinks and biscuits.The pattern for Twisted will be available next Monday – yay! – and that means there will be discount heading its way to newsletter subscribers. If you’re not yet a newsletter subscriber but you’d like a 25% discount code for this pattern, you can sign up here:

The pattern will include a link to a really excellent video of a moebius cast-on by the amazing Cat Bordhi, which will be a great help to those unfamiliar with this technique.

The latest issue of The Knitter (196) came out last Wednesday and Part 3 of Barragán, my KAL shawl design, is in it. I’ve been keeping up with my daily progress on this and posting pics on my Instagram and Facebook stories, but for those of you not on those platforms, it’s currently looking like this (with a few extra rows worked since this photo was taken):

Once I finish the “Diamond Fantasia” pattern on this side of the shawl I cast off, rotate the shawl and work the same section again at the other end. This is how I managed to keep the shawl symmetrical, even though it was a rectangle with 4 parts to the pattern, each of which needed to be different!

I’ve finished the first sock of this pair of Bodelwyddan socks and I’m enjoying how the colours change in the yarn.

I thought it would just be a long repeating stripe, but it seems to slowly bounce back and forth between the two main shades of purple and teal. It’s a Zauberball yarn with the colour way name of “Smoking Area”. I’m not 100% convinced the length is correct, so I won’t weave the toe yarn end in yet until it’s been tried on for size by its recipient.

The Fasten Off Yarn-along is going well – there are posts and activities on most social media platforms and bingo cards you can complete, with a choice depending on whether you want to try out lots of different patterns or focus on one:

This is the third year I’ve taken part and there’s such a lovely atmosphere of folk supporting and raising up other designers and sharing gems they find. There are 96 designers taking part this year, all of whom have patterns available somewhere other than Ravelry and while the event as a whole goes on until New Year’s Even, the pattern sale continues until the end of Friday 8th December (American Eastern Time – which is pretty much Saturday morning here in the UK). You can get 25% off a vast swathe of the designers’ patterns by using the event code “FO2023”. For me that code works on Payhip and on Ravelry and it applies to all my self-published single patterns. Head to the Fasten Off YAL website to check out all the details – the patterns are even searchable this year.

There’s been some more embroidery happening too. Can you see a difference in the bottom left part?

The next few days have quite a few events taking place – I’m teaching a workshop on cable knitting tomorrow at Shaz’s Shabby Chic in Buckley, then my lovely wife and I have a stall at a school Christmas Fair on Thursday.

On Saturday it’s the Buckley Christmas Market in the shopping precinct where I shall be wearing two (metaphorical) hats! I shall have a stall, where my lovely wife will also have her cards, calendars and poetry collection, AND I shall be leading our little community choir in singing Christmas songs. Do come along if you can – the event runs from 9am until 4pm. Buckley Town Band will be playing too – and they are great!

So, as you can see there is a lot happening. And on Sunday just gone (Advent Sunday) I sang at the Advent carol service at St Mary Without-the-Walls Handbridge. It’s been so good to get back to singing again, and to feel that I can trust my voice once more. It really can be a case of ‘use it or lose it’ and I’m going to be singing there as much as my other commitments allow. There were some other additional people drafted in for this service and it was good to see some friendly faces from my previous life as a music teacher – some of whom I haven’t seen since I left the classroom in 2018!

And as it’s now Advent, the tree is up!

That’s all for now. I’ll be updating my “Where I’ll Be” page later on so you can see some of the exciting things lined up for 2024! Take care one and all, K x

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Getting Organised

Yesterday I woke up with a light bulb idea. My study (smallest bedroom) has been more and more difficult to keep tidy, partly because some of the boxes I need fairly regular access to were awkwardly positioned and so was some of the shelving.

I thought that if I swapped one of the wooden bookcases with one of the sets of metal shelving many of these issues would be solved. And they were, but getting to that point took a lot of shifting of ‘stuff’; moving everything off one set of shelves and then moving the shelves (all to elsewhere in our bungalow). Then taking everything off the bookcase I was moving (including unplugging and relocating the wifi hub), moving that bookcase, cleaning and hoovering all the spaces revealed in the process and finally, putting everything back together in its new positions.

I’ve only permanently moved one thing elsewhere and disposed of two other smaller items, but it feels much better and I can actually get to my swatches box and all my yarn boxes without having to shift a ton of other stuff first!

It’s not my most ‘instagrammable’ photo, but it’s organised and will really help me keep the rest of the room tidier. The metal shelving on the left was where the wooden bookcase on the right now is.

I was also very grateful that my lovely wife refrained from reminding me she had suggested this set-up when I first bought the second set of metal shelving, until after all the moving, cleaning and reloading of shelves was finished.

We’re halfway through November now, and I took a look at my ‘want to do’ list for the month this morning. It seems that nothing has been checked off! Two of the things are ongoing daily ones (stay hydrated and walk 3km per day), so they won’t be ticked until the end of the month, but I was surprised that nothing else has been either. But then I remembered that I started the month with a terrible cold that lingered to the end of the first week, and I also checked my other list of ‘need to do’ things and saw that the majority of those have been achieved.

I have had to add an item to the ‘need to do’ list as well – get the front passenger car door fixed. Last Friday it decided to stop opening, even though the car was not locked. And, of course, it was raining. Sue is now having to travel in the back until next week when I have an appointment to see if the clever car people can fix it. Perhaps I should start practising ‘taxi’ style conversations?

On the knitting side I have nearly completed the magazine piece I am working on – it will be published in May next year (so I can’t show it to you, but it’s very pretty and in three colours of cotton).

Part 2 of Barragán Shawl – the knitalong shawl being published by The Knitter – will be finished tomorrow. Part 3 will be out in the next issue on November 29th. The stitches on the bottom left are live stitches on a silicon stitch holder cord – Part 3 will be worked off both sides of the shawl, just as Part 2 has been.

I am knitting another pair of Bodelwyddan socks. These are a Zauberball yarn, but have a much longer colour repeat than others I’ve used. I rather like it! I’m hoping I’ll be able to work it so the second sock matches the first more or less in colour, starting with grey to teal and ending with pink on the foot.

…and Sue’s socks have seen a little progress too – these are on my ‘want to do’ list. The trouble is “Knit Sue’s socks” is rather vague. I should have carried on with the SMART targets and specified something like ‘Complete one sock’.

I haven’t done any more on my adult version of Honeybun in the past week or so, but I’ll return to that tomorrow.

For the past several months my embroidery of Mum’s photo has been on my list of things to do, but it has lain untouched. I’m trying to work out why. I know I will be pleased with it when it is finally done – I just need to work out what is stopping me and how to get past it. I’ve put so much time into the embroidery that I don’t want to just abandon it, but it is incredibly tiny and I think I used too many colours when I converted the photo into a chart, so it’s quite hard to follow. I might ask Sue to practice her coaching skills on me for this one!

On Sunday I sang in a service for the first time in years. I really enjoyed it and everyone was really friendly and welcoming – and we all coped well with the semi darkness as there was a total power cut of half the street just before the service! I’ll be singing in their advent carol service as well on Sunday 3rd December. It’s at 6.30pm at St Mary Without-the-Walls, Handbridge, Chester, if anyone fancies coming. The ‘Without-the-Walls’ part of the name doesn’t mean the church has no walls, just that it’s outside (without as opposed to within) the city walls.

There are still a couple of spaces available in the Twisted workshop at Yarn O’clock. Part One is this Thursday (16th) and Part Two is November 30th. Full details can be found here. You can see all three versions of the cowl layered up on Dolly the dress form in the picture of the ‘great reorganisation’.

That’s all from me today. Stay warm and dry and out of the wind if you can, and I hope you can do some stuff that makes you happy. Kx

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One Stitch at a Time


Well, it’s been quite a week. Lichfield came out in The Knitter last Thursday and I’ve had some lovely comments about it.

Lichfield Cathedral close-up.

I’m coming to the finishing stages of my Treasure Chest Socks design. The largest size is being added and knitted and I’m working my way through the gusset decreases currently. That will be out in October.

I do need a name for this design still. With some designs the name actually comes first because of the inspiration (as with Lichfield), but with others it’s one of the last things to do. I might even ask for suggestions…!

Tomorrow sees the halfway point of my Summer KAL. There’s another Zoom – this one is a knit and knatter, 12th July, 7.30-9pm BST, and just as before, the tickets are available online for free with a £3 paid option should the mood take you that way. If you’re knitting something of mine and you’d like to join us it would be wonderful to see you there.

I’m more than halfway through my Marianne Half Hap (my SummerKAL project), though I always forget how long a knitted on edging can take. There are some super fine sections in this second skein of yarn so I will need to be extremely careful when blocking it. I don’t want any nasty popping or snapping of yarn to occur!

I’ve also realised that it’s only five and a half weeks until the Pop-Up Wool Show in Port Sunlight. That means there are spreadsheets to sort out, patterns to print, kits to put together and wood to sand, oil and burn.

I picked the redcurrants! Well, most of them. After the fourth massively overloaded colander went into the sink I decided the birds could have the rest. The netting is now just on the blackcurrants which are waiting patiently for their turn.

I think I got about 10lbs of fruit, after pulling the berries off the stalks. I was going to freeze it all, but there just wasn’t room in the freezer for that much, so I turned 6lb of berries into jelly and the rest is frozen.

I’m doing quite well with my plans for this month so far. I finished reading Melmoth. I have also finished spinning the singles of the Polwarth dyed by Velvet Sixpence and I shall ply it once I get back home.

I’ve spun the whole braid onto one bobbin (didn’t plan ahead), and, as I want a two ply yarn, I think I shall bracelet ply it, which means I will need to ply the whole thing in one go.

I finally did some embroidery. I realised that my plan of completing two 10 x 10 squares of the chart in a month was a little unambitious. At that rate I will still be stitching this piece in 2045! So I have completed 6 squares of the chart and I’m going to finish the whole of the bottom row this month as well if I can.

Even if I complete one whole row of 10 x 10 squares per month that will still take until about Christmas 2024. Crikey.

I’m at Mum’s again for a few days and she has completed the bag for me that was originally supposed to be a folder cover. It’s really rather amazing. I’m going to add a couple of magnetic closures to the inside top.

There were two partly completed folder covers and Mum wrote out the instructions for me to do the other one!

I also was allowed to have a look through one of her fabric boxes and choose some fabric to take home – there will be lots more sewing in my future!

Do you ever feel you have more things you want to do than there is time to do them in? I do, but I’m finally realising that I can only do is what I can, one stitch at a time.

Take care one and all. Have a good week and do some 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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Winter Winds

A middle aged white woman with vibrant blue hair and a purple coat stands on Llandudno Pier with the Great Orme and the sea in the background. Round her neck is a hand knitted shawl, wrapped like a scarf, in bands of gradient turquoise garter stitch and cream garter stitch lace. Her hair is being blown all around by the wind.

We went to Llandudno on Sunday. Our main mission was to photograph Llandudno Promenade. on the pier and also on the promenade. Sue even lay down on the slipway to photograph the shawl flying as I threw it in the air above her. We hadn’t banked on it being *quite* so windy and cold, but we had a lot of fun. We also managed to get lunch at The Cottage Loaf which warmed us up a treat afterwards!

The shaw pattern is now with my tech editor and it should be having a relaunch in the second half of February.

Part Two of Am Byth MKAL was released on Friday and the photo below shows you Part One and a little bit more. I even did a little video to help folk with the 1-5 increase that is used during Part Two. If you are joining in with the MKAL and want some help with that, head to my Free Video Tutorials pages.

Two typos were discovered in the Special Stitches section (not the pattern itself, just the explanation of two of the cables) of Am Byth MKAL Part Two. It’s really annoying when these slip through, but it’s been corrected and the new version has been sent out to all those who signed up for email updates. If you missed it, the instructions affected are 2/2 RPC and 2/1 RPC which had the knits and purls the wrong way round (doh!). They should read as follows:

  • 2/2 RPC          Sl 2 sts to CN and hold at back, k2, p2 from CN
  • 2/1 RPC          Sl 1 st to CN and hold at back, k2, p1 from CN

Do keep sharing progress if you are knitting along with us using the hashtags #AmBythMKAL and #Yomkal.

Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple of hours at Caffi isa, having a cup of tea (which turned into two!) and working on one of my current projects. The time spent away from other distractions was clearly helpful as last night I cast the shawl off and I blocked it this morning! This is Petulia, the third of my shawl designs for RiverKnits. As you can see it’s two colour brioche knitting and it has THE best shape – it’s just SO funky. The lighter coloured yarn is Chimera and the darker yarn is Nene 4-ply – both of which are fabulous yarns to work with.

I’m working on the chart now – brioche charts are always fun – and I’m thinking of including the sketch I used to work from as well as the chart and the written pattern. It’s a little bit like the idea of Stitchmaps, but simplified even more to give just the details of the movement of lines on the right side/light coloured rows (increases, decreases etc).

Keep an eye out for Petulia, as this shawl will hopefully be coming out in the next few months (once the charts, pattern, tech editing and photography are done).

The reason for my being at Caffi isa yesterday was so that anyone who was interested in Knitting for Beginners classes could come and have a chat with me or even have a mini taster session to see if they were interested. Actually, the one person who did come (hi Bev!) wanted to ask advice about picking up for thumbs on mitts and gloves. She’d seen my announcement that I’d be there on social media and thought she’d see if I had a spare five minutes. Well, I certainly did! Hence the second cup of tea and a lovely chat. I’m hoping to get some bookings in the next couple of days, otherwise I’ll probably need to postpone. Anyone can book a place by emailing me at kathandrewsdesigns@icloud.com or sending me a message on Facebook or Instagram.

My Sealy MacWheely fibre is now fully fledged yarn, skeined, washed and dried. I think it looks fantastic, even though there are occasional places in the yarn where the ply isn’t quite as even as you might wish for – but it is hand-spun, so it’s not meant to look the same as commercially spun yarn, is it?

Now I just need to decide which fibre I’m going to spin next!

I know I showed you this embroidery last week, but I’ve actually managed to make quite a lot of progress with it and have found the right angle for the photograph to show the stitches I’ve been doing! I’ve been working on the white and very pale beige stitches (beige currently on the needle here). If it wasn’t for the daylight magnifying lamp I wouldn’t have a hope, but these colours are (whisper it) nearly done and it *should* be a little bit easier with darker/brighter threads.

I shall be taking this with me tomorrow to Mum’s so she can see it in person, along with the current issue of The Knitter (my design is on the cover, did I mention that!?), and my Am Byth. I should probably take my socks in progress too as they are not going to finish themselves! I’m only there until Friday and there will be a lot of other things to do, but I don’t want to get caught out again like I was that other time, when I only took one project and finished it the first evening I was there!

I also made blackcurrant jam this week – but I forgot to photograph it. It’s VERY good, even though the blackcurrants had been in the freezer since July 2021…

Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Take care, stay warm and do some stuff that makes you happy this week. K x

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Ta-da!

The most exciting news for me this week has to be the publication of The Knitter, issue 185 last Thursday. See that shawl on the cover? That’s Branwen, my design, and it’s a five part knit-along that is begin run during this and the next four issues! Part One is in this month’s magazine. It’s the top centre section of the shawl (in green). It’s a DK weight shawl, using West Yorkshire Spinners Fleece (2 skeins of cream and 3 skeins of green) and it’s sooo soft and cosy! Once I’d bought my copy of the mag in WHSmith’s I wanted to go round the town showing it to everyone and saying – look! I made that!

But not only that, this video shows you a glimpse of the (three page!) interview with lots of pics of my designs and lots about me, my designing, inspiration etc. If you ever wanted to know where it all began, this article will tell you!

Speaking of knit-alongs, this is the completed Part One of Am Byth MKAL. Also, a DK weight project, this one only uses one skein. You can see the design taking shape now, but can you work out what the project is going to be yet? All will be revealed on Friday, when Part Two is released.

I’ve had a burst of activity with my spinning in the past week. I finished spinning the braid into singles on Sunday, and today I chain plied the whole lot! The thing about chain plying is that as you are making a big loop in one hand to catch and pull the strand of yarn from the bobbin through (to form the next big loop – it’s like really fast giant finger knitting), you’re using the other hand to control the twist and your feet are working the treadles. I tend to find that the singles yarn tries to turn and twist back on itself when I’m getting going, until I get a regular rhythm going, at which point I don’t want to stop and have it all tangle up again!. This is partly because the singles are spun (twisted) in one direction and this makes the yarn unbalanced. Plying twists the yarn in the opposite direction which balances the twist and gives you a yarn that doesn’t want to turn into nightmare corkscrews.

I’m pleased with how the chain plied yarn has come out. The clear shift from one colour to the next has been maintained which I wanted, with a subtle blending of colours in places. It’s a little thicker than I was hoping for, but considering it is a 3-ply structure it’s pretty good. About a sock weight I think, but I’ll check it later once it’s been washed. I absolutely love the colours – the fibre was dyed by Sealy MacWheely.

Finally, there is some progress on mum’s picture embroidery that you can actually see! I’ve done (nearly) all of the column on the right hand side which was half a page wide (20 stitches) and three and a bit pages long (190 stitches) and I’ve made a start on the next full page width to the left. The sections where there are more colours, such as the bottom right corner, are much more interesting, but take so much more concentration – and there are about 40 different colours in that section, so it’s quite hard to keep track of as well.

I baked my first sourdough loaf of the year today as well. Audrey 2 (my starter), was living up to her name after going into semi-hibernation over Christmas, and it took a lot of feeding to get her active again! It’s a good loaf, although I dived into it for lunch before I took any pics (don’t worry, it isn’t all gone!). I shall have to remember to photograph the next one before slicing it.

There are still spaces available on my Knitting for Beginners workshops!

These are due to start on Feb 6th 1-3pm at Caffi Isa in Mynydd Isa, near Mold, Flintshire. If you or anyone you know fancies learning to knit in a small group, in a relaxed setting with access to tea/coffee and cake, contact me to book a space!

This is what we’ll be making (these are Knitting for Beginners workshops 1, 2 & 3 on my Group Workshops Tuition page):

There are also some spaces on the workshops I am giving at Yarn O’clock, but they are booking up fast! In brief they are:

  • Introduction to Socking Knitting, 16th February, 6.30-9pm
  • Stranded Colourwork, 7th March, 6.30-9pm
  • Finishing Techniques, 18th April, 6.30-9pm
  • Moebius Knitting, 18th May, 6.30-9pm

Full details are on my “Where I’ll Be” page and also on Yarn O’clock‘s website. Contact Anne to book a space on one of these.

Just before I sign off I want to tell you that I am sitting here typing this in the dark, running the laptop from the battery. There’s no problem; we’ve signed up to take part in the energy reduction trials that are happening. There was one from 5-6pm yesterday, today is 4.30-6pm. It’s amazing how many things are on or on standby all the time even when we only use them for a small part of the day. Or rather, I should say how many things were on or on standby. They’re not now – I’ve been going round unplugging stuff or switching it off at the wall! (Just like my dad – but then he used to unplug the tv aerial every night as well) The multi-sockets that each have their own switch are proving handy too. It’s also striking how much quieter the house is, which is interesting as I never really considered ‘things plugged in’ to have a noise, but I suppose they must!

Anyway, take care, stay warm. Dw i eisiau un deg un paned! (I want eleven cups of tea). Tell me what you’ve been making lately. K x

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Cymru Am Byth!

There will be no surprise I’m sure that when I chose the name of our newest MKAL I was influenced by the wonderful phrase “Cymru am byth” – Wales forever! On it’s own ‘Am Byth’ also gives a nod to some of the design features – I wonder if you can guess what they might be?

Dw i’n mwynhau dysgu Cymraeg – very much. I’m on Day 66 of my Duolingo ‘journey’ – I know that because I’m on a 66 day streak and I haven’t missed a single day since I started learning. I’m currently on Unit 8, which is the last of the ‘Intro to Welsh’ units and there has already been a noticeable increase in difficulty level! Phrases are spoken more quickly now and words are gliding into each other. I’m often very grateful to the tortoise button, which replays the phrase at a slower speed, although it does rather sound like someone speaking sarcastically slowly to the hard of thinking!

There are some words I’ve found really difficult to remember – particularly the different between the various versions of the verbs ‘did’, ‘made’ and ‘went’. The present tense is fine, but the past tense seems to have all kinds of complications! I started off the course by writing words and phrases down in my journal and those have really stuck, so my plan is to revisit the more recent lessons that had me most flummoxed and write these down as well. Sometimes writing by hand can stick in the brain more than typing – I don’t know why that is, but it seems to hold true for me when I’m trying to learn something new!

(The groovy red dragon at the top of the post is a version of a Welsh flag available from wikimedia under creative commons license, designed by NikNaks.)

Speaking of new things…

There are only three days until Am Byth MKAL is launched! You’ve still got time to buy the pattern from me or get a kit from Yarn O’clock. I’ve even recorded, subtitled and uploaded the video for the Pinwheel Cast-On. You can find it under ‘Knitting Tuition – Free Video Tutorials‘. I’ve moved things around on that page so the most recent videos are at the top as I think that makes it easier to locate the latest additions. There’s quite a collection of these short videos now.

There’s also a new page on the website! Titled “Where I’ll Be”, it lists all events and workshops I’m booked for. Two days ago, when I set up the page, there were two yarn shows listed. Now there are four workshops added as well, and there’s going to be more! I’m adding contact details and links where I can so you can go straight to the right place to book a place or a ticket.

The way it’s set up you only see one ‘event’ at a time, and you use the arrows at the right and left of the screen to move through them. I’m considering adding a calendar underneath with the same info, so you can see it all at a glance as well if you want to. Would you find that useful?

I got accepted for the yarn show I applied for last week! I really wasn’t expecting to hear back from them until after the closing date, so that was a lovely surprise. I’ll add it to the page of ‘Where I’ll Be’ once I’ve paid the invoice and it’s all confirmed.

The Safe Space cross-stitch has been stretched onto mounting board and is at the framers! He’s a busy chap, so it’s in the queue; he expects to get it framed at the end of the month. The stretching took about an hour or so and used a HUGE amount of thread! I’m showing you the back as well as the front as this work will never be seen again once framed.

Since finishing this cross-stitch and getting my magnifying lamp (I wrote about that on social media last week) I have done quite a bit on Mum’s photo embroidery. I’m not sure you can actually see much of a difference from the last time I took a pic of it (last July!), but I promise you there are at least 8 hours of stitching added in, if not more. The July 2022 pic is on the left and the January 2023 pic is on the right.

This morning I cast off the reworked Llandudno Promenade. As the pattern went on, more changes were needed, including a rewrite of the border lace as the number of stitches and rows were different from the original. The shawl will now be blocked and I’ll get the new version of the pattern written up and off to a tech editor. I’m really pleased with it, especially with how well these colours match the paintwork on Llandudno pier! You can probably see how the darker turquoise sections are shedding colour onto the cream – that’s the crocking (the excess dye rubbing off) – it *should* all just wash out when I soak it for blocking. I’ll report back next week!

That’s all for now – unbelievably it’s already 8.30pm. It looks as though the brownies I’ve been trying to make since Sunday might have to wait until tomorrow!

Take care, stay warm and do something that makes you happy this week, K x

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Roses in November

“Another unseasonable season” – a line from the song Roses in November by Tret Fure on her album Roses in November. The song is from 2018, but it sounds very current. We do have roses still – and having deadheaded the rose bushes last week some flower buds are getting ready to burst. It’s a very odd feeling going out for a walk in only a cardigan at this time of year.

There are at least three designs that I’m working on at the moment, and it’s so frustrating that I can’t share pics of these with you. But I can tell you that they are going well. I’m also hoping to get the Nevern Throw Expansion Pack up by the end of the month!

Back in 2013 I started a Beekeeper’s Quilt. This is a design by Tiny Owl Knits. Each of the hexagons is intended to be stuffed and I did indeed stuff them to start with, but I didn’t like the overall effect, so I created lots of ‘hexiflats’ instead of ‘hexipuffs’.

The idea of this blanket was to use up leftover sock yarn. I ‘finished’ the blanket in April 2014, but of course you never really run out of sock yarn leftovers, so I carried on making hexiflats and kept them in the bottom of my leftovers bag.

Last weekend we were moving the furniture around, doing a bit more of a deep clean in one corner of the lounge, partly in preparation for the great rearrangement of furniture that will come in two weeks’ time (hint: we put the tree up on Advent Sunday. Yes, it is that soon!). Having moved the bag of leftover sock yarn I thought it would be a good idea to check on the hexiflats. There were quite a lot more than I thought – 173! These hexagons are more than ready to be joined onto the blanket. The joining process is really straightforward and my plan is to get them added on this week.

Llandudno Promenade, one of my shawl designs, is having a make-over. There’s nothing wrong with the pattern, but it currently uses a yarn that is 450m/100g and the minis are 90m/20g. This isn’t the most common length for 4ply mini skeins (which is 80m/20g), so I’m re-knitting it on slightly smaller needles and will adjust the pattern where necessary so that it will work with more widely available mini skeins. I also really like the colours of the new yarn – I’m using RiverKnits’ Nene Minis Turquoise Gradient and Garthenor Organic Presseli. I think these colours match Llandudno Promenade far better as well!

My fine spinning is definitely getting more consistent – it’s not completely the same all the way through, but when it’s plied it will be a really nice yarn to knit with. This is blue faced Leicester wool dyed by Sealy MacWheely, that I bought at Wonderwool in April.

This afternoon I signed up as a designer for the Fasten Off Yarn-a-long 2022. Last year’s event was a lot of fun and I hope that this year will be even more so! FOYAL runs from 25th November until the end of December and involves lots of independent knitting and crochet designers offering 25% discount on some or all of their Off-Ravelry designs as well as lots of online social interaction. You can find out more on the Fasten Off Yarn-a-long website.

The Safe Space cross stitch is really coming along now. It’s amazing how much progress you can make when you do a bit each day (shock, horror!). There are another 9 blocks/flags to do and then the ‘Welcome’ sign in the middle with the blackwork section.

Do you remember me telling you about my embroidery floss storage? I tried to do the second drawer for my Anchor threads, but I had to re-do it last week. There were two reasons for this. Firstly this drawer is deeper than the top one and the dividers needed to be taller. I hadn’t noticed this before I made them and the fuller sections were trying to overflow onto their neighbours. Secondly, the cereal box I used just wasn’t the same quality cardboard and the dividers were floppy. It seems trivial, but it made a big difference. If you are going to try making similar drawer dividers I highly recommend the boxes that Harvest Morn Bran Flakes from Aldi come in. (The bran flakes are fantastic too and one third the price of Kellogg’s!). I used the fronts and backs only. One box was enough for the shallower top drawer but I needed three pieces of card for the deeper middle one. It’s a lovely little old chest of drawers that Mum has passed on to me and I really enjoy using it for my embroidery threads.

That’s all from me for today. The Welsh learning is continuing on Duolingo and I’m trying to use it a bit, but the thought of actually speaking to someone is scary in case they then launch into a whole conversation that I can’t follow! Anyway, here’s a true sentence about me in Welsh: Dw i ddim yn bwyta cig, ond dw i mwynhau llysiau. – I do not eat meat, but I do enjoy vegetables.

Take care one and all. Until next week, K x

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Slowly Does It

A flatfish sourdough loaf is held in the right hand above the bread board. It has been cut and the crumb (cut side) is held up to show the camera.

I’ve done three hours of knitting today and I can’t show it to you (it’s for the next MKAL!), but there are some other things making some (albeit slow) progress that I can share with you.

Over the past couple of days I’ve made my first sourdough loaf in quite a while. The dough was still very soft when it went into the fridge overnight and spread a lot when I tipped it out of the banneton this morning. It’s a little on the flat side, but nothing like the frisbees that I have been known to create in the past. And, regardless of how it looks, it tastes amazing.

I’m pleased with the crumb – not too many large holes. Next time I will try reducing the quantity of water as I think in the past that has helped create a dough that holds together more before baking. Lots of sourdough bakers keep a journal of all their bakes with details of temperature, timings and quantities of everything. I could do that, but I’m not sure I’d remember!

My sock is growing. If you remember I’m using RiverKnits Open Day 2022 Show yarn in 100% Cormo wool. It’s not a breed I’ve come across before, but it’s knitting up really nicely. I paused a little with this over the weekend as I wasn’t sure if I’d made the leg too long. I knew the answer was to try it on and if the top of the cuff was tight on my calf I would need to rip out the foot, gusset, heel turn and heel flap and a little of the leg. You can probably tell from that list that I was not keen on this option, but I knew that if the socks were tight at the top they would either sag down my legs or stay in the drawer unworn. So, I was putting off the moment of finding out. Eventually I plucked up the courage and tried it on – it fits! Phew!

I don’t often knit ‘regular’ socks for myself, but when I do I knit them top down with 80 stitches on 2.25mm needles. I do a slip stitch heel flap and reduce the foot down to either 72 or 68 stitches over the gusset. I’m hoping to finish the pair by the end of the month, but then I’ve also challenged myself to finish my ‘Safe Space’ embroidery this month as well, so we shall see – I may have been somewhat over optimistic when I set my monthly goals as I do actually need to do some work as well!

Speaking of which! The Safe Space embroidery is coming on – the big flag at the bottom left that I posted about yesterday is now more than half finished.

I was able to do some of it in front of the telly last night with the aid of my little Serious Readers lamp that came as a freebie (!) with my desk lamp. They are both great and the little one is charged by USB which has proved handy in power cuts (while the battery lasts!).

I’m going to set up a new page on the website of “Where I’ll be” as I’m doing more workshops and other events now. In the meantime, there is an Introduction to Two Colour Brioche Knitting workshop coming up on December 8th (Thursday) at Yarn O’clock that has a couple of spaces remaining. Contact Anne at Yarn O’clock if you would like to book a place.

I’m trying out Mastodon as a new social media platform and am gently finding my way around. If you are on there you can find me as @KathAndrews@toot.wales – it’s also encouraged me to have a go at learning Welsh and I’m on Day 3 of my adventures with Duolingo. So I now know how to say “Noswaith dda, Kath dw i. Sut dych chi? Dw i wedi blino!” That’s “Good evening, I’m Kath. How are you? I’m tired!”

So, as ‘dw i wedi blino’, I’m going to stop here, make dinner (bread plus curry made yesterday!), have a cup of tea and put my feet up for a little while before watching ‘quiz night’ on BBC2. Take care one and all. Hwyl! K x