Tag: Workshops

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I Get Around

I’ve got lots of exciting new things to tell you about this week – and I think the easiest way to start to do that is with a screenshot of some of my events:

I’ve already told you about East Anglia Yarn Festival (in Norwich) that is in just a few weeks time (March 15-16) – where I’ll also be teaching my Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting workshop on the Saturday (15th, 1-3pm).

Then, on April 12th I’ve got a ‘trunk show’ at Yarn O’clock where I’ll be showcasing my designs – many of which were originally designed as mystery knitalongs (MKALS) for the shop. A trunk show is a one-person event and I’m really pleased and honoured that Anne has invited me to do this, following the success of Lottieknits‘ trunk show at Yarn O’clock before Christmas.

I’m exhibiting at Wonderwool Wales (at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells) again on April 26-27, which is very exciting and I’m teaching there as well this year! I’ll be teaching moebius knitting at Wonderwool – and it’s already sold out on both days!

In May I’ll be at Buxton Wool Gathering once more (May 17-18) at Buxton Pavilion and also at a new show one day in Shrewsbury (Yarnies at the Flaxmill) on May 24th.

And then after a couple of months without yarn shows, I’ll be travelling up to Newcastle for the North East Wool Show at the racecourse on August 9-10. I’ll be teaching my brioche workshop there too on the Sunday (10th), and if you want to book a place on this workshop please contact me directly.

Exhibiting at shows and teaching a workshop is only possible because of my lovely wife Sue who comes with me and holds the stand admirably whilst I am off teaching. If you come to one of these shows and I’m not there, Sue will be and she’ll show you all the patterns and kits and help guide you to the design(s) that can meet your needs. And if there are questions that are specifically technical ones for me to answer, Sue will always be able to tell you when I am due back on the stand!

There are another 3 or 4 more large events coming up later in the year to add to this list, once applications have been accepted and exhibitor lists have been revealed by the organisers.

Plus there are more in-person workshops coming up in May. These are not attached to a yarn show and I will be teaching sock knitting and lace knitting. More on those in the coming weeks!

And there should be news on this year’s Yarn Gathering in the next month or so as well, so keep your eyes peeled!

This morning I’ve spent a good hour or so working on part of a new garment design. I want to tell you a little bit about it. There are some unusual cables in it and the number of knits and purls in the ribbing varies so that when the knitting moves from the ribbing at the bottom to the cable pattern it is an organic shift, not a sudden break into something different. However, each size has a different number of stitches in between the different cable patterns and this has meant I’ve been working out exactly how to make the ribbing as smooth and elegant as possible for each size – each one is slightly different. This affects 3-7cm width of the ribbing in two places, but it’s important and was worth spending times on because it will affect the integrity and look of the whole garment.

This is an aspect of design that was emphasised during my City and Guilds course with the wonderful Loraine MacClean. It’s not enough just to plonk a 2×2 ribbing at the bottom of a jumper, then think about the main part of the body separately and call it done. To be a truly well thought through design that works as a whole piece, the sections need to link together and, if possible, develop organically from one to the next.

And did you know that each cable pattern will have its own unique tension that is different from stocking stitch tension (number of stitches/rows per 10cm)? This is because with cabled knitting, stitches are twisted across each other which pulls the knitting in so you get more stitches per 10cm with cable patterns than you do with stocking stitch (that’s just plain knit/purl fabric) and each cable is different because there are different numbers of stitches crossing each other.

So, if there are two cable patterns and some stocking stitch, that’s three different tensions to take into consideration. And if you decide (like I did), late in the evening that you need more space between two cable panels and therefore more stocking stitch (or reverse stocking stitch) stitches, that is going to change the size of the knitting. So, to keep the sizing correct (important for a garment), the stitch counts in other sections have had to change and essentially the whole body has been re-written!

It’s a good job I like playing with numbers!

Speaking of playing, I’ve nearly finished my cardigan that I’ve been knitting from deep stash. I had three skeins of dark grey and one of each of three other colours. You may remember that I tried knitting another Manu with it (lovely cardigan designed by Kate Davies), but this wool is a really hefty DK, so the tension was completely different and also, the colours didn’t play nicely together in small stripes.

However, in this design using blocks of colour it looks fabulous!

This is the Haori cardigan from The Slow Wardrobe (where I buy most of my ready-made clothes), and I’ve been combining the two sizes, so I’ve got the large circumference and the small length. The front neck edges are the same width, they’re just rolling in a bit before it’s had a wash (aka wet blocking!) I’ve really enjoyed playing with blocks of colour and I’ve been working on both sides/sleeves together, doing a section and then repeating it on the other side so they match. I’ve done it this way to make sure I don’t run out of a colour before I get to use it on the other side/sleeve.

I also find it fascinating how the same colours can look so wrong in one combination and then so good in a different one! I’m really looking forward to finishing this and getting to wear it.

So, I’m going to knit the cuffs and then contemplate weaving in lots of yarn ends! What are you going to do this week? 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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Dw i ddim yn rhugl…

…yn Gymraeg, ond dw i’n dysgu! (I am not fluent in Welsh, but I am learning!)

Yesterday I hit a big milestone in my Duolingo progress – a 365 day streak! That means I’ve been learning Welsh for a whole year. Some days it’s only a quick 3-minute lesson, but that’s balanced with days where I focus for quite some time.

I am still really enjoying it and that is from someone who thought they weren’t that good at languages. I ‘did’ French and German at school to GCSE and got As in both, but it was never something I actually enjoyed – and I certainly wouldn’t have practised every single day for a year by choice!

But I’m motivated. I want to understand the adverts and signs around us when we’re out. I want to be able to watch S4C and listen to Radio Cymru! I want to read stories in Welsh, and continue to find relevant Welsh things for knitting inspiration and pattern names.

Living in Wales all signs and official communications are bilingual. It was quite funny when I bought my new car as my V5, being an official document, was bilingual, and the chap doing the hand-over had to keep turning it over to find the English sections.

So, I’m quite proud of my one-year achievement. It doesn’t say anything about how much I’ve learnt or how ‘rhugl’ (fluent) I’m getting, but it does say quite a bit about the importance of regular practice.

When you’re learning anything new, you need to keep doing it, over and over. That’s one of the reasons that my absolute beginner’s workshop sends knitters away with a project bag, needles, more wool and more stuffing and the pattern they’ve just used, so they can make more little creatures. If they were to just borrow the needles during the workshop and only have enough yarn to make the one creature in the workshop, they would need a lot of extra motivation to then go out and buy the materials to knit more. But if they’ve taken everything home with them and it’s right there? Making it easy for people to practice and repeat the new motions of knitting helps them to become fluent knitters. Just like Duolingo makes it easy for me to practise Welsh every day.

Tying in with this idea of practising new skills to help embed them through repetition, I’m going to be linking upcoming workshops with relevant patterns of mine. I’ll take the samples with me to the workshops along with copies of the printed patterns and talk about them on social media in the lead-up to the workshops. Some of my designs even came about as a result of developing workshops!

For example, Jodie Scarf was designed from the three slip stitch patterns I teach in my slip stitch workshop, and Small Acts came from the swatch I created for my Knitting Cables workshop.

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I had been hoping to be well enough last Thursday to teach the first part of Twisted (the 2-part moebius brioche cowl workshop at Yarn O’clock), but unfortunately my cold had other ideas, so it has all been moved back two weeks. Part 1 of Twisted is now on 16th November and Part 2 is on 30th November. So, you still have time to book if you’re interested in learning this combination of techniques (ring Anne at Yarn O’clock on 01352 218082).

This is an unusual one to tie other designs in with, as it’s the only moebius brioche or even brioche-in-the-round design I have so far, but I do have two other moebius designs which folk may well be interested in, and I have plenty of brioche designs that are worked flat!

Coming up in December I will be running my Knitting Cables workshop on Dec 6th and Introduction to Lace Knitting on Dec 13th, both at Shaz’s Shabby Chic in Buckley.

The flyers say that the skills needed for each workshop are to be able to knit, purl, cast-on and cast-off, and that really is it. Everything else is taught during the workshop. So, if you’d like to develop your knitting skills and become more fluent in the language of knitting – now’s your chance!

And, by the way – Branwen is out now as a single, self-published pattern!

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I Feel Good!

We got home from Bath this afternoon, after a few days there to celebrate my turning 50. It’s where I went for my 40th and I had such a good time (coupled with the fact that two of my old school friends lived there at the time, and one of them still does), that I wanted to go back!

Different things were done during this visit from the previous one. I had hoped to visit the Fashion Museum, but had somehow missed the fact that the Assembly Rooms, in whose basement the museum was housed, has been taken over by the National Trust and is being restored. All the clothes went into storage last December before they move to a new home! However, as part of our 12.6km walk yesterday (!), we happened across a small textile exhibition taking place in a building on Queen’s Square and enjoyed visiting that instead.

I remember visiting Wool 10 years ago. We went there again and this time we also visited A Yarn Story, at the top of Walcot Street.

Also on Walcot Street was The Yellow Shop, outside which I did my ‘lego princess’ impression.

It was a long walk between the two wool shops, but definitely worth the effort. And of course, I bagged some goodies in both shops!

1 ball of Zauberball from Wool

My old school friend who lives in Bath plays violin in the Pump Room Trio. She very kindly booked us in for Afternoon Tea (thank you Lucy!), and we got to enjoy the splendour of the Pump Room and an extraordinary vegan afternoon tea, all whilst the piano trio (piano, violin and cello – not as I once thought, three pianos) played beautiful music. There was a massive range of styles – elegant classical era pieces, the theme tune from Desert Island discs, a lovely piece of Fauré, ‘Maria’ from West Side Story, Mad World, and a rendition of Happy Birthday as two extra mini cakes were brought out – one for me and one for the other person celebrating their birthday during that sitting. We should have photographed the full spread, but we were so busy in the moment that we forgot, so I just snapped the extra (also vegan) cake:

I have to say that with spending lots of quality time with my lovely wife since Friday, our trip away to Bath (we stayed at Dorian House, which I highly recommend) and all the wonderful messages from everyone on social media, I am thoroughly enjoying being fifty. I feel good! Ronnie says he feels good too – but I’m not quite up to his level of acrobatics. This shot was taken in front of the Royal Crescent:

You may have seen that I have finished Part One of Barragán Shawl – the Knitalong being published in The Knitter.

You can still get the yarn kit as a subscription gift with the mag or order one from McIntosh (that’s an affiliate link) if you’d like to! Now, of course I do have the whole pattern already, but as I’m ‘knitting along’ I’m not going to start Part Two until the next issue of the magazine (issue 195) comes out. That should be around November 1st I think.

I’ve also been doing more sock knitting, finally returning to the sock I began for Sue a while back on the tiny tiny circular needle. I’ve decided that it’s not the best needle type for me after all, and having switched to magic loop (which I mentioned a few weeks ago) I’m now making much better progress. During the drive home I even got to the heel flap! I can’t remember what the yarn is – I bought it eons ago on eBay. I can tell you that I’m using 2mm needles, 80 sts and my usual plain top down style with a reinforced slip stitch heel.

The other knitting you might be interested in seeing this week is the progress I’ve made on the adult version of Honeybun. I’ve extended the colour work section at the bottom, so that proportionally it fills a similar amount of the body to the child’s cardigan, and I’m now heading up to the armpits. I will need another name for this pattern as it will be published separately from the original Honeybun for children, but I need them to be clearly linked by their names. Have you got any ideas? Suggestions in the comments, please!

Finally, there are still spaces available on Twisted, the two-part workshop being held at Yarn O’clock on November 2nd and 16th. Come and learn how to knit two-colour brioche in a moebius ring! £50 for the two sessions (6.30-9pm both Thursdays), including yarn to knit this cowl and the pattern which includes a larger version as well – book your place with Anne at Yarn O’clock – 01352 – 218082.

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Zip-iddy Doo Dah!

This morning I spent 3 hours at a sewing workshop run by Jo Paloma Makes at Amanda’s Fabrics in Mold. There were four of us taking the class and by the end of it we all had our own completed zipped pouch. I learnt so much during the morning and made copious notes on the handout as well as taking plenty of photos of specific stages.

I chose to make the smaller of the two size options and it’s the perfect size for a sock project or similar!

Another great thing about this size is that you can get two of the smaller bags from two fat quarters of fabric. The large size would be ideal for large scissors, pencils/brushes/projects with straight knitting needles.

Jo is a great teacher – very kind and patient – and was super helpful if any of us got stuck or just wanted to check something before we sewed or cut.

For the majority of the time we were looking at the lining fabric and sewing the corners became quite a feat of origami.

But when we turned it out through the gap we’d left it was like magic! I just couldn’t stop grinning. It’s not perfect; the seams next to the zip are not identical and the tabs aren’t exactly centred, but it was the first time I’ve made anything like this, and I shall certainly be making more – and improve my sewing with each one!

The end of the Summer KAL went well last week and the updated pattern of Marianne Half Hap Shawl (the laceweight sample of this was my KAL project) has now been published. If you have an older copy, please do download the new version.

You may remember I recently started a new sample of my Amy March Shawl using two gorgeous skeins of yarn from The Yarn Artist. It’s zooming along now – and might even be finished before the Pop-Up Wool Show on August 19th.

When you’re knitting two colour brioche, there’s a decrease called the ‘Br4st dec’ (brioche 4 stitch decrease) where you have to put the centre stitch of five onto a locking stitch marker or similar while you work on the stitches around it. I find this quite fiddly as locking stitch markers are quite small and it’s easy for the stitch (and its accompanying yarn over) to slip off. However – I may have a new solution! I popped into Yarn O’clock after the sewing workshop and saw the new ‘Flox’ multitools from Floops Stitch Markers that Anne has. I’d seen them on her Instagram, and had thought they were the size of regular bent cable needles.

They’re really not – they’re much smaller and the cable in the middle is moveable (and stays where it’s put) and I think they’ll be perfect for this brioche decrease. I had to get the rainbow one!

I’ve started advertising my September knitting workshops. They’re all taking place at Shaz’s Shabby Chic in Buckley on Wednesdays 6.30-8.30pm. All the details are here, but the short summary is:

  • 6th Sept – Absolute Beginners’ Knitting Workshop
  • 13th Sept – Next Steps Beginners’ Knitting Workshop
  • 20th Sept – Working with Colour – Slip Stitch Knitting
  • 27th Sept – Knitting in the Round

Places are limited to 8 per workshop, which means everyone gets plenty of individual attention, and yarn is included with all of them. If you know someone who would enjoy one or more of these workshops, please pass on the details to them.

That’s all from me for today – I need to go and marvel again and what Jo taught us to make! Take care and why not think about learning something new? K x

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New Tricks

A completed crocheted granny square in self-striping yarn that changes from pink-maroon-orange. It is lying on the arm of a pale sofa.

Last night’s workshop of Beginner’s Crochet was great fun. There were a couple of people there who had done some crochet years ago and some who had never even held a hook before. By the end of our two hours they had all crocheted at least two rounds and were feeling more confident with trebles and chains. Folk even asked when the next class would be, so I must have been doing something right! Many thanks to Liz for sending me the pic of her finished granny square once she got home (that’s the main pic!).

All those attending were brilliantly positive and determined, even when finding something tricky initially. As adults we can forget what it feels like to learn a completely new skill and how frustrating it can be when it doesn’t click immediately. But the satisfaction when it does is immense. It’s only relatively recently that I taught myself to crochet right-handed, having done so left-handed for decades. It really did feel like starting from scratch – and I *knew* what I was supposed to be doing with my hands! But practice and time make it feel more natural, as with any new skill.

I’m so proud of what everyone achieved. If you are a crocheter (or are simply good at seeing patterns) you might look at some of these pieces and think you spot some ‘errors’ – and that’s completely right. As with the brioche knitting workshop a few week’s ago, unless something was going to cause a major problem later on, I encouraged people to avoid undoing their work, or to try and make it ‘perfect’. Leaving in ‘errors’ helps you see how you’ve progressed and also see what happens when you do a particular thing. For example, the centre bottom image has more trebles in the chain spaces than you would do in a granny square – but it would make a great flower!

Much thanks as always has to go to Anne from Yarn O’clock for booking and organising the evening, keeping everyone supplied with drinks and biscuits and for being generally fab!

The next workshop is on closed ring cables – there are spaces! If you are near Mold and are free on 21st June 6.30-9pm, have a look at the full details on Yarn O’clock’s website.

Next week I will be able to share something very exciting with you – a new design is being published on Wednesday 15th June. We have been asked to keep ‘sneak peeks’ to a minimum before then, so newsletter subscribers and blog readers will hear about it first in the early part of the week.

Last Wednesday we had a visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We’d not been there before and although we walked miles (literally) and saw lots and lots, it seems there is still a huge amount to explore, so we will be going back again! There was even gorgeous vegan cake in the cafe. Some of my favourite sculptures were the Barbara Hepworth ones – and Ronnie enjoyed them too!

And on Friday we had an early morning walk around part of the Great Orme to celebrate my lovely wife’s birthday. We walked about a third of the way round and then back again. I’ve been all the round the edge of the Orme in a car, been up to the top in a car, a cable car and on foot, but it was the furthest I’ve gone round the edge on foot (must remember the walking shoes next time to avoid a repeat of the big blisters).

It was quite a wind-swept experience, but lovely to sit on a bench with a flask of tea with a view of nothing but the sea in front and the Orme behind and to the sides of us. We also saw seals, cormorants and… a peregrine falcon!!! We wouldn’t have known what we were looking at if I hadn’t asked one of the two men who were sitting on folding chairs with cameras that looked like paparazzi ones with the huge lenses on the front (apart from the camouflage wrapping!) who seemed happy with the photos they had been getting.

Finally, you might be pleased to know that I did finish the embroidery by my Friday deadline! Sue is very pleased with it and it is currently drying on a towel before being pressed and stretched over mounting board prior to framing. The pattern is “Hint of Chocolate Limes” from Peppermint Purple. This was my first experience of blackwork embroidery and I loved it. I will be doing more.

I’ll be showing you LOTS of knitting next week! Take care and stay safe. Kx

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Mine!

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.

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This is the Day

I began yesterday’s newsletter telling subscribers how we had started the year drinking a cup of tea on the patio at first light, with a warm breeze blowing. It was unseasonably warm then and the weather seems to have caught up with itself today, as there is currently hail bouncing off the garage roof!

One disadvantage with this return to colder temperatures is our current need to keep the windows open as much as possible, as ours is a Covid house. Not me (I’ve managed to dodge it so far), but my lovely wife. She is on the mend now and we are trying to do all the right things to contain it, but it isn’t half chilly today. It’s just as well there are a lot of woollen things around here 😊

The main image on today’s post is Cleo, my mum’s cat, somehow sitting on my lap whilst I was knitting the Water Dragon Shawl by Red and the Wolf Designs. She didn’t seem in the least perturbed that there was a ball of yarn by her back that kept turning. I’ve never known her do this before (and neither has Mum!).

This morning saw the (re-)launch of Nevern Throw. It’s the biggest piece I’ve designed so far, yet being made in individual squares means you aren’t carting a double bed sized blanket around with you while working on it. This is the first square being blocked. Once I done that one I drew lines joining up the dots of the pin-holes in the back of the blocking board so that the other 23 squares would all be blocked to exactly the same measurements.

Not until the latter part of the making up stage, anyway. At this point it definitely stops being a portable project!

It’s been on our bed for most of the past two winters and is wearing *really* well. I’d not used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Superwash yarn before making Nevern and I am truly impressed with it. When you’re making something on this scale, you want the yarn and all your hard work to look good for as long as possible! The colours in the blanket I made are nearer to the image below than in the one above.

I’m also looking forward to designing more charts from carvings on the Nevern Cross in the coming months as an ‘expansion pack’ to the original Nevern Throw pattern. There are so many more designs on it still to explore.

Before Christmas I mentioned that live workshops are back on the agenda (Covid permitting). With the support of Yarn O’clock, there will be a day of two classes on Saturday 22nd January. We are using St Mary’s Church Hall in King Street, Mold to give plenty of room for everyone (classes are still limited to six). I think there is one space left in the morning workshop and I know there are spaces in the afternoon one. Each workshop is £30 and can be booked directly with Anne at Yarn O’clock (she re-opens 11th January).

I have been busy prepping the materials – I’ve done four of the 14 squares I shall need since yesterday!

Finishing Techniques 10 – 12.30pm

Learn to block and seam your knitting to give fabulous end results. Learn to pick up stitches, make neat buttonholes and how to choose the right type of increase and decrease for your project.

You will be supplied with 2 pre-blocked pieces of knitting to seam which you will turn into a knitted purse by adding a buttoned flap.

Skills required: cast on, cast off, knit, purl.

Equipment to bring: 4mm needles, tapestry needle, everything else will be supplied.

Introduction to Sock Knitting 1 – 3.30pm

Learn all the steps of knitting a top-down sock on double pointed needles: Cast-on, ribbing, leg, heel flap, heel turn, gusset, foot, toe, grafting. 

We will be working on a scale that means you can complete the whole sock in the workshop!

Skills required: cast on, knit, purl, k2tog, ssk.

Equipment to bring: 3mm short double pointed needles (you can buy these from the shop if needed), tapestry needle. Everything else will be supplied.

These little socks are so cute that I’m also planning on turning them into an advent calendar. Not like a yarn advent calendar where you make one a day during December, but one you make in advance and hang up with sweets in for Advent. There would be 24 small socks and a slightly larger sock for 25th December. Patterns and possibly also kits will be available in September.

Now look at that! It’s January and I’m talking about September already. That’s because I actually sat down at the weekend and started planning what I want to do this year with my design business and even began mapping out a publication schedule! Not every month has some in it yet, but it will I hope.

I haven’t made resolutions this year, but I have set some goals. How’s your year shaping up so far?

Stay safe and keep knitting, 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!