Tag: Yarn Show

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Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend

Knitted ones at any rate! I designed Ice Diamond Mitts five and a half years ago and I’ve been knitting a new sample from the pattern this week. I’ve just reached the point where the stitches for the thumb are divided away from the rest of the stitches. Diamond patterns are a common feature of lace knitting as they are easy to create with correctly placed decreases and yarn overs and create clear and pleasing shapes in your knitting.

I find it fascinating that, while the design and pattern are clearly mine and my style of pattern writing has changed little since 2020, in some ways following the pattern is almost like knitting someone else’s pattern – it feels quite distant. I suppose that’s hardly surprising as I’ve only knitted these mitts once before and I’ve created 44 other designs since then (I’m also including the ones I’ve designed and made and are due to be published soon)! That’s an average of 8 designs per year – which may not sound like a lot, but it’s quite a chunk of work.

Last weekend was very much a musical one. Saturday was the Spring Market in our local shopping precinct where Shelby’s Singers performed 14 (yes!) songs to the shoppers and I bounced around in front of them waving my arms, sorry, conducted them. Then on Sunday it was choral evensong at the church where I sing in the choir. From Erasure, Alex Warren and the Great Showman to Stanford in Bb and Purcell! Quite a mix.

This weekend sees our second show of the year (of 12!) at TexStyle in Manchester, followed by East Anglia Yarn Festival in Norwich the next weekend. Both are patterns only, so no kits, but we will still have all the samples for the designs we are bringing with us so folk can see in person what they will be creating.

I’ve finished knitting my current commission and I now need to block the pieces and seam it (and make any tweaks to the pattern’s other sizes if necessary at that point – I’m looking at you, neckline!). It feels good to be at this stage 17 days before the deadline – especially with two shows added to the mix!

Now that I’ve finished the knitting of this design I can really get cracking with knitting the mitts, and finishing my DK Into the Vortex as well.

The brown boxes have arrived for my kits – being made of cardboard and arriving ‘flat’ means they take up far less room in the house than 100 tins would have done! In fact, I don’t think I would ever have ordered 100 tins at a time precisely for this reason. Yes, that really is 100 boxes. Or will be, when I make them up.

I’m considering adding needles to some of my kits, specifically Twisted which needs special short interchangeable needle tips plus an 80cm cable to make the smaller version and not everyone has these. Do you think this would be useful – a kit that includes the needles where the needles required are ‘non-standard’?

If you bought an advance ticket to the North West Winter Wool Festival and have not yet downloaded your free hot water bottle cover pattern, now is the time to do it! The download code will stop working at the end of the day on Sunday 15th March. 158 people have taken advantage of this offer which is an increase on those who downloaded The Imperial Cowl last year (125).

We are almost ready for Friday – the parking has been booked, the unloading time-slot at Manchester Central has been booked, the patterns printed, the samples checked, float made ready and the snacks bought! Now I just need to refresh the blue of my hair, and keep all the other plates spinning.

That’s all from me for today. Keep your heads up and I hope you are able to do something that makes you happy this week. K x

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Let’s Go Round Again

Having finally blocked my size four 4ply sample of What Do Points Make? I have sewn some very small side seams and woven in all the ends. It’s come out larger than the laceweight version in both length and width, but not ridiculously so. This 4ply yarn (Little Bird Sock from LottieKnits) is a gorgeously bouncy yarn with 365m to 100g so it’s slightly thicker than most 4ply yarns which tend to be 400m to 100g so this might be partly it’s come out a little bigger than expected. I absolutely love it. As a contrast with the laceweight size 4 sample, with this one I matched the colour changes on each side. I’ll get a photo of me wearing it soon, but for now, here it is on a hanger.

I also have chosen the yarn for my size three 4ply sample of What Do Points Make? and in a complete change from all my other versions of this design, I have chosen a neutral solid colour – grey! It is classic and the finished garment will go with everything. And this one is slightly thinner than many 4ply yarns with 440m per 100g, so it should be closer to the original measurements.

I’ve started a new sample of Ice Diamond Mitts using Cambrian Wool DK in Welsh Red. Their DK weight yarn is more towards the heavy DK/worsted weight end with 200m per 100g so these will be just as cosy as the originals that were knit in worsted weight yarn and in a more practical colour for mitts!

Lorelai Wrap is now live on my website, Payhip and Ravelry stores!

Newsletter subscribers will be getting an email in the next day or so with a time-limited discount code for the pattern, so if you think that sounds good and you’re not already a subscriber, why not sign up?

I can hardly believe that TexStyle is happening in less than two weeks and East Anglia Yarn Festival is the weekend after! If you are coming to either of these shows, please do come and say hello. I will be on stand H6 at TexStyle, pretty much in the middle of the hall. I don’t yet know the floor plan for EAYF, but we are all in one space so it shouldn’t be too hard to find me! I have designer stands at both of these events, so I will only be selling printed patterns.

It’s impossible to know what to say about what is happening in the world at the moment. All I can hope is that you and your loved ones are safe and as happy as you can be. These little narcissi have opened up this week in our front lawn (sorry, front moss) and are giving me hope that nature is pressing on regardless of what us silly humans are doing to the planet and each other.

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

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Blackpool Rocks!

We had a great time in Blackpool at the North West Winter Wool Festival last weekend. Being the first show of the season it was particularly exciting to catch up with other vendors who we haven’t seen for a few months and also meet some new ones and make new friends! Shirley and Trevor were very organised and great hosts for the event.

We didn’t venture as far as the piers or the tower as the hotel the show was held in was at the far north end of Blackpool, but we had some bracing walks along the promenade and enjoyed some great chips and mushy peas. We did, however, experience the in-hotel entertainment on Friday night which included a cabaret singer who encouraged audience participation and also bingo! We didn’t win anything, but another vendor on our table did so we shared his joy.

It was wonderful to talk to knitters about their plans and ideas for the patterns they chose. One lady was even planning on spinning the yarn she was going to use for a lace shawl design she purchased. A couple of people told me they had knitted some of my patterns in the past and really enjoyed them, which always gives me a boost. One lady was wearing her beautifully knitted Tiffany shawl in bright rainbow shades and it was delightful. Jo Knit Sew showed me her Bryn Brioche Cowl which she knitted as her first brioche project before diving into a very intricate brioche shawl (I’ve seen that in progress and it’s stunning as well).

I also met and taught some wonderful people how to knit brioche on Saturday and how to knit a moebius on Sunday. I was very impressed with all of them and with the amount of learning that went on during those hours.

Lately I haven’t bought anything while I’ve been at a yarn show, but this time I treated myself to two things. A little ‘Scoopy’ from Bowfiddle Yarns which has a magnet in the base to help you hold on to your metal stitch markers and which changes colour in the most mesmerising way.

Also, I was given three beautiful mini skeins for my birthday which came from Jo at Second City Yarns. I’ve been thinking about what to make with them and I decided I need a good neutral yarn to go with the colours. So I got four mini skeins from Jo. They really help to make the colours sing when put together!

The Seaside Winter Cosy pattern is now live on my website, payhip and Ravelry, so you can now buy the pattern! It’s knitted in the round in four colours of DK yarn and you can choose to either seam the bottom (as in the picture below) or add poppers to the bottom to make the hot water bottle removable.

Next month we have two shows back to back! TexStyle is in Manchester on 14-15th March at Manchester Central (previously known as the G-Mex centre) and East Anglia Yarn Festival is the following weekend on 21-22nd March at the Norfolk Showground Arena just outside Norwich. If you come to either of these events, please do stop by and say hello!

That’s all from me today – I’m about to crack on with a new design that the yarn arrived for last Thursday! Have a good week, stay safe and do something that makes you happy. K x

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And Then There Were Two

As if by magic – a second sock appeared! Well, not magic obviously, by spending some time knitting. It’s funny that many people experience what is known as ‘second sock syndrome’, where they they will happily zip through making the first sock of a pair, but stall on the second. I seem to have the opposite. Once one sock is made, the other wants to get done and make the socks ready for use. It’s also helpful that this past week we have been taking things a little more gently due to a nasty throat/chest virus thing that got me first and then moved on to my lovely wife. I’m much better and she is just starting to come out of it. It has meant that we’ve spent a bit more time watching Grantchester (we’re almost up to the end of Series 3) and I’ve been knitting.

I’ve also started another DK version of Into the Vortex. I know I knitted one of these a while ago, but I wasn’t in love with the colours, so it’s still sitting there waiting to be blocked. However, I decided that this time I would keep it more in line with the original. RiverKnits now have a DK version of their Chimera yarn – and it was the 4ply version of this that we used in the original design along with their Nene 4ply, both of which are British Bluefaced Leicester yarns. I’m using the Chimera DK in the colourway ‘The Fifth Element’.

I’m going to pair it with a deep purple skein of West Yorkshire Spinners Fleece, which is another Bluefaced Leicester yarn. Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) is a breed of sheep, so this means the yarn is made solely from the fleeces of that breed of sheep.

Yesterday saw me doing more maths than I have done in over 30 years! I needed to calculate how deep the front neck drop of a new design can be. You might think the depth of the front neck drop (where the fabric at the front stops for the neck) is just a matter of choice and in many designs it is, but this design has an unusual shape and this measurement will dictate whether the top falls off the shoulders or not (and I would prefer not!).

I knew the length of one side of the triangle and all three angles (courtesy of this very fancy protractor that I bought on Saturday), but I had to google how to calculate the other lengths as I couldn’t remember! I knew it was likely to be something to do with sin/cos/tan, but it’s been a very long time since I last used those things. Hurrah for BBC bitesize and other maths support websites. It was time for the calculator and the tan function! Weirdly, I also found a TAN function in Excel, but it didn’t give me anywhere near the same result (and I know the calculator version is correct as I knew the side length I was trying to work out was going to be close in length to the one I knew, and the results I was getting from my attempts using TAN in Excel were nowhere near close). So, there are obviously some hidden extras that I need to learn before I can use Excel to work those things out for me.

On Sunday I got to take some pics of Lorelai Wrap, as Jo, a friend from my church choir, had kindly agreed to model it for me. Even the weather co-operated by stopping raining for a while. I got some great shots and this is the one that is going to be the main pic on the front cover of the pattern:

Lorelai Wrap will be available in printed form at the North West Winter Wool Festival in Blackpool this coming weekend and online within the week. It was first published in The Knitter magazine six months ago. It’s knitted in one piece using 4.5mm needles (you can use straight needles) and Jamieson’s of Shetland Ultra Lace, which is a beautiful yarn with a mix of 50% Shetland wool and 50% Lambswool. I used the colourway ‘Strawberry Crush’ – there are 39 other colours in this yarn to choose from if that’s not the colour for you!

That’s everything from me today. If you’re coming to Blackpool at the weekend do stop by and say hello – our stand is right near the door (stand B9) so you can’t miss us! If you’re not coming to Blackpool for the North West Winter Wool Festival, don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it next week. Until then, take care, K x

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Community

Progress has been made on the sock this week with the majority of the gusset decreases completed. This is less progress than you might expect in a week, but that is partly because I am just over halfway through knitting (and writing the pattern for) the design I mentioned in last week’s post.

My spreadsheet for that design is large, but the pattern is (I think) nicely concise, without including any of those phrases that annoy me so much and are often used when a publication needs to save space, such as “Work as for Left side, reversing shaping”. I know this is a common phrase, but it relies on a certain level of knowledge and skill from the knitter to be able to do that, which a less experienced knitter might not have, and therefore can potentially exclude people from making the design. It is important to me that my patterns include the full instructions required and don’t make you guess what you need to do. Inclusivity in pattern writing is about more than the size range!

Some exciting news is that my brioche workshop at the North West Winter Wool Festival in Blackpool next month (Saturday 14th Feb) has sold out! There are still 8 spaces on the moebius knitting workshop on Sunday 15th Feb, so if you are going to that event and would like to learn how to knit what looks like a totally impossible shape, you can!

Also, a reminder that if you are going to that show, please do get an advance ticket as you will then get a code to download the Seaside Winter Cosy pattern for FREE!

The floorplan for the North West Winter Wool Festival has just been released too – which makes everything seem much more real! We will be on B9 which is just by the door, so you can’t miss us! If I’m not on the stand in the afternoon it’ll be because I’m teaching, but my lovely wife Sue will be there to help you.

After two weeks of lots of extra work, complete with the novelty of having colleagues again (with the invigilation for mocks), next week will feel a little quiet I think. I do enjoy working at home, by and for myself, but there is really something to be said for that 10 minute chat in the staff room before everyone cracks on with the next part of the day. Even if it’s just about something very ordinary. Actually, during the past week or so, I have been able to enjoy that moment of time much more than when I was teaching full time as, in this role, I have no last minute planning/marking/photocopying/furniture rearrangement etc to do, and I even have an allotted starting time, which never existed in my previous school role.

Tomorrow I am going to the social evening at Yarn O’clock, which I haven’t been able to do for quite some time as it has usually clashed with other commitments. I’m really looking forward to it and am planning to take the sock, with the intention of getting onto the foot during the evening. So, hopefully there will be more progress to see next week – maybe even a completed sock, who knows?!

By the way, no one commented on last week’s post for the opportunity to win some free tickets to the new TexStyle show in Manchester, so I am extending the opportunity into this week as well with the draw now scheduled for Friday 30th January. Don’t be shy if you’d like to go and you’d like a pair of free tickets (so you can take a friend too)!

TexStyle is a fibre AND textile event with a massive range of crafts represented. Just see this list below which is taken from the TexStyle website to give you some idea:

  • Basketry
  • Crochet and hooking
  • Cross stitch
  • Demonstrations
  • Dyeing
  • Felting
  • Finished items
  • Gallery display
  • Home decor
  • Knitting
  • Lace, embroidery and blackwork
  • Macrame
  • Quilting
  • Sewing
  • Spinning
  • Stationery
  • Tufting
  • Upholstery
  • Weaving

There seems to be a bit of a community theme in what I have been thinking and writing about today – whether that is of the knitting/crafting community or a community of colleagues engaged in the same work. I hope you have a week with some positive connections in one or more of your communities, and that you get a chance to do something that makes you happy. Take care, K x

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Laying it all out

Our last yarn show of the year, Yuletide Yarnies, took place on Saturday. It was held at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, organised by Bijoux Events and Wild Field Fibre. As well as all the amazing stalls, there were mince pies, live festive music from a range of soloists and a super a cappella choir as well as a rather good chip van! We had a good day, despite it being really chilly – we simply added more layers of woolly goodness to what we were wearing. It was great to catch up with other vendors too and have a chat about our plans for next year. Amazingly I already have 8 shows confirmed for next year, another 2 I am waiting for confirmation on and 2 more possibles.

It was lovely to talk to the visitors to the show as well – hearing from people which of my designs they’ve already made and which they’re planning to, seeing the yarn they’ve bought from other vendors for a pattern they’ve bought from me earlier in the day and hearing people express their love of knitting and crochet.

Yesterday I set up next year’s planner/journal – I use a grid dot notebook and write the months out at the front – and it made me start thinking about how I want to plan aspects of work/life next year specifically, and generally in the future. Sue and I haven’t been very good at blocking ‘time off’ for ourselves and we haven’t had a holiday in a number of years. We go away a lot for one or two nights, but it’s always for a yarn show (which is work even though it’s enjoyable!) or to visit family. Next year we will actually be having a break just for us – it’s our Christmas present to each other. We know where we want to go – now we just need to plan when it will be!

The first time I used a planner like this I put the monthly plan at the start of each month as I got to it, dotted through the journal, but that meant I couldn’t write it out until I got to the end of the previous month and with lots of shows and deadlines coming up I actually do need to see the year as a whole. This way I get a year of monthly plans all in one place, and then I can use as much or as little of the rest of the book per day/week/month as I need. I’m showing you next December as it’s one of the months that doesn’t yet have anything in it!

We had our first round robin letter of the year with a Christmas card today. I think I appreciate these more than I used to, especially when they come from friends we don’t see very often. That might have to do with not being as manically busy at this time of year as I was when I was teaching full time – reading two sides of A4 felt like just too much sometimes back then, but now it’s a pleasure.

Earlier this morning I popped back to the optician to get some new lenses put into my new glasses. The varifocals I got a few months ago were the correct prescription, but the height at which the close, medium and distance vision changed from one to another was too high, making a lot of things blurry and generally making me feel a bit seasick! Now, however, I’m able to turn my head without everything swimming and I can read music without having to bend my head right down to focus in on it. The difference a small change has made is incredible.

I think that’s going to be my aim for next year. Looking for ways to make small changes in the way I do things that will have a big impact. Like putting all my monthly planner layouts together at the front of my journal. I wonder how that will feel by the time I actually get to December 2026?

I seem to be feeling philosophical today, which is perhaps understandable at this time of year. This is my last blog post of the year – the next one will be on Jan 6th, the day we take the tree down and put all the decorations away. So, until then, take care, I hope you all have a good Christmas however you spend it, and I’ll write again next year! K x

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Third Time Lucky

I started working on a hat design yesterday and cast on what I had calculated to be the correct number of stitches for the medium size. After about four rounds on the brim it was looking very small (admittedly it was on a 40cm circular needle, but it looked barely larger than a sock cuff), so I ripped it out, changed my numbers about and cast on again with more stitches. This seemed better. I finished the brim, changed needle size and worked two and a half repeats of the pattern on the main part of the hat. Wishing to check again, this time I put the stitches onto a rubber cord/stitch keeper. These are brilliant as they are hollow so you just poke the end of the needle inside the cord then slide the stitches off the needle onto the cord, enabling you to try on your knitting as you go. I tried the hat on. It felt good. But my head is 58cm, a large rather than a medium (which is up to 56cm), so I got Sue to try it on (her head is 54cm). Too loose.

So I ripped it out, returned the numbers to what I had originally started with and began again. Third time lucky! I can’t show it to you as it’s going to be published next year, but do know that when a hat design by me comes out next, there has been a lot of consideration on the sizing! The yarn in the main post pic is from the cast-on edge as I decided that it had been through enough having been cast on twice already. For some reason yarn used in a cast-on tends to get a little bit more ‘rough around the edges’ and stick to itself when being ripped out more than once than yarn used in the actual knitting does. There’s probably a scientific explanation for it.

The moral of this story is perhaps two-fold. I should have trusted the maths I did in the first place that gave me the original numbers to cast on, which were in fact right even though it looked too small all squashed up on the needle. Also, it’s never too late to admit something isn’t working and do something to fix it.

The reason for my initially doubting my numbers is a thing called negative ease. Most knitting that we wear has positive ease, that is, the fabric measures more than the body part it’s going to cover. However, with certain hat styles (and a few other things) you need negative ease – the fabric needs to be smaller than your head, at least on the brim. This makes the fabric stretch and grip your head while you’re wearing it so it doesn’t fall off!

This week I have been updating my website with more workshops and yarn shows that are happening next year! I am teaching a lot of brioche workshops in various places, including the North West Winter Wool Show on February 14th where there are just 2 places left! Other places I will be teaching my Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting class next year include the Midlands Wool Festival in July (bookings are open) and the North East Wool Show in August (bookings open in the new year) and there will be more!

I am also teaching moebius knitting at The North West Winter Wool Festival on Sunday Feb 15th and there are plenty of places available on that. It’s a great technique and includes a sized up version of the headband we make in the workshop so you can knit moebius cowls.

Mum loved the knitted gnome I made for her. She has named it Gnu.

That’s all from me today. I’m off to do my neck stretches which I have sadly neglected for the past week and knit some more hat! Take care, and I hope you get a chance to do stuff that makes you happy this week. K x

Intro to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting at North East Wool Show, 9th Aug 2026

Learn this amazing technique to create a wonderfully squishy fabric. We’ll cover the basic two colour brioche stitch, the terminology, a brioche  increase and two different decreases.

Book directly with me via contact@kathandrewsdesigns.com.

Venue: Newcastle Racecourse

Dates: Sunday 9th August, 1.45pm-3.45pm

Cost: £30, including handouts and yarn.

Bring with you: 5mm circular knitting needles (60-80cm long). Needles must be circular for brioche knitting, though we will be knitting flat, not in the round.

Skills required: Cast-on, cast-off, knit & purl.

You will also need a ticket for wool festival for the day you are attending the workshop (buy a ticket here)

Intro to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting at Midlands Wool Festival, 12th July 2026

Learn this amazing technique to create a wonderfully squishy fabric. We’ll cover the basic two colour brioche stitch, the terminology, a brioche  increase and two different decreases.

I will be teaching the workshop on both days of the festival!

Book directly with me via contact@kathandrewsdesigns.com.

Venue: Wolverhampton Racecourse

Dates: 12th July, 1.30pm-3.30pm

Cost: £30, including handouts and yarn.

Bring with you: 5mm circular knitting needles (60-80cm long). Needles must be circular for brioche knitting, though we will be knitting flat, not in the round.

Skills required: Cast-on, cast-off, knit & purl.

You will also need a ticket for wool festival for the day you are attending the workshop (buy a ticket here)

Intro to Two-Colour Brioche Knitting at Midlands Wool Festival, 11th July 2026

Learn this amazing technique to create a wonderfully squishy fabric. We’ll cover the basic two colour brioche stitch, the terminology, a brioche  increase and two different decreases.

I will be teaching the workshop on both days of the festival!

Book directly with me via contact@kathandrewsdesigns.com.

Venue: Wolverhampton Racecourse

Dates: 11th July, 1.30pm-3.30pm

Cost: £30, including handouts and yarn.

Bring with you: 5mm circular knitting needles (60-80cm long). Needles must be circular for brioche knitting, though we will be knitting flat, not in the round.

Skills required: Cast-on, cast-off, knit & purl.

You will also need a ticket for wool festival for the day you are attending the workshop (buy a ticket here)