Tag: Yarn Show

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May Day!

I wish I could share a pic of my desk with you right now. It’s rather overflowing with work! However, I can’t show you, because one of the things on it is the finished child’s cardigan that no-one will see until August, and there’s also piles of pattern printouts and schematics with various measurements relating to that. On the right side of the desk is a stack of stitch dictionaries with a small heap of knitted and blocked swatches on top, ready for the next design! I’ve even started using the top of my printer as a desk extension, which probably isn’t very good for it…

Now that it’s May we finally have some warmth here. I walked to the post office earlier with sandals on! I have good news on the seedlings too – they are sprouting well. As long as they survive we should have some homegrown broad beans, dwarf French beans, mange tout, coriander, and courgettes so far. I’m having to do regular sweeps of our click-together plastic-covered greenhouse to check for slugs and snails; I just lob them into the patch of ground elder and tell them to munch on the new shoots of that instead. Pics soon!

The cardigan is done and even has its buttons sewn on (pics in July when it’s published). I have recovered from the shock I had at the weekend end when I opened the pattern file only to discover several pages were missing! Fortunately I had printed the pattern out as I was working on it. I also discovered an older version saved in the back ups on ‘Time Machine’ from two weeks ago that mysteriously had more of the pattern than the current version and I was able to recover that, which saved quite a bit of re-typing.

I can’t imagine how five pages of a Word doc vanished, unless something went very wonky when I was using my new iPad and I accidentally deleted them without even realising? Something similar happened with my Excel spreadsheet file for the same design a few weeks ago too – maybe there’s something I’m leaning on on the screen? Losing work is NOT something I want to experience on a regular basis!

This afternoon I’ve been chomping through the numbers, double checking they all work and make sense – and result in a garment of the proportions intended for all sizes! I’m really pleased with the sample. It’s made using West Yorkshire Spinners Elements DK and includes two of the new seasons’ colours.

If you’ve been following my social media over the past week or so, you’ll know that I’ve been knitting my own version of Tiffany, one of the shawls I designed for RiverKnits. It uses their Nene 4ply Shadow Rainbow minis set and the colours are so rich and saturated that you could just sit and look at the yarn for hours. However, I had a shawl to knit – with the aim of having it ready to display at Buxton Wool Gathering, which is now only 5 days away!

This morning I finished the shawl and photographed it before I went on to block it.

I videoed the blocking process. It’s quite an ‘aggressive’ block and it tends to make my blocking mats lift up at the edges. You also need to put the pins into the mats at a steep angle to stop them pinging out. You’ll see in the vid that I end up weighing the edges of the blocking mats down. The end of the video is cut off as my phone ran out of space – the video was 37 minutes long at that point! Don’t worry though – I’ve edited it and sped it up A LOT so it now takes less than 90 seconds!

Blocking Tiffany

Yes, I really do measure each point of the shawl from the cast-on tab at the centre top of the shawl. This makes sure it’s a semicircle. The finished blocking is a heck of a lot larger than when the shawl comes off the needles, and you need to leave it pinned until it is completely dry. It will pull back in by about 3.5cm on the radius once the pins are removed and I think it will look stunning at the show.

Speaking of Buxton Wool Gathering, here’s a reminder of the details. It’s being held at Buxton Pavilion Gardens, St. John’s Road, Buxton, Derbyshire, SK17 6BE. There’s a pay and display car park and food and drink available both at the venue and in the town which is only a short stroll.

Please note that the show is on Sunday and Monday (as Saturday is the Coronation). Tickets bought in advance allow entry from 10am, tickets bought on the door allow entry from 11am.

Buxton is closely followed by Wool @J13 on May 13th and 14th!

My Moebius Knitting Workshop at Yarn O’clock on May 18th (£35, 6.30-9pm) still has a couple of places on it. If you want to understand and learn to create the unique structure of a true moebius ring and how this technique can be used for wonderful neckwear and more, this is the class for you! Learn two Moebius cast-ons and create a simple headband. Ring Anne at Yarn O’clock (01352 218082) to book a place!

I’ve also recently been invited to have a stall at the Cheshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Friendship Day the following weekend, which was a lovely surprise! If you’re a member of the guild or one of the other local guilds they invite to join them, you’ll see me there!

I think this is my busiest month yet in terms of events – everything is on my ‘where I’ll be‘ page on the website.

I’ll tell you all about how things went at Buxton next week! Til then, take care, enjoy the sunshine if you can, and do some stuff that makes you happy, K x

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Peek At You!

I said it might be finished by this week, didn’t I? The individual pieces were all complete by the weekend, but it took until today for me to sit down and sew it all together. One of the hardest things, strangely enough, was cutting out the felt pieces and glueing them into position. That right eye (the white part) had to be stuck on four times before it decided to stay put!

If you play Pokemon Go you might appreciate Pikachu’s pose in the featured image above – for those of you who don’t, sometimes they pop up in the corner of photographs!

Pikachu Front
Pikachu Back

There’s actually enough yarn and stuffing to make at least one more, although I used all the felt supplied. I won’t be making another one yet though – a 2.5mm crochet hook can be quite hard on the hands.

Buxton Wool Gathering is just under four weeks away now! I love the new social media images that have been shared with the exhibitors by the organisers. That crown on the sheep is very jaunty and a nicely subtle nod to the yarn show now being on the Coronation weekend. The show itself is on Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday – do come!

An important point to note is that the 10am opening is for folk who have bought their ticket in advance – if you want to buy a ticket at Buxton Pavilion on the day, you’ll be able to from 11am on both days.

I finished my current spinning this week. I think it’s come out at about an aran weight, which is what I was aiming for. I’ll check it soon against my yarn gauge. The colours are not ones I usually go for, but I really love how it’s turned out. ‘Faded Blooms’ is a really good name for it, don’t you think? The fibre came from FibreHut and it’s 100% Bluefaced Leicester Wool, which is brilliant to spin with.

Last week we had a lovely trip to Bodnant Garden – making use of our National Trust membership. We walked nearly all the way down to the bottom of the gardens and I felt very brave crossing the water on a set of stepping stones. I’m not sure I’d have been brave enough without the handrail there too though! The magnolias, rhododendrons and camellias were absolutely beautiful – and some of them are VAST!

The swathes of daffodils (or should that be ‘hosts’?) across the meadows were also gorgeous and very varied and it inspired me to photograph all of ours once we got back home.

This is one of my favourite new daffodils. It’s got real ‘attitude’ and is quite large too so we can see it clearly from the kitchen even though it’s at the bottom of the garden. I think it’s ‘Boscoppa‘.

The knitting is coming along well. Re-reading last week’s blog post I saw that I was just about to cast on the body of my latest design last Tuesday. Well, I’ve knitted the whole body now (some of it twice) and today I’ve written the pattern for the sleeves, so they will be started next! It’s been quite a number of years since I’ve knitted a child’s garment and I’d forgotten just how quickly they grow.

This coming Thursday (13th April) sees Issue 188 of The Knitter hit the newsstands which includes Part Four of Branwen Knit-along Shawl. Subscribers probably have their copy of the mag already! If you’re knitting this shawl, do share your progress on social media – or even by email! On social media, add the tag #KathAndrewsDesigns and I’ll be sure to see it. There’s one final part left to be published after this one. If the weather continues as it is today for much longer (cold, wet, very windy) knitters making this cosy DK shawl will be very glad of the growing shawl on their knees as they knit!

By the way, my sourdough starter is behaving a bit more reliably, but it’s still taking nearly 24 hours to not quite double in size. It needs a bit more TLC, but we’ll get there.

That’s all for today. I hope you stay warm and dry, and get to do some things that make you happy this week. K x

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Have You Any Wool?

It’s been a full week, with much of it being dedicated to my next design commission. The pattern is written for the back and both fronts and for the sleeves up to the underarms. So, really it’s just the sleeve caps and the collar to do in terms of writing/grading. This design is in 10 sizes. The sample size required will be too small for me to wear once I get it back, but it does mean that it will take less time to knit! The yarn arrived a few days ago and it’s a really gorgeous, vibrant colour:

It’s a really soft pure wool yarn that I’ll tell you more about in the coming weeks. Later on today I’m going to cast-on the back for the sample! Hurrah!

This evening I’m teaching a stranded colour-work workshop at Yarn O’clock. Stranded colour-work is one of my favourite knitting techniques, as you’ll know if you’ve looked at my pattern pages. It used to almost always be referred to as Fair Isle knitting, but the term stranded colour-work is becoming more common now. The idea is having two contrasting yarns being used in each row, one as the background colour and one as the pattern colour, and handling the yarns so they create neat ‘floats’ or strands of yarn across the back and a consistent colour-work design on the front. I’ll be taking some of stranded designs with me this evening for the knitters to examine and help them understand what they are aiming for.

This is what they are going to be making:

I’ve left the yarn ends loose on this swatch deliberately so I can demonstrate how to weave the ends in tonight.

As well as working on my new design, I’ve been making good progress with my Umbriel sweater in Cirro from The Fibre Co. I found a few issues with numbers and mirrored instructions in the back shoulders and front of the pattern and have made a note of them. I ended up counting stitches in one row at least six times, along with checking the fabric for dropped stitches, before going back to the pattern and doing some maths. One too many stitches instructed to be knit after an initial cast-off caused me quite a headache for a good few minutes! I have now finished the whole body and I’m pleased with it:

The next stage is to seam the shoulders. Stitches are then picked up around the armholes to work the sleeves top down. I might do both at once, or I might just make notes of any changes I have to make as I go. Knitting two sleeves at once avoids the ‘sleeve island’ that many knitters often feel marooned on, and it does mean that the sleeves are highly likely to match – so long as you remember to swap between the two sleeves every one or two rounds. However, I often prefer to make sure a sleeve works for me, writing down any changes to the pattern, going quite slowly with the first and then knit the second one more quickly from my notes. Also, there is always the possibility of getting the two balls of yarn tangled or more seriously mixed up by knitting on a sleeve with the yarn from the other, or forgetting to switch between the two or it just feeling like a sleeve is taking twice as long as it should (because you’re making two at once)!

I probably won’t start the sleeves now until after Buxton Wool Gathering.

In preparation for Buxton Wool Gathering, I’ve printed even more patterns over the past couple of days, including the final version of Am Byth, which is also available as an update for those who’ve already bought it, and Bargello Aurora Wrap which was first published in The Knitter in September (Issue 180). Before the printing could take place, the photos had to be taken and much laughter and fun was had on Saturday afternoon in the garden as Sue took over 200 pics! At least with so many to choose from I can be ruthless about the ones I don’t like – these are usually the ones that catch me looking gormless or pulling an odd face!

Am Byth
Bargello Aurora Wrap

Am Byth is already available in my online stores, and Bargello Aurora Wrap is available as part of The Knitter issue 180 either as a back issue or as an ebook on Ravelry. I’m going to add Bargello Aurora Wrap as a single pattern to my online stores after the show at Buxton this weekend.

I’m really looking forward to Buxton. I’ll be heading there on Friday to set up in the afternoon and my lovely wife will join me later in the weekend as my ‘booth babe’ – the amazing person who talks enthusiastically to knitters, helps find things, get cups of tea and holds the fort when I need the loo!

I’ll be on Stand 31, circled in orange and a full list of vendors can be seen here.

It’s only £5 entry for the day or £8 for a weekend ticket, which is very good value I think. Held in the Buxton Pavilion Gardens, the show is open 10am-4pm on both days, with entry from 11am for those who buy tickets on the door.

The only potential spanner in the works at the moment is the weather forecast. We woke up to a centimetre of snow here in North Wales this morning. It’s all gone now – even though it took some of it until about an hour ago to melt where the sun wasn’t shining. I usually like snow, but not when I need to travel in it. Still, the tyres are all good and I’m going to allow myself plenty of time. But please keep your fingers crossed for good weather for me anyway?

I’ll tell you all about how it went next week! ‘Til then, take care, stay warm and do something that makes you happy. K x