Tag: Yarn Show

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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)

Workshop spaces currently available: 4

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)

Workshop spaces currently available: 8

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)

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Advent – a time of waiting

On Sunday I sang at the Advent carol service at the church where I am a member of the choir. There was quite a bit of plainchant (we did the Palestrina Advent Responsory and the ‘Great O Antiphons’ as well as the much more modern The Lamb by Taverner and some good solid advent hymns. Before the service began the rector said there were some children in the congregation in Christmas jumpers and that perhaps they thought they were going to get Christmas carols rather than Advent carols. They are very different! Advent is a time of waiting and anticipation.

A tradition here is that we put our Christmas tree up on Advent Sunday, so it is now in pride of place in the lounge, complete with lots of decorations. Some are new, some are as old as I am. Some are homemade and some are bought. There are even a couple of glass baubles she and Dad bought when they were first married. Putting the tree up and decorating it (two separate things!) always takes much longer than we expect, perhaps because it also involves moving furniture to other rooms in order to make room for the tree! We now have an armchair in the kitchen and a rocking chair in the front room where I teach. The other result of having put the Christmas tree up, is that I know realise I will have to wait until it comes down again (on January 6th) to block my 4ply What Do Points Make? as there simply isn’t enough floorspace anywhere at the moment. Another example of Advent being a time of waiting and anticipation, perhaps!?

Later today I will be getting my sewing machine out as I have some mending to do. A couple of months ago we were re-arranging the front room ready for piano lessons and I caught the pocket of one of my smocks under the radiator. I have been meaning to mend it ever since.

And then in the past couple of weeks I have discovered that two of my skirts are going on a seam and one of my favourite dresses has a hole developing so I really need to get these things fixed.

Of course, these are all garments from The Slow Wardrobe and I have had them for years (I think you can tell that in the case of the purple skirt), but I want to keep them going for several more years. It’s all the more important as Linda has moved to France and isn’t currently selling any new clothes! I really can’t imagine wearing anything else on a day to day basis. I can’t decide at the moment whether to patch the dress or try to darn it. Any suggestions welcome!

Making Tracks is now out in issue 222 of The Knitter! It looks great on the model.

This is the jumper I was writing about earlier in the year where it took me three tries to get the sleeves exactly the way I wanted them. The yarn quantities are quite large because it was designed as a man’s jumper and therefore the body and sleeves are longer than might be expected in a woman’s garment. As long as you have completed all the sleeve increases you can make the sleeves the length *you* want them to be. The same goes for the body. When I republish this as an individual pattern in six months I think I will add in additional length measurements for body and sleeves for female sizing charts as well, and include yarn quantities if following these length measurements.

The knitted gnome is complete and will be delivered to his new home at the end of the week. I’m very pleased with how it turned out! I think I will make one for us to keep as well, maybe reversing the colours.

I completed my tech editing course last week!

As well as this badge I have a certificate and now I just need some people who would like me to edit their knitting patterns!

Our final yarn show of the year is happening soon! On Saturday December 13th we will be at Yuletide Yarnies at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings. There will be mince pies and live music too! £5 for advance tickets bought online or £7.50 on the door.

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Cake and Wool

I can hardly believe that it’s already Tuesday again. The weeks are spinning past. Sometimes I wish I had a regular structure to my blog as my wife does. She always starts with what the morning smells like, describes the photo she is using to accompany her post, writes her main section and finishes by sharing a poem. However, my blog doesn’t have that regularity of form. It’s more a ‘this is what I’ve been doing and this is what’s coming up’, which is useful for me (and hopefully for you!), but also can make it hard to know at times where to start. So, I’ll start by telling you what I’ve been doing.

Sunday was Stollen and Wolle at the RiverKnits studio in Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire. It’s a lovely venue and there were five visiting exhibitors (including us) plus RiverKnits’ own yarn for visitors to peruse. It was lovely to see the familiar and friendly faces of Ishrat (Fruitful Fusion), Christine (Rauwerk), Rachel (Skein Queen) and, of course, Becci and Markus of RiverKnits again. The chap from Yellow Bourbon was kept busy all day providing visitors with coffee, gluhwein, stollen and cake. Two of the cakes were vegan as well (carrot cake and blackcurrant and apple crumble/flapjack) which delighted us! And to top it off, Susan Crawford of Susan Crawford Vintage was there. She had a lovely stand with her yarn, books and samples and gave a 1 hour talk in the afternoon which was absolutely fascinating and included her handing knitwear round the audience for us to look at, handle and even inspect on the inside (if you’re a knitter, you’ll know this instinct!). One of the samples was the first sweater she had ever knitted which was an impressive picture knit (using intarsia technique) of a Roy Lichtenstein image worked in cotton. The re-worked sweaters made from studying samples in the Shetland museum were incredible, as were the stories that accompanied them – especially of how knitters from Shetland were ‘breaking the rules’ of Fair Isle knitting even in the 1940s. I was excited to meet and chat with her.

We had originally planned to do the whole journey in one day, but once we realised that would probably mean getting up at 3.30am, we decided to stay in Daventry the night before, giving us just a 6-mile journey to the studio to set up and get ready. The set-up was quick as we had stripped it right back, bringing only 28 patterns (a few were doubled up in the pull-up stands), the pull-up display stands and the relevant samples.

It was the first outing for the height extension on the 3-foot rail and I have to say I am very pleased with that. It doubles the hanging space and makes it easier to display the samples. The other benefit to stripping back the set-up was that it all fitted in Sue’s little Aygo! That was the first time I had been driven to a yarn show we were exhibiting at and it meant I could relax and even do some crochet in the car on the way there before it got dark. It was lovely. Despite Storm Claudia lashing large parts of Wales on Friday and Saturday we were luckily unaffected and the journey was smooth with clear weather.

Our next event will be the last one of the year – Yuletide Yarnies at the Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings on Saturday 13th December. Opening hours are 11am-4pm, tickets are £5 in advance and £7.50 on the door – so if you are coming, I recommend buying an advance ticket! As well as this I am teaching my Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche workshop tomorrow at Shaz’s Shabby Chic in Buckley (there are still spaces available if you want to come!).

There is lots of singing happening too, what with it being the run up to Advent and Christmas and I need to decide the running order for the songs at the first Christmas market that is in 11 days time!

I’m also working through the modules in the tech editing course that I’m taking – I’m enjoying it and finding it appeals very much to my sense of order and logic.

All of this sounds as though life is swinging along smoothly, but Mum has spent most of the last three weeks in hospital and so I’ve also been travelling down to the midlands much more frequently and for longer to visit her. It’s been a worrying time as you might imagine.

So, my 4ply What Do Points Make? remains unblocked, and while I’ve done some of the website updates I haven’t done them all yet. But, even if I haven’t done these things next week I will able to tell you about a new design of mine that will be in the next issue of The Knitter which is due out on Nov 27th. Until then, take care and I hope you are able to do something that makes you happy this week. K x

The Wool Monty, 13-14th June 2026

I’m very excited to be exhibiting at The Wool Monty for the first time in 2026. It’s a yarn show I’ve heard so many good things about and I can’t wait to be a part of it.

I’m also going to be teaching there! More details on that soon.

Day tickets are £11.50, weekend tickets are £15 and they are available now!

The Wool Monty Is A Different Kind Of Yarn Show

ACCESSIBLE.
INCLUSIVE.
WELCOMING.

We’re committed to hosting a yarn show with a difference, that everyone can attend and enjoy. We cannot wait to see you there!

Our Accessibility Commitment

  • fully accessible venue with step-free access and all activities on one level
  • 300+ free parking spaces with blue badge parking near the entrance and space for coaches and vans
  • space for mobility scooters and powered chairs
  • 3.5m (11.5ft) wide aisles as a minimum
  • assistance dogs welcome
  • quiet room away from the main show area with dim lights and comfy seating
  • Carer tickets available
  • high ceilings to diffuse noise
  • several accessible toilets, including a Changing Places bathroom
  • different types of seating and lots of it
  • hot and cold food options which cater to all diets and preferences