Wool@J13 was a great show last year (pic from last year’s show) and I am so pleased to be exhibiting with them again this year.
A celebration of all things woolly, just 25 mins from J13 of the M6 or a stone’s throw from the A51.
Wool@J13 2024 is set to show you all manner of all things wool, celebrating the diversity within this one word. Whether you are a knitter, crocheter, dyer, needle felter, sock maker or just plain curious, we have notions & potions of all shapes, sizes and colours just dyed and presented for you at Wool@J13 2024. Exhibitors will again be travelling from all over the country to The Heritage at Bishton in Staffordshire, where we have been invited to stage our 2024 show by the renowned Stafford Northcote family, former owners of neighbouring Bishton Hall from 1946 when it became the new home of St Bede’s School up until when the Hall was sold in 2018.
Here you can find all the information you need. Find details about the event, exhibitors, workshops, camping, the venue and much more! Tickets are available here
Day tickets online £5.50 (+ booking fee) or £7 on the gate
Weekend tickets online £10.50 (+ booking fee) or £12 on the gate.
A celebration of wool and fibre in North Wales. Highlighting the best producers, retailers and supporters of wool and fibre use. The exhibitors are hand picked and will be showing a wide variety of wool and fibre products. Individuals and groups who support and educate in fibre, and wool use will be present. All under cover in the Deiniol Centre, Bangor, LL57 1NW.
Free entry to public.
I am delighted to be exhibiting at this new festival of Welsh wool & fibre! I’ll have all my Welsh inspired and named designs with me, along with kits that use Welsh wool and much more!
I am so pleased to be exhibiting at Buxton Wool Gathering again in 2024.
Buxton Wool Gathering is a wool festival dedicated to the best of fibre and yarn, held in the gateway to the Peak District.
Whether you’re into spinning, felting, weaving, knitting, or crochet, there’s something for you. All in a stunning location with some of the friendliest, craftiest people around.
There are also tickets available for a ‘Quiet Hour’ on Sunday 9-10am (same price as a regular day ticket). These allow you to enter from 9am on Sunday morning. We have a limited number of these tickets and they’re intended for anybody who would prefer to avoid a large crowd – these tickets are also valid for the rest of the day so you could leave mid-morning and return in the afternoon (Sunday afternoon is generally quieter at yarn shows).
Here you can find all the information you need. Find details about the event, the exhibitors, Buxton, and the venue. You can also book tickets online. Tickets are £5 or £8 for a weekend ticket.
I am delighted to be exhibiting at Wonderwool Wales for the first time this year. Find me in Hall 3, Stand W16.
Wonderwool Wales is the premier Wool & Natural Fibre Festival in Wales and is held annually on the last weekend in April at the Royal Welsh Showground, Builth Wells, Powys.
First held in 2006 to promote the market for Welsh wool and add value to product for small wool & fibre producers in Wales, the festival celebrates the green credentials of Welsh wool and its versatility as a material for creative crafts, designer clothes, home furnishings and more. Wonderwool Wales has grown year on year. It covers everything from the start to the end of the creative process – from exhibits of sheep, through raw and hand dyed fibres, yarn for knitting & crochet, embellishments, equipment, dyes and books to superb examples of finished textile art, craft, clothing and home furnishings.
The Festival was awarded The Best Event in the Mid Wales Tourism Awards 2019/2020. Wonderwool Wales has also been awarded Highly Commended several years running in the Let’s Knit British Knitting & Crochet Awards.
Here you can find all the information you need. Find details about the event, the exhibitors, the Wool Schools, and the venue.
Entry Tickets are £12 for the day or £22 for the whole weekend.
I finally heard back from the car insurance people today and I managed to get them to reduce the renewal quote by £75, mostly by saying to each new (lower) figure I was given; “Well, that’s better, but it’s still a lot higher than last year’s premium”, and finishing with “Is there any way it can be less than £400?”. The answer was yes – phew! The final price is *still* over £80 more than last year, but I feel like we at least split the difference.
I have much more fun admin in sight for tomorrow – an application for a yarn show I’ve not done before, and would really love to be accepted for. I’m not going to jinx it by telling you which one, but if you could just generally keep your fingers crossed for me, I’d really appreciate it!
This week has been very productive. After deciding I needed to redo the neckband of my Lichfield cardigan (do you remember, the stitches I’d picked up on one front corner didn’t match the other, and was making it pull in too much?), I ripped it out and re-knitted it. I also followed my plan for the top of the sleeve caps and knitted one to my original length and one with the additional four rows added by the tech editor. I pinned them both to the body of the cardigan (unblocked, but that was the best I could do at the time) to see which looked and felt best when worn. The extra four rows helped with the fit on the shoulder, so they stayed and I added them to the other sleeve as well. I’ve now blocked the whole cardigan (on Saturday – and I am STILL aching from those 90 minutes kneeling on the ground…) and it’s nearly dry and ready for seaming. Blocking is often thought of as one of the ‘finishing touches’ that can be done (or not), but I maintain it is an integral part of the knitting process as it makes such a difference.
I think the extremely high humidity with this heatwave slowed the drying process as I would not have expected it to take this long as this time of year. The part that is still damp is the shoulder shaping and collar on the body as the fabric is doubled at that point. By the way, that cardboard box in the background is not a moving box – though it looks like one! We’re not going anywhere, it’s just useful storage.
Once the cardigan was cast off, I knitted one final sock sample for Bodelwyddan (that’ll be 8 socks I’ve made in total, across the five sizes). I gave them all a wash this morning and one pair got the treat of going on the sock blockers! They’ll be photographed by next week and I’ll share them with you in all their glory.
Bodelwyddan will be launched at the start of October with 50% of the pattern price throughout the month going to Treasure Chest YGC, a charity that aims to support and raise funds for patients who have had/are having surgery or treatment for Breast Cancer in Glan Clwyd Hospital (Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Welsh, hence ‘YGC’), Denbighshire. I will post a weekly tally of the total raised through sales of Bodelwyddan during October and hope you can all help get the word out about the pattern and other fundraising that will be taking place at the same time.
I’ve also knitted something else, which I’m not going to tell you about yet, but it’s very very cool! And there is something else extremely exciting happening in early October that I should be able to tell you at least a little about next week.
There are now only four days until Yarn Gathering and I’m very excited to see it all come together again. We have such a lovely selection of vendors joining us and they are all based within an hour or so of Mold!:
Do join us if you have the chance. Sunday 17th September, 10am – 4pm, The Daniel Owen Centre, Mold, CH7 1AP. Free Entry.
I’ve been making some things today on my sewing machine in readiness for Yarn Gathering on Sunday: four zipped box pouches. The first pic is of the two I’ve made before (the first in a workshop with the lovely Jo Paloma Makes) so you can see what they’ll be like. Today’s pouches are all half made so far, as I decided it was far easier to do them on a mini production line, rather than work on one at a time. They’ll be finished tomorrow – I’ve even left the sewing machine out on the kitchen table!
Speaking of workshops, I had a great time last Wednesday teaching my “Absolute Beginners’ Knitting” workshop.
Tomorrow is the follow-on workshop, “Next Steps Beginners’ Knitting” and the same two ladies are currently booked on it. If you have some experience of the knit stitch and you’d like to learn more, there’s still time to book a place!
Next Wednesday (20th) is “Working with Colour – Slip Stitch Knitting“. This one is loads of fun and the results look far more complicated than they actually are to do and you’re only using one colour at a time!
I’m sure there’s more to share, but if I don’t press ‘publish’ soon, it’ll be tomorrow! Take care, have a good week, and get yourselves over to Mold on Sunday if you can. Kx
The song ‘Follow Your Arrow‘ by Kacey Musgraves has been a proper ear-worm for me this week. I’ve even been singing it in the shower! If you’ve never heard it, I highly recommend a listen.
There are changes are afoot in our household, with my lovely wife moving on from primary school headship to a new pathway of her own devising, and I may be doing some musical stuff in our local community in the near future as well as continuing to knit up a storm. I’ve even been brave and set foot on a big wheel – the one pictured in the main image of Llandudno pier! Once we got moving (after sitting at the top for far too long) it was quite spectacular.
In the meantime, I am preparing for four knitting workshops this month and for Yarn Gathering on Sunday 17th! As part of this, there has been a lot of printing happening today. As you might expect, some of the printing has been patterns, but there have also been posters, risk assessments, pattern spreadsheets and public liability insurance certificates!
A slightly less fun part of today has been trying to find out why my car insurance renewal quote for this year is 50% higher than last year’s premium. That’s without any changes to the policy (and no claims) at all! Fortunately I got to speak to a really helpful woman on the phone, explained the changes I do need to make, and she is going to ring me back on Friday when she’s heard back from the underwriters and then we’ll look at possible discounts. Argh. At least I know I’ll be speaking to the same person, so I won’t have to go through everything again from the beginning.
Admin is one of those things that has to be done and it’s something I generally don’t mind. Having had a week of visitors and then visiting Kent, the only work I’ve been doing is social media and knitting, so I’ve had to catch up with myself a bit today, which means I’m noticing the admin more than usual!
But the knitting? Well! I thought I might have moved on to the sleeves of Lichfield by today, didn’t I? Haha! I’ve done both the sleeves (apart from the very tops of them – I need to decide whether or not to knit the extra four rows added by the tech editor just before the final cast off rows) AND I only have two rows and the cast-off left to do on the neckband.
That means the shoulder seams are already done as well. Although, now I’ve seen the photos of it lying flat I think I might redo the neckband to shift the stitch pick up a little on the left hand front (right side of image). This will get rid of the little ‘pull-up’ I can see at the bottom of the neck band.
Do you see how the stitch pattern in the back panel lines up perfectly with that of the neckband? It does that for every size. That type of detail is important to me as it makes a design (and a garment knitted from it) look really finished and precise.
Once I’ve re-done the neckband and done the last little bits at the tops of the sleeve caps (I’ll probably add the extra rows in one sleeve, leave the balls of yarn attached, pin them to the body of the cardigan and decide which fit I like best, then redo the top of the other sleeve cap to match), that’s ALL the knitting done. Then it’s blocking time, seaming and weaving in the ends. With any luck (and if the weather isn’t too hot) I’ll be wearing it at Yarn Gathering, although I can’t sell the pattern myself until next January.
It’s been an eye-opener knitting a waist-length garment in my size. It’s so much quicker than something long that supposedly ‘hides’ your hips/bum, but in reality does nothing of the sort. That sounds pretty obvious when you think about it, but the full circumference of knitting happens at the bottom of a garment, so to take off 6-9 inches of fabric is a lot of knitting removed from the equation. This might make it sound as though I don’t enjoy knitting. I do – I love it. But I also know (and have been told by other knitters) that it can get very frustrating when it can literally take months to complete a garment when making a larger size. I also seem to be using slightly less yarn than I’d calculated which is interesting. I started each section with a new ball, but I only used 3 on the back, 2 on each sleeve and 1 on each front. It’s 1 so far on the neckband, but that might become 2. Add in a 10% buffer and we’re looking at 12 x 50g balls rather than 13 for size 7. Another saving! I can see potentially more waist-length garments (or ones with a waist-length option) in future designs…!
Anyway, I hope Yarn O’clock doesn’t mind my ‘borrowing’ this photo, but I thought this was an excellent placement of a diversion sign – and a great example of ‘follow your arrow’ too! Why not divert into a yarn shop (though ideally not while still in a car)? On the day of Yarn Gathering (September 17th, 10-4), Yarn O’clock will also be open from 1-2pm.
Yarn Gathering is in less than three weeks! I am excited to tell you that Anne and I did the floor plan at the weekend and there’s going to be a really lovely mix of vendors for you to visit. There will be nine stands in the main hall of the Daniel Owen Centre and three in the cafe space. The cafe itself won’t be open, but you can get refreshments from a variety of places in Mold on a Sunday – or even better, why not visit the Mold Food & Drink Festival while you’re here? There’s a map of the town showing the venue and car parks on the Yarn Gathering page.
One word of caution, especially for the folk who are not from Wales and may be less aware of the upcoming changes in the traffic laws. From 17th September, (nearly) all roads in Wales that were previously 30mph will be 20mph. There will be 30mph signs for any roads that are exceptions to the 20, but the general intention is ‘see street lights, think 20’. I don’t know if traffic police will be issuing fines from ‘Day 1’, but we would hate anyone to get caught out. My town has been one of the 8 trial areas for the 20mph speed limit and there have been very mixed responses from the local community, but it will be happening, starting from Yarn Gathering day, so take it steady on your way to inhale the yarn fumes!
I’ve been baking again!
These are vegan sourdough chocolate brownies and they are truly delicious – especially with vanilla ice-cream and homegrown raspberries. My sister-in-law is coming to visit today, and it seemed an excellent reason to get the baking going again.
Update – Katie loves the brownies and helped pick today’s raspberry harvest.
We’re getting this many every day or two at the moment. Even though they’re autumn fruiting, the canes are really going for it!
Last week when I wrote I was getting to the end of the medium sized sock for my upcoming sock pattern, Bodelwyddan. As you can see, that sock has been finished and the small (second size) sock has also been made! The dark (medium) sock is in RiverKnits Nene 4ply (100% British Bluefaced Leicester Wool) and the light variegated (small) sock is in The Yarn Artist Sock 4ply (75% Superwash Merino, 25% Nylon). Both of these socks were knitted using leftovers from other projects – there wouldn’t be enough for two of each, but who says your socks have to match?!
I’ve also been storming ahead with my own version of Lichfield. This is size 7 and I have finished the back and the left front, and made a start on the right front. As we have a couple of long car trips this week, I may even have finished a sleeve by the time I write next!
Something I forgot to share with you last week was my one purchase at the Pop Up Wool Show.
I bought these two beautiful skeins of 4ply wool from Doulton Border Leicester Yarn. The yarn comes from their own flock and all the sheep live out their full lives, even after their fleeces stop being suitable for use – they have an oap/retired sheep field! I really like their philosophy and the yarn looks and feels very high quality. I don’t know what I’m going to make with it yet, but I have a few ideas up my sleeve!
I’ve been doing a little more crochet recently – what, two crochet projects on the go? Shocking! To the right is my first attempt at puff stitch. Those are the stitches that form the heart in the centre of the granny square. I’m not sure I’ve got it quite right in terms of tension, but I think it’s pretty good for a first attempt! I also decided to treat myself to a crochet blocking board.
This was one of the Amazon images for this crochet blocking board. Can you see what is wrong with it?! 😂
It almost put me off buying it, but at least I could see the pics were of actual crocheted items actually held in place with the metal pins. This was a big improvement on some listings which showed a similar board with badly cropped pictures of crochet overlaid and photoshopped images of the pins floating in mid-air in front of them!
I’m glad I did get it though, it’s decent quality bamboo and metal pins and I like the idea of being able to block several squares at once stacked above each other – guaranteed to be blocked to the same size!
Anyway, that’s all from me for today. Take care of yourselves and I hope you get to do some stuff you enjoy this week. Keep your fingers crossed on the cardigan progress for me! K x
So I did it – two yarn shows on consecutive weekends! It wasn’t planned, (Buxton had to move its dates from March), but it seems I can do it! And I really enjoyed them both in their different ways. It’s always good to talk to fellow crafters and introduce them to new constructions or techniques. Two colour brioche got the most attention this weekend (Jo March, Beth March and Meg March), closely followed by Tiffany and, no doubt influenced by the warmer weather, my summer lace-weight throw-over, What Do Points Make?
There were also lots of positive responses to the suggestion that I expand the size range for Honeybun Cardigan up to adult sizes – it’s currently for ages 1-8. So, that idea is definitely being moved up the list!
I’ve even started thinking about which other yarn/wool shows I might apply for…
This weekend I also saw some folk who I either had only previously ‘met’ online or who I haven’t seen for months, which was lovely.
There was a definite ‘festival’ vibe to the Wool @ J13 weekend at Bishton Hall. The sunny and warm weather made an appearance and so people were relaxing outside in-between passes of the marquee or workshops. We opened up a join in the side of the marquee to let some fresher air in as well.There was a fabulous singer who accompanied herself on guitar and it was so good to hear her music drifting into the marquee.
On both days I treated myself to the most amazing chickpea curry from Atia’s Kitchen / Zainz Catering, which then led my stand neighbours to go and order the same thing!
So, as I said on my social media post last night, thank you so much to everyone at Wool @ J13 who came and said hello, had a chat, took a card or bought something – you’re all super. And thanks also to the organisers and volunteers who helped unload the cars, made sure we had drinks and opportunities to go to get some lunch or have a wee throughout the weekend!
I have to admit, though, that the past couple of days have been taken at a much more sedate pace. The groundsheet is now upside down on the patio drying out (there was a lot of moisture and humidity in the marquee) and, once the washing has dried and been brought in, I will hang up my sheets of polythene to dry out too. These were placed over my stand during the evenings/nights to protect everything, and they did the job very well, but the parts that reached the grass got quite wet.
What’s next? Well, on Thursday evening I am teaching the magic of Moebius Knitting at Yarn O’clock in Mold. Moebius knitting creates a moebius strip (or infinity loop) that has just one edge and one side whilst still being a 3D object – it’s all in the cast-on and we’ll be learning two different ways to cast on to create a true moebius during the workshop. It’s the technique I used for my Mirror Mirror Moebius and Forest Ferns Moebius cowls. There are still one or two spaces available if you want to join us! See my “Where I’ll Be” page for full details.
And on Saturday I’ll be in Frodsham for the Cheshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Friendship Day where they invite members of other guilds along as well as local fibre folk. I’m looking forward to that.
With all these events I’ve been paying more attention to the health of my iPhone battery – as I use it alongside my Zettle reader to take card payments. Did you know you can check it by going to settings/battery/battery health and charging? Mine is ‘significantly degraded’ apparently. However, there are service options listed, which include having the battery replaced! I didn’t even know that was a possibility until recently.
So, I checked it out last week and there was a place in Chester that could do it – brilliant! I made an appointment for this morning and drove over to Chester especially with anticipation in my heart about not having to recharge my phone at least once a day!
However… After I had arrived in Chester I received an email that said they would have to cancel my appointment as they didn’t have the battery in stock. Bear in mind the appointment was made 6 days ago and they themselves had sent me an email reminder yesterday! I found the shop and went in anyway to find out what they could do. The chap behind the desk told me they hadn’t got the battery available, because they only get one at a time and someone had reserved it yesterday (for this afternoon). When I pointed out that my appointment had been made a week ago – which surely should have priority over one made five days later – he said, “We don’t check future appointments at the end of the day. Maybe we should start doing that” – this bit got a “Yes, that would be a good idea!”. Also, even if they did have one, they would need my phone for 1-3 working days – no mention of which was made on booking or on the confirmation or reminder emails.
Bother (or stronger words to that effect). I’d been really pleased that I could get this done without going over to the Apple store in Liverpool, but it now looks as though that will be the only option if I want to get a new battery for my phone. I’ve deliberately not named the shop as I’m sure they’re perfectly good at most of what they do, but on this occasion it wasn’t great.
Anyway, that was the frustration of my morning. First world problems I know, but it was very irritating.
I am now going to show you something very exciting. It doesn’t look like much yet, but I have swatched and swatched and written and charted and now?
I’ve cast on. My next design is on its way into being! Those of you who know my preference for circular needles may well be wondering what’s going on. Don’t worry, I’m changing needle size now I’ve cast on – and that one *will* be a circular! The yarn is BFL 4ply from McIntosh and being Bluefaced Leicester wool it has sucked up this vibrant colour beautifully.
Take care one and all and do some stuff that makes you smile this week. I’m hoping to make some rhubarb jam, plant out the veg seedlings and knit. K x
Well, what can I say? Buxton Wool Gathering was fab! Sunday was warm and sunny with LOTS of visitors – apparently more people came that day than came over the entire weekend of the previous year. After the show closed I was able to enjoy a plant-based salted caramel ice-cream on a bench in the Pavilion Gardens which was just the thing after a busy day.
The weather on Monday took a turn as expected and it rained for much of the morning, with a few drier hours in the afternoon. It was a quieter day at the show, as is usually the case with the second day of a yarn show (that’s why I tend to visit Wonderwool on a Sunday), but everyone who was there was having a good day and was cheerful about the rain.
It was wonderful that my lovely wife was able to help me set up my stand on Saturday. We drove over in the morning and, thanks to me believing my sat-nav knew what it was doing, ending up driving across (up?) the peaks and up the Cat & Fiddle – not quite the A road I’d been expecting! However, we still got there in good time, got everything looking beautiful on the stand and went off for an explore in the rain. The cable ties for the items on the clothes rail were such a good solution as it removed the problem of things sliding onto the floor!
We had lunch at The Herb Garden, a lovely little vegetarian cafe that was friendly and welcoming with super vegan choices. Following that there was more walking, Ronnie flew above the rooftops of Buxton, we explored some of the shops and then drove up to the Premier Inn.
After settling into our room we booked a table for dinner, chilled out and dried out a little, then walked back into the town centre for dinner. Once we had walked back to the hotel we’d clocked up over 12,000 steps!
Sue had to return to Wales on Sunday and so I was on the stand by myself, but not for long, as there were so many people to chat to, both vendors and visitors.
My immediate neighbours were brilliant company over the weekend and deserve a shout-out:
Zwölf Fibres had yarn and rugs from his own sheep and was doing his first ever show. Edelweiss Fibres had gorgeous hand-dyed yarns inspired by florals and the natural beauty of Scotland. Noodle Soup Yarns are also hand dyers, specialising in punchy colour on sock weight yarn and All Wool That Ends Wool had a wide range of full and mini skeins in bright and bold hand dyed colours.
You’ll see some of their stands at the end of this video I took on Monday morning:
Buxton Wool Gathering, just before the start of Day 2
I also got to meet Pod from A Happy Crow in person (I follow them on social media), learnt how to make a Saxon Vat for indigo dyeing without extra chemicals from the fab folks at Blotz Natural Dyes and managed to grab a few good chats with the one person I knew from before this show: Tanya from The Woolly Tangle.
There were lots of other fantastic folk there as well, but my brain can only remember so much today, so please forgive me if I was chatting to you and haven’t given you a mention.
A couple of designing highlights of the weekend were: when two people came round the corner and one exclaimed “I recognise that!”, pointing to Bargello Aurora Wrap which she had just finished knitting and when someone at my stall said “I’ve got a list”, and just as I was thinking she was going to ask for the whereabouts of some the other vendors, showed me the section of the list she meant – she had gone through the patterns on the website and had a list of six patterns she wanted!
There were lots of other great moments – those are just the two that stand out most in my thoughts at present.
Sue had made dinner when I got home on Monday evening and it was so good to sit down to eat a home-prepared meal. I slept REALLY well too!
This morning I combined my notes of sales from each day and was delighted to realise I’d sold 77 patterns and 4 kits – so over 80 patterns in total. That led to some very necessary re-printing (especially as I’d sold 22 copies of Tiffany) in readiness for Wool@J13 this coming weekend! That will be a slightly smaller event in term of number of vendors (about 30 rather than 50), but there will be food vans and music and workshops happening as well, so it promises to be a lively show. The stands are in a marquee in the grounds of Bishton Hall; fingers crossed the weather improves a bit from what we’ve had today and the grass has a chance to dry out beforehand – especially for those brave souls who will be camping! Not me, I’ll be extending my range of Premier Inns visited.
I didn’t get much knitting done while I was away – though I did manage to turn the heel of a sock I’m working on during a quiet patch on Monday. I will be glad to get back to the needles for a last bit of swatching for my next design during the next few days before I pack up the car on Friday and do it all again!
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
