Woollinn, Dublin

The teaching schedule has now gone live for Woollinn, a full week ahead of when booking opens!

Edinbugh Yarn Festival and Woollinn are my only teaching bookings for next year, so if you're keen to take a class you may want to have a persual at the workshop list and see what takes your fancy. The event is well situated in Dublin, close to the airport which itself is not too far from the city centre, making it very accessible for travel. And of course, it's Dublin - you can't go wrong.

I'll be spending the weekend in great company - Carol Feller, Karie Westermann, Justyna Lorkowska, Nancy Marchant to name but a few (and I'm looking forward to catching up with each of them ;). With so many great tutors, a great city and fantastic organisers (the crew at This is Knit are amazing) it's guaranteed to be worth every penny and then some.

See you there?

MKAL 2017 - some very special prizes

I've put together two very special prizes for #wwmkal2017 participants. Each prize has a skein of Sparkleduck Genie & a skein hand-dyed by me.

You'll all know that we lost Heather of SparkleDuck this year & knowing that she'd want to see these skeins knitted & used, I thought the most apt thing for me to do would be to buy them from Michael at Fibre East for our 10th MHAL.

The skeins hand-dyed by me were created during my time with the brilliant Daisy at her Devon Sun Yarns retreat in Lyme Regis. These are special weekends & I can't recommend them highly enough. As well as guest tutor weekends there's also dyeing weekends & if I were you, I'd think about booking.

10 years is a long time to be running the Mystery Hat-a-longs & this is my way of saying thank you for all your support!

Simply tag your Ravelry projects with 'wwmkal2017' & I'll select 2 random winners next week, one for each Hat.

Changing Yarns in Garter Stitch Stripes

All of the free patterns and tutorials on this website are supported by my amazing Patreons! If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be able to continue to produce or host freebies. We'd love to have you join us and in return, you get exclusive behind-the-scenes material, member-only discounts and early access to new free content. Membership starts at $1 per month. You can also say thanks for the freebie via the Tip Jar.

Here’s a quick tip for neatly changing yarns when you’re working Garter Stitch stripes flat. It’ll help avoid having yarn floats or joins at the end of the row, and you could use the same method elsewhere should you need to change yarns right at the very edge.

Support

If you’ve a question about this technique, pop it in a comment below or visit the forum! I’m unable to offer help with patterns or techniques via email.

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Changing Colours in Scourie

All of the free patterns and tutorials on this website are supported by my amazing Patreons! If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be able to continue to produce or host freebies. We'd love to have you join us and in return, you get exclusive behind-the-scenes material, member-only discounts and early access to new free content. Membership starts at $1 per month. You can also say thanks for the freebie via the Tip Jar.

Scourie is my brand new pattern, a collaboration with Ripples Crafts. Here’s a wee video to help with changing colours in the short rows!

You can read more about the pattern in my previous post :)

Support

As always, if you have a question about this technique or need some help with it, leave a comment below! I’m afraid I’m unable to offer help via email or private message but you’re welcome to post in our forums.

CHANGING COLOURS IN SCOURIE we've put together this little clip to show one possibility for changing between the yarns at the short row points in my Scourie pattern. You don't have to do it this way & the best advice I can offer it to try a couple of methods & see what works best for you. I will say though that you don't want to pull the yarn too tight! Sure, you want to take up the slack but if you pull too tight you'll affect the other stitches around the short row point & it'll end up looking untidier... even tension is the key. Also, don't beat yerself up if there's a tiny hint of the other yarn at certain points in the short row forms - unless they're very loose they won't notice overall. . #woollywormhead #learnitwithwoolly #woollyhatseason #scouriepattern #instavideo #instatutorial #knittingvideo #knittech #twocolourwork #shortrowcolourwork #shortrowsftw

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Autumn new release preview - Scourie

The third and final pattern that will be published later today!

Scourie was the special collaboration I did with Ripples Crafts for Loch Ness Knit Fest and it had such a positive response! Loads of people purchased the kits directly from Helen, and she's also put the recommended yarn in these colours up for pre-order, ready for anyone purchasing the ePattern from me.

Scourie is knit sideways, using short row colourwork techniques and short rows for shaping - it's pretty much all short rows, except for the provisional cast-on and grafting. Fear not though, as illustrated tutorials for these techniques are included, just as you'd expect from a Woolly Wormhead pattern.

The pattern comes in 3 sizes, and includes for adjusting the size through gauge. One thing I've tried with this pattern that I haven't with the Elemental Hats (because their pattern didn't provide the room to) is add in and adjustment area within the panel, that allows you to add or remove stitches, a bit like you'd see in a sewing pattern. It's the first time I've done this, and as I say, it's not always an option with sideways knit Hats, but this one gives us space to do it and I'm keen to hear what you think.

I've mentioned this before but I will say it again - the pattern is provided in charted format only. Providing written out, line by line instructions for a pattern like this would not only make the pattern lengthier and much more costly to produce, it would also introduce errors. The chart is not so much like regular charts, in that it's a map, that provides stitch counts at all relevant and clearly indicates which direction you should be knitting in, to help you navigate your way through the short rows. 

I've had really positive feedback on the maps, and I believe it's appealing to more people than a standard chart would.

Right, I'd better pop over to Ravelry and get these patterns published then, eh?