We arrived early at Skipton auction mart. This was a first for us and gave us time to relax after the drive, eat our lunch (and be chased by a wasp) and chat to fellow vendors who were also there early before the roller shutters went up. We always forget just how big the building is, but you soon remember when you’re wheeling the trolley up and down the aisles! It took us an hour to get everything unloaded out of the cars. And then set up began! The roll of black fabric we’d bought having seen someone else use it last year was brilliant for covering the sides of the pens and giving us a backdrop - and was much easier to put up than trying to pin sheets to the rails!

Tickets are now on sale for the North West Winter Wool Festival 2027! And that means my show design is also available. When you purchase an advance ticket for the show you get a download code (it works on both Ravelry and Payhip) so you can download a copy of the show pattern for free! What a bargain! Tide's Out is a single skein 4ply shawl pattern with a lovely lace border reminiscent of the patterns that the receding tide leaves in the sand. The variegated sample shown here was knitted using…

Today my car is having its MOT and I'm at home with my phone off silent for a change, hoping there are no calls that have an expensive outcome! When I was a student the Metro I drove dramatically failed its MOT. There were lots of holes in the bodywork underneath the driver's seat so I could have ended up doing a Fred Flintstone impression at any point whilst driving. Because I was a student I couldn't afford to get it fixed, so I sold it for scrap and bought a pushbike.

Last night I had two sales of my Nevern Throw pattern in quick succession. Now, while Nevern Throw is my most popular design, that actually doesn't happen very often so I wondered why. A quick visit to Facebook showed me that someone had shared their completed Nevern Throw in the Stranded Knits group and it's lovely. A range of colours from yellows, greens and blues and really well knitted too. I popped into the group to add my congratulations to the many already there on a great piece of knitting. And woke up to two more sales of Nevern Throw!

Many former school teachers will tell you that the start of September has a funny effect on them. For some it is a sense of renewal and possibility, for others a sense of dread! I have to admit that I have been awake since 4.30 this morning, but not because I have been thinking about my former classroom Septembers. This September is quite possibly the busiest one I have had since I left the classroom in 2018. I have two yarn shows: Yarn Gathering which I am organising, and Yarndale…

This past weekend we had a few days in Kent visiting family and having some adventures. Eleven of us went on a boat trip to see the sea forts off Whitstable (followed by some lovely chips eaten on the sea front) and then a smaller group of just four of us had a lovely day trip to Margate on Sunday. The sea forts were eerie and amazing and I still have that slightly bobbing up and down feeling from being on the boat for an hour. I didn't take my latest commission knitting with me as reading a colourwork chart in the car is not easy, but I did take a couple of other projects.

When I was young I loved the Mr Men books. I'm of an age where they were just Mr Men - the Little Misses series hadn't been added at that point. I even taught myself how to do joined up writing by tracing Roger Hargreaves signature from the front cover of the books. Mr Bump always seemed a bit of a silly character to me, carelessly getting hurt so often. However, I have been doing a really good impression of Mr Bump this past week or so. Now I look back on it, my opinion of Mr Bump when I was a child was strange, as I had a habit of regularly walking into lamp-posts - I simply didn't see them as I was too busy looking at everything else around me.

On Friday I went into the garden to pick the blackcurrants. I was too late. With the extreme hot weather the fruit had ripened quickly and then either dropped off the stems or withered away on them. I managed to find one stem of fruit that was protected from the heat by a neighbouring plant and picked what I could from that. We cooked them down and had them with vegan vanilla ice cream (Swedish Glace in case you're interested - which has been remarkably hard to find in the shops lately!).

Time is a funny thing. It doesn't seem like a whole week has passed since I was at the dentist with my mum, and yet, at the same time, it feels like ages ago! On Friday night I went to see The Wonder Stuff in my own home town. They were phenomenal, but the fact that I didn't know any of the first 9 songs they played (out of a set list of 22!) made me realise that I'd only really listened to the same albums I had when I was a student in the 1990s, and yet they've released decades of music since then.

We spend quite a lot of time travelling these days - either to yarn shows (14 this year!) or to visit family. Can you guess which chain hotel I am staying in at the moment? Today I am down in the midlands to accompany my mum to the dentist. This means I’m writing this post on my phone which doesn’t seem to allow me to add links. I did bring my iPad too in case that would, but I began drafting this post on my phone yesterday and my iPad can’t find it.

Earlier in the year I wrote about needing to buy a protractor while working on a design for a top and trying to remember how to use sin, cos and tan in mathematical equations (to calculate the angle and therefore length required for the knitting from the neckline to the shoulder). The pattern that all those calculations were for is coming out this Thursday (16th July) in Knitting Magazine, issue 271 - and it's on the front cover! To say I am delighted is an understatement - the photography and the model are both fabulous.

I finished the back of my short Leaf & Vine cardigan! It's going to grow quite a bit when it's blocked and now the two front pieces need to be knitted. The clever thing about the construction of this garment is that the (very) short sleeves are integral to the body - you just cast on an extra 11 sts at the side. The neckband is also integral to the main design rather than being added on afterwards. Once you get to the shoulders on the front you cast off all the stitches apart from those used for the neck band and keep knitting them, leaving them on a stitch holder at the end of the first front so you can graft the two pieces together once the second front is complete.

A brief catch up with some old friends this afternoon talking about our gardens reminded me that we never did plant any vegetable seeds this year. However, the rhubarb, raspberries and other fruit bushes will no doubt be extremely grateful for the rain we have had today, especially after the extreme heatwave last week. The cooler weather has been very welcome to me certainly. I had thought I might have been able to show you a completed back of the short version of Leaf & Vine cardigan, but my needles have been busy with something else.

Tickets had been pinned to our noticeboard for many months and then hey presto Monday came and it was the day of our sailing on The Waverley Paddle Steamer. The Waverley is the world’s last sea going paddle steamer, and you can find out more by clicking the link, but I can certainly tell you that this ship provided a wonderfully smooth and quiet ride. I was fascinated to be able to see the engineering in action below the deck we were sitting on, and to see the three massive cranks working.

Last weekend was my first time exhibiting at The Wool Monty at Magna Science Adventure Centre, and I really hope it was just the first of many. It's a fantastic event where the organisers have really thought about making the show as accessible and welcoming as possible for visitors and vendors alike. The slightly larger than usual stands (3m square for a single space) meant that people using mobility scooters, wheelchairs or other walking aids could actually get into the spaces properly and see everything on offer. Because of the bigger space there were times where seven or eight people were browsing patterns and looking at samples and kits all at once!

Today's post photo is one of the flying shawls - Into the Vortex spinning through the air, which feels appropriate for this week's post! The past few weeks have felt a little bit like a juggling act . I've been working on a design commission (and exploring possibilities for another), relaunched Ice Diamond Mitts, launched Making Tracks as an individual pattern, been preparing for The Wool Monty and for an online talk I'm giving the day after The Wool Monty about my design process, started to promote Yarn Gathering, have been invigilating A-level and GCSE exams, teaching piano, singing in the church choir, visiting my Mum, celebrating my lovely wife's birthday and accompanying her to some appointments.

Making Tracks was launched last week as an individual pattern as the rights returned to me six months after it was first published in The Knitter magazine. I have to admit that a heatwave (and one that was the UK's hottest May on record) was probably not the best time to launch a cabled jumper, because although the pattern pages have had lots of views, no-one was in a jumper knitting mood and no copies have yet been sold! Mind you, with the sudden change back to 'more appropriate' weather for the time of year - along with thunder storms and some very heavy showers - you never know!

Pictured today is a shot of three dark pink peonies in the front garden, surrounded by cowslips that have gone over, some pink primroses and lots of weeds and grass that shouldn't be in the border. We haven't done the 'big weed' of the front garden yet (the back garden has been mostly tidied up), and this very 'real' pic seemed appropriate to the title of today's post! There have been a number of news stories and social media posts about AI recently and I felt I wanted to put down my thoughts and feelings around the subject.