Winter Haven KAL 2021 – two days to go!

There are just two days to go until the Winter Haven KAL starts for this year!

Last year’s KAL was such a lovely time for me in terms of really thinking about what I was doing for myself and with my crafting that I’m really looking forward to doing it all over again.  You wouldn’t think that you need to schedule in time to be kind to yourself, but sometimes that’s exactly what’s needed!

Here’s a quick re-cap of what’s going on if you’ve missed it so far (you can read the “getting ready” post here).

🧶  The Winter Haven KAL (knit-a-long) is all about getting us through the dark days of January, thinking about how best we can be kind to ourselves and others and, yes, getting a bit of knitting done too!

🧶 If you don’t live in the part of the world where it’s dark and cold at this time of year, you can still join in as although my fireside photos won’t be relevant to your season, hopefully the things that I’m going to be talking about during the KAL will be.

🧶 I’d love you to use Winwick Mum yarn but often at this time of the year, people are looking at what they already have stashed away and (sometimes) feeling guilty about the amount of yarn that’s being used as insulation rather than projects, so use whatever you have that will make you feel good in your Haven.  I’d just like you to choose a Winwick Mum pattern to use if you’re going to work with different yarn – you can find them all here (you’ll notice that the West Yorkshire Spinners Christmas 2020 patterns aren’t listed but that’s just because I haven’t got round to it yet – those are fine to use too!).

🧶 My Winter Haven space is next to the fireplace because it’s cold and currently snowy here in the UK and I don’t need much of an excuse to light the fire!  You can pick anywhere as your space – a cosy armchair, a seat in the garden, even tucked up in your bed – it just needs to be somewhere where you can have five minutes (and hopefully more) to yourself.

🧶 You can start a new project – there’s a new sock pattern coming tomorrow, I’m so excited! – or you can use a WIP if you’ve already got a Winwick Mum-connected project on the go.

🧶 You don’t have to knit socks to take part.  I knit socks because that’s what I do, but you can pick any project that you like (see here!) and if I finish them in time, I’m going to knit myself another pair of Split Mittens as well as part of the KAL because I can 🙂

🧶 There’s nothing that you need to officially join to take part.  I’ll put the Winter Haven KAL blog posts up every Friday and you can read them when you have time, and maybe try out one or two of the suggestions as well.  The posts aren’t going anywhere so you can come back to them at any time.

OK, is that it?  I think so!  If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me in the comments and I’ll get back to you – otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow with the brand new Basic 4ply Knee High Socks pattern, and on Friday with the first Winter Haven KAL post.

See you then! xx