Winter Haven KAL 2026 – Week 2

Hello to you!  It’s week 2 of the Winter Haven KAL and we’re half way through January!

Thank you to everyone who has been in touch through the blog comments, on social media or by email – it’s been great to hear from you and I’m so pleased that you’re joining in with the KAL!

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed seeing so many posts on Facebook and Instagram (you can find them using the hashtag #WinterHavenKAL – don’t forget to add yours!) and what’s been really lovely is that the posts are encouraging more people to join in who didn’t think they wanted to be part of a KAL!  Yes, of course I want the whole world to knit my socks patterns 🙂 ,  but just as important is making sure that we try to rest and recharge too, so the more people we can encourage to do that, the better!

I think what helps is that this knit-along is very flexible, especially as I’ve got more patterns for you to choose from these days alongside the Basic 4ply Socks and this year’s Abacus Socks pattern, and as your Haven will probably be a space in your house then you haven’t got to leave it to go anywhere else, which makes it much easier to take a few moments for yourself.  If you’re new to the Winter Haven KAL, it started last Friday and there’s still time to find yourself a cosy space, pick up a WIP or start a new project, and join in.  The first post which tells you all about the KAL and how it works is here.

Every year, I get emails from people who say that January is a difficult month for them for a variety of reasons and now in it’s 7th year, the Winter Haven KAL is a good reminder that they (and you) are not alone.  We might sit on our own in our Haven spaces but we are still connected and this is one of those time when social media in any form can actually help and we can all feel part of something bigger.  I didn’t plan the KAL like this deliberately in the beginning but I think it’s brilliant the way that it’s worked out like this.

This week, I’m going to talk a bit about what I’ve been doing, but I’m also going to show you what others have been doing as well – I love that we are all taking part in this KAL together!

🕯 My space

I’ve been making sure that I’ve had time in front of the fire this week and the result is that I’ve got on very well with my socks!  I’ll show them to you in a minute!

I’m terribly nosey and I do like to see where you sit and knit, so it’s been great to read about your cosy spaces! 🙂  Would you like to see some other Winter Haven spaces too?  I’ve got to tell you that it’s been brilliant to see so many photos – they’re in the Winwick Mum Knit n Natter Facebook group and Instagram if you use social media (#WinterHavenKAL) and I’ve had some sent to me by email too (hello (at) winwickmum.co.uk) , so don’t worry if you wanted to be part of the blog post and don’t use social media – there’s always a way you can get hold of me! 🙂

I’ve got a lot of photos to show you but I won’t post them all today as it’ll make the post too long – thank you so much if you’ve sent a picture of your Haven space in for me, if you don’t see it today then it’ll definitely be in a later post.

Are you ready to see?

Debra has a wonderfully cosy space here with her log burner going – and it’s clearly got the stamp of approval as helper Duncan is snoozing very comfortably in the warmth!

Source: Debra via email

Another log burner is lit in Emma’s house and I don’t think you could get more toasty than right next to the fire there!  She’s got her knitting at the ready and I can imagine that once she’s settled, she won’t be moving anywhere in a hurry!

Source: Emma via Facebook

Michele lives in Washington State where she has considerably more snow that I can see out of the window in Winwick!  Even if you’re not a fan of the white stuff, you must surely agree that that is a lovely view to look out on whilst you’re taking some time for yourself.  I feel relaxed already!

Source: Michele via email

Michelle has got everything she needs in her space, including her book to write in and more knitting accessories than you can shake a stick at – that’s a very well-stocked little box and I am more than a little envious of it! 🙂

Source: Michelle via Facebook

Nancy is also in the US but seems to have escaped the snow in her photo.  She’s got plenty of knitting planned, though, and I am always a fan of lots of pairs of socks lined up to be knitted!

Source: Nancy via email

More snow!  Suzanne has her socks on her needles and a lovely view from her window.  Her kitty helper decided that it was a no-publicity kind of day but we can admire the setup of a cosy bed with the best view! 🙂

Source: Suzanne via email

I’ve got more photos to show you next week, and do feel free to send me yours if you’d like to share your space on the blog!

🕯 Project

How have you been getting on with your projects?

I know that this year’s pattern, the Abacus Socks, won’t be for everyone but there are plenty of other Winwick Mum patterns for you to choose from.  Some of them were designed for West Yorkshire Spinners and other places but they still count as a Winwick Mum pattern which you can use for the KAL 🙂   I’ve lost count of the number a bit, but it’s over 70 patterns that I’ve designed now so there are a good few to choose from – and that’s not including shawls, cowls and mittens which you’ll also find on the Patterns and Printables page.

I’ve got a few projects lined up for this year: a pair of Basic 4ply Socks for my husband in Laughing Hens Super Sock yarn, another pair of basic socks for my husband in WYS Signature 4ply (they’re black and I’ll be honest, they’re taking longer than they should because I don’t love the colour 🤣), and I’m going to knit another Aardvarkish shawl so that I can check the pattern after getting a few questions about it.  I know that the pattern is right but you do need to move stitch markers around, so I’m going to look at it again and then update the pattern.

I’ve finished the first pair of my husband’s socks – and just in time as he’s starting to run short of pairs of hand knits.  They’re all years old now, though, so they absolutely don’t owe us anything but it’s time that he had a few new pairs and here’s the first contribution to his sock drawer …

They’re not blocked as he’ll block them quite happily on his feet, and I did cut some yarn out of the ball as I went along as the repeats were longer than I wanted.  Each main colour change is in 4 sections, not 3 as you can see in my socks – I think they’d work well for longer socks but this is the usual length I make for my husband (6″ leg) and I wanted as many colour changes as we could fit in.

The yarn is Laughing Hens Super Sock in the shade No 13, Seymour, and this link to the Laughing Hens website so you can see the yarn is an affiliate link.

I finished the black socks I’ve been knitting for my husband up to the point of putting in the forethought (sometimes called afterthought) heels – apparently the difference between forethought and afterthought is that I have put in a line of waste yarn (forethought) but true afterthought heels are made by cutting where you want the heel to go.  That’s really not for me so forethought it is!  My husband tried his sock on and it was just the right size so I’ve unravelled the toes, added in three more rounds of black yarn and now I’m re-knitting the toes, as you and I know that just the right size will end up too small at some point as hand knits will shrink a little over time.  For the effort involved now compared to how it would be once the socks have been worn and they’ve started to wear out, it’s worth the extra time to do this to make sure they fit properly.

I wouldn’t usually knit with yarn that I’d just unravelled – it can mess with your tension so I’d hold it over the steam from the kettle to get it straight again – but my husband will be just fine with it as it is.  I’m hoping he will also be fine with all the cat hairs I can see all over sock from here …

Shall we have a look at some of your projects now?  Thank you so much for sharing your photos, it’s been lovely to see them all!

To take part in the Winter Haven KAL, you just need to use Winwick Mum yarn and/or a Winwick Mum pattern and it’s been great to see your choices!

First up, Abacus Socks on the needles!  If you missed the post where the pattern was released you can find it here: Abacus Socks

Angela is one of my lovely group of test knitters and she chose Autumn Leaves for her main colour yarn.  It’s worked really well!

Source: Angela

Heather has chosen a lovely yarn here, I’m looking forward to seeing how it knits up!  Heather said she was having a couple of problems with the twisted stitches as they were a bit tight when she first started on her short circular needle.  If you’re having the same issues, the fabric will loosen off as you get further down your sock, but there are other methods of creating the twisted stitches (I only gave one method in the pattern) so you can always do an internet search to look for alternatives and see if there’s another way you like better.

Source: Heather via email

Jan is another of my talented testers and she’s chosen Wool Warehouse’s Yarnsmiths merino sock yarn for her pair.  The pattern is showing up really well in the green!

Source: Jan

Jo is also a tester and rocketed through her sock – isn’t the Eye of Partridge heel lovely?  You do have to concentrate a little bit more (says someone who always has to make notes with this type of heel!) but it’s worth the effort and this one looks really lovely against the variegated main colour yarn.

Source: Jo

Panda has also rocketed through her sock – once you get past the twisted stitch pattern, the rib is very quick to knit and the heel stitch is showing up really well with the grey contrast, too.

Source: Panda via Facebook

Rosie is also one my testers (honestly, I don’t know how I coped without them for so long!) and is using a delicately-coloured yarn for her pair.  I’m looking forward to seeing how these turn out!

Source: Rosie

Finally for today, here’s Sandra’s sock.  The last of the test knitter socks I have to show you today, Sandra is using WYS Signature 4ply in one of the Zandra Rhodes colourways as her main colour (but I can’t remember which one 🙂 ).

Don’t they look great?  I’m so happy to see the pattern being knitted up and if you’ve got the socks on your needles, I hope the pattern is making you happy too!

You don’t have to knit the Abacus Socks to take part in the Winter Haven KAL.  There are more patterns on the go for the knit-along too!

Anthea is working on a pair of Treasure Socks using WYS Signature 4ply in Rum Paradise as her contrast colour, and it’s looking lovely!

Source: Anthea via Facebook

Carey always has a pair of Basic 4ply Socks on the go – and here’s her latest pair!  Her husband is the happy recipient of many of her pairs of socks and he’s going to love this pair too!

Source: Carey via Facebook

Debra (whose cosy knitting space you saw earlier) has decided to cast on a pair of Nutmeg Socks.  These might be a Christmas pattern but socks are for life, not just for Christmas and they never mind at all when they get knitted up! 🙂

Source: Debra via email

Janine is knitting a cosy pair of Basic 8ply (DK) Socks and she’s chosen my favourite blue shade of WYS ColourLab Sock yarn (this one’s called, unsurprisingly, Blues 🤣 ).

Source: Janine via Facebook

Kathy has cast on for a Thoughtful Cowl and I think that yarn is going to look very pretty in the lacy stitches.  It does look complicated with all the stitch markers but each lace section is between the stitch markers so it’s not actually very many stitches at a time.

Source: Kathy via Facebook

Nancy is working on a pair of Basic 4ply Socks – what lovely rich colours her yarn is!  If extra stitch patterns are not your thing, there are so many self-striping and variegated yarns available that you never need to knit anything other than a pair of basic socks to get a unique pair every time!

Source: Nancy via email

Rhian is also knitting a pair of Basic 4ply Socks – and has made herself a new project bag to keep her knitting in.  I love that, it’s so bright and cheerful, definitely something to make you smile every time you sit down to do a few rounds of sock!

Source: Rhian via Facebook

🕯 Something green

This week’s photo is a little of grape hyacinths (Muscari) which has been growing on our kitchen windowsill.  I tried to keep them in the dark for a while but they shot up and have gone a bit leggy now – I’m hoping they’ll still produce some flowers as I do love the pretty little grape-like blue bunches.  It’s definitely getting to that time of year now when shoots are starting to appear in the garden, although it always worries me that they’ll be too early if the weather gets colder later.

🕯 Light it up!

It’s been candle city here this week as I’ve been lighting them as soon as it’s started to go dark.  I’ve been saving all the pieces of wax when the wicks have burnt out and melting those into jars with a new wick for “recycled” candles – nowhere near as pretty as the originals, but it means I get a little bit longer out of the scented ones so that’s good with me!  I think it’s also pretty obvious that I am in no way an expert candlemaker as I’ve got those holes where the wax has cooled, but as they’re just for me I can live with that 🙂

I’m thinking that I should have made a bit more effort to take the label off but I wasn’t sure how it would work … I’ll do that next time!

🕯 Listen up!

What have you been listening to this week?

Driving home from Carlisle earlier this week (which I’ll tell you more about later), I listened to the 100th episode of the Making Stitches podcast.  If you’ve never listened to Making Stitches and you enjoy listening to podcasts, I can highly recommend this one.  Lindsay, the host, is a skilled interviewer (she’s a former professional journalist) and through the podcast, she shares the stories of a wide range of makers and there’s always something new to discover.  Episode 100 is a very special episode as Lindsey was celebrating 10 years in blogging and 100 episodes of the podcast in 2025, and she did so by being interviewed herself so that she could tell her listeners more about her own crafting.  It’s a great episode to listen to although the interviewer is nowhere near as skilled as Lindsay – and I am not being rude about anyone else as the interviewer is me!  I’ve been friends with Lindsay she since first got in touch a couple of years ago to ask if I would be on the podcast, and I thoroughly enjoyed turning the tables to ask her the questions for a change, although I think our interview turned into more of a chat so I’m not expecting any phone calls from the BBC any time soon 🙂

The link to the episode is here: https://makingstitchespodcast.com/2026/01/02/episode-100-from-postcard-from-gibraltar-to-making-stitches/

🕯 Self-care

Self-care has started a little unexpectedly for me this year in that I’ve been out of the house far more than I would usually be at this time of year – not just leaving the house for dog walks or food shopping, but proper out out, and it’s been lovely!

My cousin was staying with us last week and although I couldn’t take the time off my day job and Winwick Mum completely, I made an extra effort to get up early to do what I needed to do so that we had time to be out and about.  We walked the walls at Chester, we went to Edinburgh for three days to see more relatives, we went into Wales, we went to big daughter’s yoga class, we went to the supermarket … yes, I know that doesn’t sound very exciting if you go to the same supermarket every week but when you go to a new supermarket, especially an overseas one, it’s always fascinating to see the different foods that they sell.  Interestingly, I found that it made me look at the supermarket with different eyes for that visit too, and that’s always a good thing to do, I think.

After my cousin had left, I went up to Carlisle earlier in the week with my friend Lucy to an evening lecture by Kaffe Fassett at Tullie House Museum.  Kaffe Fassett has been a huge inspiration in my knitting life – many years ago whilst still a teenager, I used to knit his patterns designed for Rowan for my local yarn shop and it was my first foray into how to be a fearless knitter.  There would easily be 25 yarns per row in one of his colourwork jumpers and because nobody had ever told me that I couldn’t do it, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to.  This is what I try to instil in brand new sock knitters today – I will never tell you that you can’t do it and I will always do my best to make sure that you can!

I’ll try to write more about the visits during next week so that I’ve got an extra post for you to read, but the reason that I consider these trips to be self-care is that they were something out of the ordinary.  New people to speak to, new places to see – they lift us out of our everyday same-ness and remind us that there is more out there to be discovered.  I need to be reminded of this as I can get very distracted by my laptop and I’ve come home determined to book in more days out this year.  In fact, the first one is in my diary already … an exhibition about gladiators at the Grosvenor Museum in Chester.  Exhibitions at museums are often only on for a short time so there’s an incentive to get yourself out there … and that’s my self-care suggestion for today.  Get yourself out there, wherever you want to go!

🕯 Thank you

This week, I am very grateful for being self-employed!  Well, I’m employed in my day job but I can work at home as it’s the business I work in with my husband, but I very much appreciate being able to organise my Winwick Mum days as I please, and I know that not everybody gets to do that with their jobs.

I am also grateful for good friends and lovely relatives, all of whom have filled my cup to overflowing over the last week or so, and my heart sings whenever I think about them.

Thank you for being part of the KAL with me this week, I have so enjoyed having you be here with me!  Don’t forget to keep tagging me into your posts if you’re on social so that I can have a nosey into your cosy spaces and see your projects – the hashtag is #WinterHavenKAL.  If you don’t use social media and you’d like to email instead, please do that – I love to see ALLLL the photos!

I hope you have a wonderful week in your Winter Haven – see you next Friday! xx