Happy February everyone! It's hard to believe that we are already into the second month of the year, and the next show is barreling down like a runaway train. In other words, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger, but I'm not sure that's because I'm making progress!

My first stop on the February train journey is Bath, where I'll be teaching "How to Knit a Sexy Sweater" at A Yarn Story this coming Sunday. It's a two part class - the morning session will cover swatching: choosing a needle size, how to swatch properly so that your swatch doesn't lie to you, fibre content considerations, and the always important blocking of your swatch. The afternoon will dig deep into how to get your swatch, gauge and chosen sweater pattern to play nicely together, and will tap in to my deep and abiding love of spreadsheets (apologies in advance). There are still some slots available, so head over to A Yarn Story's website to sign up if you'd like to join us - we'd love to have you!

Next up on the list of February events is the Unravel Festival of Knitting, taking place at Farnham Maltings from 19th - 21st February. There's a lot of stuff swirling around for Unravel this year. Louise Zass-Bangham of Inspiration Knits has a new cowl pattern that she's released (and that I tech edited) for an Unravel KAL called Maltings (on Ravelry)- it's free until the show ends on 21st February, so go grab your copy now! Like many of Louise's patterns, Maltings inlcudes all sorts of tips on how to adjust the pattern to different yarns and different degrees of complexity, so you can truly make it your own!

I'm really looking forward to Unravel for several reasons: Porpoise Fur will be there with a booth, sharing space with Yarn in the City (where Alli and I will have our new book available to purchase, along with yarn for the patterns in the book!), but I'm also tremendously honoured to be giving a talk on Friday afternoon from 4:00 - 5:00 pm. The talk is titled "Dyeing Science: From Inspiration to Colourway", and I'll be talking about the origin of some of Porpoise Fur’s science-inspired colourways, from the laboratory bench to finished dyed fibre. I'm really looking forward to sharing the process I go through from the starting images to fibre or finished yarn. The talks are free, and I'd love to have you all join me! Only please don't bring any rotten tomatoes with you...;-)