Winter Haven KAL 2025 – Week 1

Hello, hello, it’s lovely to see you – and welcome to Week 1 of the Winter Haven KAL 2025!

We’ve still got snow on the ground from last week which is not at all usual for Winwick (I may have complained on the blog more than once about Winwick being over an undiscovered volcanic hotspot and that’s why we never get any snow!) and it’s also been very cold at night – well, very cold for our part of the world!  It was -6 degrees C last night here and even colder elsewhere which is Very Cold Indeed for a country which hasn’t seen temperatures like this for a good number of years.  I was very glad to see our chimney sweep yesterday so that I know that it’s safe to keep the fire burning during this cold snap!

Elsewhere I know you’re sweltering and turning on the air conditioning but that won’t stop us being able to join together virtually through the magical power of the internet!  Hooray!  I love this knit-along time of year and a snowy UK knit-along sounds like the perfect sort of January to me!

If you’ve never taken part in the Winter Haven KAL before you might be wondering what it’s all about, especially if you’re used to a knit-along being for a particular pattern or using a particular yarn.  This one is a bit different as I want it to be more than just about the knitting; I believe so strongly that knitting is something that makes us feel safe and calm, that it brings us joy and allows us to pass that on to others through our woolly gifts and through being nicer because the knitting has made us calm … 🙂 … that I wanted to find a way to focus on and incorporate that into the KAL and make sure that we give something back to ourselves.  Finding a cosy Haven space, making time to sit and knit, finding ourselves treats, books and focussing on our own self-care is so important and never more so than at the start of the year when we have just spent weeks or months thinking about what we can give to others.

This is your gift to you.

So what is this Winter Haven, then?  Is it just a chair by the fire, or some other place that you like the look of?

On the face of it, yes!  This is the 5th Winter Haven KAL which seems quite amazing to contemplate but time moves fast and we are already five years on from the Covid year that it started.  What hasn’t changed for me, though, is the desire to start the year as I would like to go on by giving myself permission to sit down for even a few minutes instead of rushing through from the minute I wake up to the minute I collapse into bed.  Everything seems to move faster and faster until we get to Christmas and even then, my good intentions of having a rest tend to get swallowed up by other things.  The calendar page has to turn to January to remind me that it is actually OK to sit down during the day!  I hope you will give yourself permission to do that as well if it’s not something that you do already – and if you find it hard to give yourself permission, then I will give you the permission to have a moment to rest!

It’s important that it’s somewhere that you feel comfortable, where you can sit and think as well as sit and knit.  It’s going to be your safe space, your command centre, your eye of the storm.  You don’t have to sit there for hours but you know that the minute you are there, it’s as if you’ve been able to step off the world for a few moments to get your breath back.  I think that wherever we live and whether it’s winter or summer, we all need some place like that!

The Winter Haven KAL is about making that space and that time out a habit, at least for this month.  It’s about knitting (or crafting) a project that makes your heart sing, certainly, but it’s also about more than that.  For me, it’s about fitting my own oxygen mask before helping others, and whilst knitting is a vital part of that for me, there is more that I can do to prepare the ground for the coming seasons.

Each week, I’ll talk about what else I’m doing to recharge my batteries during the dark winter days, and I hope there will be something useful in there that you might like to try too.  There’s no rush here, no deadlines, just ideas to consider whilst you sit in your space and let your fingers work their yarny magic.

You can look back at the Winter Haven KAL 2025 getting ready post for more information on what this KAL is all about if you’re new here (hello to you!)

🕯 My space

My space hasn’t really changed – it’s the same chair by the fire although we’ve moved the furniture around a bit and it’s a bit further away now.  Well, I say that, but when I sit down and the fire is lit, that chair moves right up close so that I can toast my toes from the footstool! 🙂

What does your space look like?  This is where you get to be inventive!  It doesn’t have to be a dedicated space anywhere – in previous years we’ve had people who have had moveable spaces, their Winter Haven essentials (project, book, snacks) on a tray or in a box that can be taken around the house to where it’s quiet.  You might already have your own seat somewhere, but I’ve found that sitting in your “usual” place at a different time of the day makes it feel quite different and sometimes that’s enough to make me sit there for longer instead of bouncing up to do the next job!  Some people like to have a basket or box containing their project, books and treats nearby and getting things out of a container that you don’t usually keep next to you can also make a familiar place feel different if you felt the need for a change from the usual.

Part of creating a Winter Haven is making it feel as cosy as you can.  The Danish word hygge is a familiar one in our language now (although it’s so much a part of our language that it might make you think of the homewares section of a department store 😉 ), but although it loosely translates as “cosy”, the word is more to describe a feeling of cosiness and that’s certainly something you are more likely to feel at home than in a department store!  You might not want to embrace the idea of blanket and candle “cosy” quite so much if you’re in 40 degree heat, but you can be comfortable and still have your own Haven space for sitting and knitting and thinking.

Well, that sounds very good but how is the KAL going to work if I’m sitting and thinking or reading a book?  And how is it going to work if everybody is doing their own thing and not knitting the same project?  

You know, every year someone asks this question but it’s like magic!  It does work because everybody is connected by the yarn and by intention, even if they’re doing their own thing.  It actually works brilliantly well because we’re not all going to be doing the same thing.  One of the things that I love most about the internet is being able to see life in another part of the country or even the world and I hope that we’ll be able to share some of that through the KAL as we’ve done in previous years.  I’d really like you to be part of my blog posts – do let me know what you’re up to, show me your photos and let’s make sure that we’re all connected.

To join in with the KAL you’ll be using either Winwick Mum yarn and/or a Winwick Mum pattern so that connects us even if we’re not all making the same project – and is, I think, a much more flexible way of us all being able to join in together as not everybody wants to make the same thing all the time.  It also means that you don’t have to miss out if you aren’t using Winwick Mum yarn because as long as you’ve got one of my patterns, you can use stash yarn or support your local yarn shop or indie dyer and everybody wins!  If you’ve not chosen your pattern already, you can have a look at the Winwick Mum ones here.

The knitting itself is part of the whole experience; a way to sit and be creative even as your hands are busy, because all the best ideas come when you are relaxed and there’s some thinking to be done over the next couple of weeks – it’s not all about sitting and knitting whilst we eat treats!

And whilst we’re on the subject of knitting …

🕯 Project

Have you chosen your project yet?  Thank you so much for all your lovely comments on the new Trailblazer Socks pattern that I released yesterday, I’m delighted that you like it!  I love being able to offer a free pattern for the Winter Haven KAL every year – it feels like I’m starting the year right! 🙂

I must tell you that there’s been an update to the pattern since I released it yesterday morning so if you downloaded a copy before about 4pm GMT, you’ll need a new one.  What I did yesterday morning before the release was to make some changes to the way I’d written the increases to make them easier to read and I changed the charts but not the written instructions.  If you’ve already printed your copy, just swap LLI for RLI in the written instructions for the leg section and you’re good to go.  The charts and the information in the abbreviations is right, I’d just forgotten about the written instructions.  If you’ve not downloaded your copy, the right version is on the blog now (the PDF is called Trailblazer Socks 01) and you can get it from the link above.

My project this year is to finish off the socks that I started for not so small daughter and her boyfriend before Christmas.  I’m using Winwick Mum yarn so that counts for the KAL, but the pattern is someone else’s: these are the Film Reel Socks by Alex Parker Mooney and I’m really hoping I can get them finished this month!  I’ve used Summer Sunset for one of the socks (I keep catching sight of this sock out of the corner of my eye and I think that with the black and white contrast, it looks like Nemo from the film, Finding Nemo!) and the other is Winter Icicle.  I am really enjoying knitting them; the pattern is easy to follow and I wish I’d designed it myself!

If I manage to finish these (or perhaps as well as, if I get distracted!), I’ve got another project in mind with some brand new yarn …

Isn’t this fabulous?  It’s a brand new DK yarn from West Yorkshire Spinners called Wool Revival and it’s made with the “waste” wool from other yarns that are being spun.  The fibre is mixed with nylon, sent to be carded, combed and converted to tops which are then sent back to WYS to be spun into a new yarn.  (If you’re interested in how West Yorkshire Spinners spin their yarn, I’ve got a post all about it here – West Yorkshire Spinners – a very modern mill)

It comes in 10 colours (four of which found their way into my hands when I went to visit my friends at WYS before Christmas!) and best of all, it’s an 80% wool, 20% nylon blend which means that it should be great for socks!  I can’t wait to get some of this on my needles!  I’m going to be using my Basic 8ply (DK) Boot Socks pattern for this yarn.

It’s only been released this week so it really is very new, and you can find the yarn at WYS stockists and on the West Yorkshire Spinners website.

Although I designed the Trailblazer Socks for the KAL this year, I’m also looking forward to seeing what else you might have chosen to work on – remember that it doesn’t have to be those socks or even socks at all.  I’d love to know what you have picked that’s going to make your heart sing, what yarn you have chosen – have you bought new?  Have you used stash?  You can let me know through social media on Instagram (use the hashtag #WinterHavenKAL) or Facebook, or send me an email (you can find the email link in the sidebar on the left).  If you have photos, I’d love to share them on Instagram and also through the weekly blog posts so do get in touch!

🕯 Something green

2024 was the year that I started buying cut flowers for the house – and I love it!  I’d never really bothered with them before, preferring to see my flowers in the garden, so the flowers that made their way into a vase on the table tended to be either from the garden or gifts.  However, being someone who is somewhat addicted to courses, I started a course on Feng Shui in February last year and cut flowers in the house are apparently good for the house energy and a sign of abundance so I decided to embrace my learning and now we are never without flowers on the table.

This mix of stocks and roses were a gift and they smell wonderful!  I’m determined to spend more time in the garden this summer and the scent of the stocks has reminded me of how lovely it is to be surrounded by flowers.

We’ve also got plenty of green house plants that have come in from the cold conservatory – I may have to move them if I’m going to be lighting the fire more – but I move them every year at the start of the winter and I do miss them next to the fire when I put them back to where they live over the summer!

What about you?  What have you got that’s green and reminds you of the outside when it’s too hot or too cold for you to be out there yourself?

🕯 Light it up!

Ah, it’s candles for me!  I love having candles lit and my family are now very well-trained in not buying me anything that’s too nice to burn.  You can get so many candles that look like yarn balls or teddies or owls or some other beautiful shape and they remain unlit as I can’t bear to see the shape collapsing as the candle burns down … it’s the same with wax melts and even chocolate (I know – disaster!) so now everyone who knows me well knows that I’m all about the tea lights, pillar candles and generic wax melt shapes! 🙂

This year, I have found the set of candles that I bought in 2021 (ha! I know this because it’s written on the box!) in an IKEA sale.  I think they are probably meant to be advent candles as there are four of them numbered one to four, but there are also four weeks of the Winter Haven KAL so I am using them for that!  (And yes, I am slightly worried about how I will feel when it burns down to the 1, but I’ll cope with that when I get to it!)

🕯 Listen up!

When I’m working or writing, I find that I think much better when it’s quiet (apart from when I’m doing accounts and then I listen to piano music by a musician called David Tolk.  He is accounts magic for me! 🙂 ) so I have to make a particular effort to find things to listen to as I know that our brains like to listen to music and sound.

Not so small daughter made a Spotify playlist for me that has lots of songs we like to listen to on there – Take That, The Script, Train, Al Stewart, Coldplay – and I’ve got my own similar playlist of songs that I play to encourage myself to get on with the cleaning (Bruce Springsteen works quite well for me there!), many of which I used to listen to when I was her age.  I like the idea of the “Counterclockwise Study” in 1979 by Ellen Langer, who put 8 men in their late 70s in a setting where they believed they were back in their 50s and the result was that they behaved as if they were twenty years younger.  Sadly, the music that I liked to listen to when I was not so small daughter’s age is from more than twenty years ago, but I can still remember listening to it in my bedroom at my parents’ house as if it were yesterday and if that helps to keep my brain feeling younger, I’m all for it! 🙂

Aside from music, I’ve been investigating some new podcasts, and I currently like the Success Genius podcast by Neill Williams.  A lot of it is about time and productivity and how you can better use the hours in your day – and I feel that I could really use a bit of help with that this month!  I intend to use some of my Winter Haven KAL time to try to renegotiate with myself the way I use my time – that’s going to be my self-care!

And how about you?  Any podcast or new music recommendations?

🕯 Self-care

Self-care comes in different forms.  For some people, it’s a bit of personal pampering, for others it’s taking time out in the fresh air, and for others it’s writing things down on a huge list so that you don’t worry that that you’re going to forget everything that’s in your head.  At this time of year, there are so many options to get us into good self-care habits and whatever your view of self-care is, there will be something for you.

Sitting and working on your knitting project is self-care time (I never EVER call it “selfish” knitting because knitting for yourself is important!) and that might be enough for you, especially if you’re one of those people who is very good at looking after those around you and forgetting to look after yourself in the process – because many of us are – and as appealing as the idea of taking time out to pamper yourself might be, it’s not always practical.

Self-care is also about looking after your best interests and being a friend to yourself.  We’re often harder on ourselves than we would ever be to someone else and I’m hoping that we can all take time in our Winter Havens to think about that, and perhaps be a little kinder to ourselves.  This year, being kind to myself means that I am going to try to give myself more time to do things – more time to get to appointments, more time to get a job done without a last minute deadline, more time to just look out of the window at the garden – because despite having more time since not so small daughter went to university in September, I still find myself rushing round.  I’m pretty sure it’s a state of mind as much as having too many things on my to-do list so giving myself permission to sit and breathe is a good start to slowing myself down!

I’m going to add my book recommendations into this Winter Haven category as well, because I know that knitting and reading go very well together, although not always at the same time!

This is my book pile for this year and I’ve already made a start on the first one – Sleep, Drink, Breathe by Michael Breus*.  I do like a good non-fiction book and this one is well-written and easy to read.  I’m fully convinced that a good night’s sleep is the basis of good health and I am hoping that this book will give me some good ideas on keeping hydrated as well, as I can be guilty of not drinking enough throughout the day.

The other books in the pile are The Mountain is You by Brianna Wiest*, Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan* and the Oor Wullie annual* – a good mix of fun and something new to learn, I think!

🕯 Thank you

Did you remember to find a book to write in?  It’s all about saying “thank you!”  Thank you for being here!  But more than that this is also an important part of our Winter Haven.  We can get so busy living life from day to day that we forget to be grateful for what we have, and that’s where your notebook and pen come in. 😀

I think it’s quite ironic that having showed you my notebook in the getting ready post, I now can’t find it (I am terrible for walking round with things and putting them down somewhere), so I will start by being grateful for a new purple notebook!  If I can find the other one I’ll keep using it as I like that I can go back to see what I wrote in previous years – although really, after five years, I should have long since used up all the pages!

I’m totally sold on the idea that writing down what you are grateful for is a very powerful practice and thinking about what you’ve appreciated during the day or the week is a good way to remind yourself that life isn’t all bad – I’m just not that good at remembering to do it, especially at night when I’m tired.  My plan this year is to try to write earlier in the day – I can always add something extra in if something wonderful happens after 5 or 6pm at night, but I think it’s better that I write something than nothing.  I do honestly believe that the more that you focus on what’s good in your life, the more of that you’ll attract and notice – and we could all do with a bit of that, couldn’t we?!

The hardest part (as with so many things) is often deciding where to begin, but it’s not as hard as it might first seem.  You can call it “gratitude”, or “blessings”, or “positive thoughts”, or whatever you’d like to, but write something that you are grateful for.  And there’s always something to be grateful for – even down to the air that you breathe, the clothes that you wear and having food on the table.  You can write as much or as little as you want, either as bullet points or you can expand into paragraphs.  You might find this an easy thing to do from the beginning and that’s wonderful, but don’t feel pressured into writing every day if you’re not inspired to.  If you’re stuck as to where to start, having air to breathe, food to eat and someone to love (or to love you) is a good place to start 🙂

You might also choose to write down something good that’s happened to you, or a compliment that someone paid you – these are also something to be grateful for, but again it’s that thing that the more you tune into the good things, the more of them you’ll have, and noticing positive experiences is definitely something to cultivate!

Finally, before I leave you in peace for the weekend – I’ll be sending emails on Fridays with the KAL weekly updates but not if I post in between (although the links will be on the emails) as I don’t want to over-email anybody!  If you’re not signed up to my mailing list and want to join, you can do that by clicking here and you get a free Kitchener Stitch guide to download when you do! 🙂

And there we are … Week 1.  I hope this has given you some ideas for your time in your Winter Havens!  Next week, I hope to have more of your projects and ideas to share, so do tell me about your Winter Havens and your projects because I can’t wait to hear all about them!

Until next week! xx

*These are Amazon links