Episode 47 - Tardy

Hello there and welcome to The Crochet Circle Podcast and the show notes for Episode 47 – Tardy My name is Fay and this is my audio and video podcast for those that love fibre crafts, particularly crochet. It’s a community for people that like to support their fellow humans regardless of race, gender, sexuality, ability, size or age. I hope you feel the welcome embrace and love of the Crochet Clan. Come on in and stay awhile. In this episode, I cover Old Dog New Tricks; Final Destination; En Route; Feeding the habit; Quick News Beats; Big Up and J’adore. This podcast is sponsored by my online crafting company, Provenance Craft Co. Thanks to everyone who tunes into the podcast whether it is through Stitcher, Podbean, Spotify, iTunes or the YouTube Channel . Your support and engagement are really appreciated and makes running a podcast very special and worthwhile. If you would like to support the podcast, you can do that through Patreon: 1 – Old Dog New Tricks I have a quick Ravelry tip for you this month. This feature has always existed, but the good folk at Ravelry have now spruced up the feature a little to make the suggestions more prominent. If you have a favourite designer that you like and a favourite design of theirs, click into that pattern page and on the right-hand side, at the bottom of the page you will see thumbnails of suggestions for other, similar patterns and a link for “More that people also like…” which takes you through to lots of other pattern suggestions. I think this is a really great way to search for patterns and come across new, smaller designers that may struggle to get known. Photo: Shows the Ravelry screen having searched for my Criss-cross pattern. Photo: At the bottom right-hand side some thumbnails will appear showing alternative patterns. Photo: By clicking through to more suggestions, you will see a page of other suggested patterns that have been favourited. 2 – CAL Updates This podcast is titled “Tardy” because that is what I have been! If you aren’t familiar with the word, it means delaying or delayed beyond the right or expected time. About 12 months ago I was running the #sockalong2018 and 11 months ago I should have drawn for prizes from Instagram and the FO thread that was hosted in Kathryn from Crafternoon Treats podcast group on Ravelry. About three months ago I found the prizes in my Stash Palace and figured I may as well wait and mark the occasion a full tardy twelve months later! So, if you have won a prize, I have already been in touch with you. On Instagram, the winners were @yarn.adventurous and @fizzcrail. Over on Ravelry, the random number generator picked Woolwoman2k8, NinaCamilleri and Stasiacrochet. Sorry, it has taken me this long to do the prize draw, it very much speaks to the reason why I haven’t been doing CALs this year. That said, I am co-hosting a #wiprip2019 with Sophie from A Spring Snowflake Podcast ( link ) albeit, Sophie is doing most of the work because she is hosting the chatter thread over on her Ravelry Group Page. The whole idea is that you have from now until midnight on the 31st December to finish up or rip out some or all of your WIPs so that you go into the New Year with fewer projects. On Instagram, you can use #wiprip2019 for chatter and #wiprip2019FO to show off your finished or frogged projects. Go to Sophie’s Ravelry group for chatter and I will open and host the FO thread. From my end, these are the projects that I will be finishing up: 1 – Chapman Socks (knitted) 2 – Verity Vest (crochet) 3 – Anything else I have started and need to finish I have less to go through because I have been trying to be quite a monogamous crafter over the last few months, but there may be projects lurking that need to be sorted out! Come and join us and let’s carry fewer projects into 2020. 3 – Final Destination Okay, so whilst I don’t have any finished crochet objects that I can show you, I do actually have some knitted ones. This month I finished off two commission projects for a yarn company, but I won’t be able to show them off properly until well into next year. However, I have been finishing up a load of knitted socks. I quite often have a sock on the go because I leave them in yarn bowls when I am at shows to show off their potential and also to talk through my sock patterns. Now, instead of three single socks, I have three pairs all finished and ready to wear this winter. ALT TEXT: Three socks on a grey background. Left is a striped sock in light grey, forest green, bright green, purple, steel blue and hot pink. The middle sock is also striped and is a dark rusty copper and dark verdigris colour. The sock on the right is cream with blips of brown, yellow, peach and blue. This sock has a contrast cuff, heel and toe in soft peachy pink. The colourful striped socks are in John Arbon Textiles Exmoor Sock Yarn ( link ). I was using up the ends from my Kinbaine shawl ( link ) and Acanthium Mittens ( link ). The pattern is my own and it’s called Mini Mania ( link ). The copper and green Mini Mania socks are also in John Arbon Textiles Exmoor Sock Yarn but were dyed up by RiverKnits and the colours are no longer available. The beautiful speckled pastel socks are the Pebbles and Pathways pattern by Marceline Smith ( link ). In the pattern, Marce encourages you to go your own way and add your own elements and I definitely did that – mine are cuff down and I added all sorts of extra bits! The main colour is ‘Orchard’ by Bernie at Bear in Sheep’s Clothing ( link ) and is 100% Corriedale with no nylon or superwash. I will be reporting back on how well these wear. The contrast colour was an unnamed mini by Desiree at Abercairn Yarns ( link ) and I think is 75% Merino and 25% nylon. I also attended an eco-printing workshop at my local Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Guild. You place leaves and flowers on pre-mordanted material, roll it up and steam it. This sets the vegetation print onto the material with varying results and takes a lot of trial and error. The below photos show some of the results I got. If you are interested in the subject of Eco-Printing and creating plant-based inks, I have just listed a book in my shop by Babs Behan called "Botanical Inks" ( link ). ALT TEXT: Collage of three photos. Left - a square of undyed silk with Japanese Maple, ferns and purple Heuchera leaves and flower stems laid out on a table. Below the silk is the broom handle that he silk will be rolled onto for steaming. Top right - cream wool fabric after steaming. Eucalyptus leaves have left a rust orange print from the eco-printing process. Bottom right - another sheet of silk with Japanese Maple and fern. The second half of the silk has been placed on top to create a 'ghost' print. 4 – En Route The only project on my hook is the Mya Shawl by Helda Panagary ( link ). This is my entry into #RhineBIPOCSweater K/CAL – I can’t link to the bundle within Ravelry, but you can get details via Lady Dye’s Instagram post ( link ). After a bit of fiddling around with hook sizes and the number of rows, I settled on using ‘Pisces’ by Cosmic Strings (the dyers are Phu and Bea ( link )) as the main skein and some Rico mohair as the sort of background colour. I had been hoping to finish this up and be wearing the shawl as I listened to Helda do her talk on ‘Being a Crochet Designer’ at Yarndale on Saturday. I didn’t quite manage it and settled instead for crocheting on it whilst she talked. Had I just stuck to the pattern and not fiddled (I will never learn), then I would have had an FO. However, because I am doing 4 rows of mohair laceweight (100m per 100g) to 2 rows of 4ply, it’s taking a little longer. My plan is to use up all of the mohair, which I suspect will leave me with a little bit of the Cosmic Strings teal. My reason for fiddling is a good one though. The pattern makes quite a deep, but short shawl and I have quite wide shoulders. By changing the number of row repeats, I am able to make a bigger shawl that will better fit my body shape. I am calling it my Slythermort shawl and also entering it into Clarisabeth’s (Crochet Cakes podcast) Mischief Managed CAL ( link ). I have until the 31st October to get this finished! ALT TEXT: Image shows a dark background with a cake of a dark/dirty teal coloured yarn to the left and a flattened mohair cake of stormy grey yarn to the right. At the fore are a blue metal crochet hook and a striped shawl in the yarn. 5 – Feeding the Habit Did I got to Yarndale and manage to not buy any yarn? Yup, yes I did! This is totally aided by the fact that I picked up two loads of yarn from vendors which is yarn support for my patterns. So, what did I buy instead of yarn? I bought a knitted pattern book by Jimi Knits ( link ), some pin badges from Bear in Sheep's Clothing ( link ) and Nerdbird Makery ( link ) and a small sewn project bag by Border Tart ( link ). ALT TEXT: grey background with Jimi Knits A4 pattern book to the left, linen project bag with sewn scraps of blue fabric overlapping the book. To the right are folds of soft cashmere tweed and in the fore are two pins on cards, one is the back of a polar bear wearing a kilt and the other is head and of a BIPOC knitter with yarn and knitting needles in her hair. I’m not really missing buying yarn. I have so much in my stash and I am really enjoying shopping in my own Stash Palace and using up deep stash in particular. 6 – Quick News Beats 1 - Global Hook Up – I have set the dates for the next few months and will stick to the 8 pm GMT/BST on a Saturday night and 9 am GMT/BST on a Sunday morning. The details for the next sessions are already up in the Ravelry thread, can also be found below and will be put out on Instagram in advance. The meeting ID number is 475-047-5819 and you will need to join via Zoom which you can do here: https://www.zoom.us/join If you are joining on your phone or tablet you will likely need to download the software in advance. If you are joining from a PC or Mac, you can join via the link above. Everyone needs to use the same ID number to get into the session. October - Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th November - Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th December - Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th 2 – I promised in the last podcast that I would write a quick blog on what apps and podcasts I use to help to run my business. You can find that blogpost on my website ( link ). 3 – I had three copies of Eilidh’s print ( link ) to giveaway and the winners are: Instagram – @craftybritabroad (Amy) Podbean – Marce (BrownBerry Podcast) YouTube – Patty Crochets Well done everyone. 4 – I did the catwalk at Perth Festival of Yarn! It was a lot of fun and definitely showcased crocheted garments. However, I had an epic fail on getting photos or video footage. It was a lot of fun and luckily, Laura from The Lonely Knitter Podcast recorded it all, so you can see all of the lovely crocheted and knitted items that went down the Gala Dinner catwalk ( link ). To celebrate the fact that I managed to finish my Blurred Lines jumper in time, I bought three kilted bear pins from Bernie at Bear in Sheep’s Clothing. These pins are made in the UK and I love them. I already own one that Bernie gave me at Perth and I thought some of you may want to try to win one too! If you would like to be in with a chance of winning, leave a comment on the threads of this episode of YouTube, Podbean and/or Instagram. It’s open to everyone across the globe. I will draw winners just before I record the November podcast. Start your comment with “bare bear” so that I know you are entering to win. Why bare bear? Bears are true Scots – no knickers! 7 - J’adore I had an absolute ball at Yarndale. I went with a bunch of friends, we laughed, wore pyjamas for most of the weekend, drank gin and generally had a great time. I met lots of my lovely yarn colleagues and friends and made new friends. Plans have been hatched, new business ideas have formed and 2020 is shaping up rather nicely. My sleeves are bulging with all of the ideas, projects, interviews and designs that I want to do in the coming months. 8 – Big Up I already mentioned that I went to see Helda give her talk at Yarndale on being a crochet designer. Before she started her talk, she was nervous and had no reason to be. Her talk was genuine, from the heart and fab! Big Up Helda you were great! Fay x Instagram: Crochet_Circle_Podcast Instagram: provenance.craft.co Instagram: FayDHDesigns YouTube: The Crochet Circle Podcast Crochet Clan on Mighty Network: Invite