Episode 25: Happy Podiversary to us and Stitches West here we come!

Welcome to episode 25 knitters.  It's our 1 year podiversary!!! Woot, woot! In this "In the Classroom," episode we talk about all of our FO's, WIP's and new CO's. We have a little bit of uber craftiness and discuss our plans and goals for Stitches West. Grab your knitting, a soothing (or bracing!) beverage, a comfortable chair and join us!

Episode 25 Audio

Marcy (holding her Light Gale and wearing her City Cape,) and Kim
(wearing her Find Your Fade and holding her hand spun,) are
whooping it up and celebrating their 1 year podiversary!

What's in our Lesson Plan?

1. Administrati

   

   Marcy's baby bump at 28 weeks!

2. Show and Tell
3. Stitches West plans and goals
4. We are uber Crafty
5. What's on our Black Board?

Administrati

Thank you to all of you who have responded to our survey! We are going to leave it active for a few more weeks and we'd really appreciate it if you could hop on over and take this quick and anonymous  pop up survey to give us some feedback on the podcast. Thanks! 

We have a group on Ravelry and we'd love to "meet" you there. Please sign in and join the group.

Show and Tell

Marcy is making great progress on the monster pants for her son.  The pattern is free on Ravelry and it's "monsterbukse" by duBedare. She is using Simplicity solids and tonals by Hikoo Skacel and may be headed towards a game of yarn chicken; stay tuned!

Marcy has a gorgeous new project on her needles, the Light Gale by Alicia Plummer. She is using Sublime yarns baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK in the plum pie color. This is a sweater/poncho and it has a really pretty and interesting to knit all over stitch pattern.

Kim has finished the Zauberball socks for her son for his 24th birthday. She had a howler...she knit the feet too short and had to take out the toe and lengthen them. Now, they fit like a dream and he likes them and hopefully will wear them a lot. She also finished her Find Your Fade shawl by Andrea Mowry. This is a large and long shawl and it's beautiful and fun to knit. All of the yarns are listed on Kim's project page.

Kim's Find Your Fade shawl

Kim is continuing to work on the Party on My Needles shawl by Joji Locatelli. This is a gift for her Mom and she's using 3 skeins of her hand dyed yarn for this fast and easy shawl. She has a new cast on, a pair of socks for her nephew for his birthday in late March. He likes colorful socks and so she is using contrasting heels, toes and cuffs in lots of different colors and there's even some sparkle in there!

Plans and Goals for Stitches West

SW is just one week away and we wanted to talk about our shopping plans. We want to mindfully approach the HUGE marketplace with a gameplan in place so that we don't spend recklessly or unwisely. 

Kim has a few things that she will be looking for: needles, a WPI tool, buttons, wooden sock blockers, self striping sock yarn,  and fiber to spin for a 2nd sweater spin in the Fall. She is also planning on revisiting a few booths in order to buy more yarn to go with some of her stashed yarn that she doesn't have enough of to knit a sweater: Forbidden Woolery, Habu and Anzula.

She's looking forward to shopping with her mom and cousin and wants to help her mom buy yarn and needles for her 1st sock project.

Finally, Kim has highlighted a few booths to visit "just for fun!" Yoth Yarns, Sincere Sheep, Lisa Souza, Miss Babs, Black Trillium, Canon Hand Dyes, Abstract fiber and Fishknits. 

***FYI, you can find and print  a market map in the SW Ravelry group. 

Marcy also has some fun SW plans and goals. 1st, she is headed straight for the Ranch of the Oaks booth to buy a stuffed bear for her baby girl. In preparation for SW, Marcy has reorganized her favorites and created a bundle so that she can easily access the patterns that she wants to purchase yarn for. These are the top patterns that she has highlighted:

1. Obsidian by Lisa Mutch
2. Brimming by Lori Puthoff
3. Manzanilla by Joji Locatelli
4. Nouri by Carol Feller

Marcy fell down a rabbit hole on the website, Annie's Crafts.  She found some really cute summer tops and many of them are crocheted. 

1. West Shore Tunic by Jill Hanratty
2. Squared Away Tee by Lena Skvagerson
3. Serein Tee by Mona Monica
4. Central Coast Cardi by Lena Skvagerson
5. Marbella Tee by Che Lam

Also, this year Marcy and her Mom are going to go to the Fashion Show and dinner for the 1st time. 

We are Uber Crafty

Marcy made her friend a leather bracelet for her birthday last week. She has been purchasing supplies for her jewelry making from Goodybeads.com. 

Kim has finished spinning for her Legacy Sweater Spin and will be casting on her sweater soon. More information about that in Episode 26. 

What's on our Black Board?

In our next episode we will be focusing on SW and all that we saw and did (and bought!) and more importantly, talked to and met there. We hope to get some interesting interviews that we can share as well. 

Happy knitting everyone! We hope that you have a wonderful couple of weeks. We'll "see" you next time. 

Episode 24: Yarn Folk Fieldtrip

Welcome to Episode 24 everybody! Marcy went on a field trip and will be sharing her notes and an interview, we have some show and tell, a little uber craftiness and a research paper. Grab your knitting, a soothing beverage of your choice and join us!

Episode 24 Audio

Marcy and Kim after recording.

What's in our Lesson Plan?

• Administrati
• Show and Tell
• A research paper
• We are uber crafty
• Field trip notes and an interview
• What's on our black board?

Administrati

Marcy's baby bump at 26 Weeks!

We are coming up to our 1 year anniversary (podiversary?!) for the podcast and we wanted to get a little bit of feedback from our listeners. We have a quick 5 question survey that we would like our listeners to take to help give us feedback on what you like about the podcast and it gives an opportunity to give us suggestions, you can find the survey on the 2017 Survey Tab on the ribbon bar or click here the survey should automatically pop up for you to take.  Or if you would like head on over to our Ravelry group  and answer a few questions there on our 2017 Survey thread, we thank you in advance! While you're there, go ahead and join our group, we'd love to have you sign in so that we can get to know you. 

Show and Tell

1. Marcy is very close to having a finished object with her City Cape, which is a free pattern from Purl Soho. She's planning on using up every bit of yarn and she's choosing the cowl collar option. She's ready to be done with this and will be wearing it when we record next!

Marcy finished her City Cape!

2. Marcy has a new/old cast on! She has begun the Monster Pants by duBedåre, which is a free pattern online. She started knitting these adorable pants last year for her little boy, Wilson, but they were turning out to be way too big, so she frogged them. She is using Simplicity Solids and Tonals by Hikoo Skacel in the gray, goldfish, kiwi, white and really red colors. This is a 55% merino, 28% acrylic, and 17% nylon yarn and it feels amazing. 

3. Marcy finished her pussy hat by Kat Coyle. She knit this out of a partial skein of Patons North America Classic Wool and played an epic game of yarn chicken which included some major knitting surgery. She added in a partial skein of Cascade 220 sport that she used to knit her Gradient pullover. 

 The good news is that Marcy won the game even though it was a HOWLER.

1.  Kim has finished her January socks. She dyed a skein of glimmer yarn to look like her idea of January with lots of sparkle and cool blue and purple tones. She put in contrasting blue heels and cuffs. 

Kim's January socks

2. Kim also finished her Ruination socks. The yarn was a birthday present from Marcy and she is so happy with the finished socks! The Spincycle yarn, on the Dyed in the Wool base is in the Ruination color way. This yarn is toothsome and super soft all at the same time. Kim knows that they will wear really well and they feel warm and amazing.

Kim is wearing her Ruiniation socks and
showing her Find Your Fade shawl.

3. She is continuing to work on her Find Your Fade shawl by Andrea Mowry. Kim is just about to add in the 4th color and is really enjoying the knit and the color play. 

4. Kim has cast on the Party on my Needles shawl by Joji Locatelli. This is a Christmas present for her Mom. She is using 3 skeins of her hand dyed yarn for this project. 

5.  In other gift knitting, Kim has cast on a pair of socks for her son's birthday. She's using Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball in the Stone Wash color way. These will be knit 2 at a time, top down and with a forethought heel.
***We mention Kim's 2nd color affection shawl and her viajante shawl.

Research Paper

Marcy & her friend Monica at the
2017 Women's March.

Marcy knit a pussy hat and participated in the Sacramento Women's March on 1/21/17. She wanted to include some information about this project in a research paper. We are a knitting podcast and will not delve into political issues; this is just a bit about the involvement of the fiber arts community in this historic march. The PussyHat Project was begun by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman and they have a group on Ravelry. 

Fox 11 published an article about the Women's March called, "Local Pussycat idea goes National ahead of Women's March on WA." Kat Coyle designed the hat and is from the LYS, The Little Knittery in Atwater Village, Ca. Yes Magazine published an article called, "What's Up, Pussy Hat? Knitting Activist Cause Shortages of Pink Yarn."

Ravelry created a collage of many of the FO's and you can see that here. 

Women have a long history of marching in Washington, most notably on March 3rd, 1913. This significant March eventually led to the passing of the 19th amendment which secured the right to vote for women. There is an article on Smithsonian.com called, "The Original Women's March on Washington and the Suffragists who Paved the way." 

We are Uber Crafty

Marcy sewed some bibs for her niece's baby. They are made from flannel fabric and she created  her own pattern. If you would like to make one this blog called See Kate Sew, she has a great  post to follow with a pattern that you can print out. The post is called:  "Bandana Bib Tutorial".

Marcy & baby Parker where
he is sporting one of the drool bibs.

Field Trip Notes

Marcy visited Yarn Folk in Ellinsburg, Washington and was able to meet and interview the owner, Ann Miner, who's Ravelry handle is yarnfolkann. This oasis in the middle of Washington is there for all yarn folk. This lys has quite a few classes and a wonderful newsletter that you can read and sign up for here. Marcy picked up some beautiful skeins of yarn there and really enjoyed seeing this cute shop. Enjoy the interview with Marcy and Ann.

Marcy & Ann at Yarn Folk

View of the Shop

View of the shop showing all the  beautiful Yarn.

View of the round table with thursday
night knitting group.

Marcy broke her 2017 Goal already and purchased these two beauties!

*** We also mentioned that Marcy has been stalking chevron baby blankets for her mom to make her new baby a blanket. While stalking them she found the ZickZack Scarf by Christy Kamm which she bought two scanes from Yarn Folk to make this scarf which are shown above.  Marcy and her mom decided on a baby blanket to make for the new baby its Fly Away by Tincanknits, however Marcy likes the version that is called Prism by Undone57.

What's on our Black Board?

In episode 25 we will have an in the classroom episode and we will talk about our knitting, spinning and other crafty pursuits. 

Thank you for joining us! We hope you have a great few weeks and Happy Knitting!