Episode 53: We've been fleeced and faded!

Hello knitters and welcome to episode 53. In this podcast, Marcy and Kim share their current Wips, a research paper about  fleece and some uber craftiness! Grab your knitting, a soothing beverage and join us!

Episode 53 Audio

Marcy holding her Confetti sweater and Kim is holding wool.

Awww! Sheepy!

What's in our Lesson Plan?

1. On the PA System
2. Research Paper: My 1st Fleece
3. Show & Tell
4. We are uber crafty
5. What's on our Black Board?

On the PA System

Congratulations to the 2 winners of our sock KAL: Harpergigs and Brookali! PM Kim (Destined2knit on Ravelry,) your physical address and full name and she will send you each a skein of hand dyed sock yarn. Thank you for knitting along with us!

***Thank you to our LYS, Got Your Goat yarn studio in Roseville, California for letting us record there again!

Research Paper: My 1st Fleece

Kim split a 100% Corriedale fleece with a friend and she also purchased 1/2 of a 1/2 Corriedale and 1/2 Rambouillet fleece. This was all very unexpected, but also fun and exciting! You can read and learn all about the different sheep breeds in the wonderful book The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius. 

Kim talked about washing her fleece with regular Blue Dawn and she will continue to update us about the fleece washing and prepping process as she proceeds. 

***Kim watched a Bluprint (formerly Craftsty) class called "Fiber Preparation for Spinners," by Esther Rodgers. 

***Two more excellent books for spinners are The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson  and Yarn-i-tec-ture - A Knitter's Guide to Spinning by Jillian Moreno. 

Here is "Trouble" the 100% Corriedale fleece.

This charcoal beauty is "Tesla" the 1/2 Corriedale
and 1/2 Rambouillet fleece.

Some of the washed fleece drying in the shade.

Show & Tell

Marcy has made wonderful progress on her faded Confetti by Veera Valimaki. She has one more sleeve to knit and then she'll be done. She is very happy with this beautiful pullover sweater and loves the 3 yarns that she chose to fade. She has had a few mini howlers with yarn quantity, but it's all working out nicely. She has also cast on a seamless shrug for little Pippa. The Entrechat by Lisa Chemery and she is using Trendsetter Yarns Autumn Wind Confetti, which is a worsted weight, 90% cotton, 10% cashmere yarn. 

Marcy updated us on her finished Gilead pullover. She has worn it and finds the sleeves uncomfortable while working at her desk so she may end up ripping them back and knitting short sleeves after all. The beauty of knitting is that we can customize our clothing!

Kim is also working on her Gilead by Leila Raabe that she cast on in August of 2017. She is using the discontinued Shibui Linen yarn and it is a little rough to work with. The pullover top is knit in pieces and she has finished the back and is working on the front. 

Kim also has the Leaves & Shell top by Kay Hopkins on her needles. She is using another Shibui yarn, Fern, which is 100% cotton and is soft and delightful to work with. 

We are Uber Crafty

Congratulations to Marcy and her team, they won  the Best of Show award for their dress design at the Merge event put on by the Northern California IIDA chapter. Awesome work by all of the creative teams!

All the models in there garments after the show.

My design team with our model.

The start of the runway

The front of the garment.

The back of the garment.

The Beautiful jewelry that Heston made out of counter top material.

Marcy also did some sewing. She made two Amelia Baby Tops by Violette Field Threads. This is a downloadable sewing pattern and you can listen to ep. 47 where Marcy talks more about sewing them. 

Pippa looks so cute in her new top Marcy made for her.

Marcy designed some fabric based on her colored motifs from the Peace Shawl KAL that she participated in last December. She uploaded the design to Spoonflower. She is not sure what she will make with the fabric yet, but probably some cute project bags. 

Kim is not officially participating in Tour De Fleece (I don't really have anything to link here, if you're interested in the event you can follow the hashtag #tdf or #tourdefleece on Instagram or search for it on Ravelry. There is no single page to link,) however, she has been motivated by all of the posts on Instagram and she has been spinning almost daily. She finished one of her two sweaterspins that she started last August. This one has 4 skeins and is about 600 yards of a chain plied 3 ply. She is thinking about knitting a shawl instead and has been swatching.

2 of  Kim's 4 finished skeins of handdyed,
handspun yarn. 

What's on our Black Board?

We may be going on a field trip or we may be in the classroom...hmmm, we shall see! But I can assure you that there will be knitting, spinning and uber craftiness!

Thank you for joining us. We hope you have a fantastic couple of weeks until we "see" you again and Happy Knitting!

Episode 66: 3rd Podiversary Celebration!

Hello dear knitters and welcome to our 66th episode and our 3rd podiversary! Today, Marcy and Kim pop open a bottle of champagne and share what they've been making and also list their favorites from this year.  Spoiler alert, Andrea Mowry and Caitlin Hunter are mentioned about 100 times! Grab your knitting, a glass of something bubbly or fizzy (or just nice and warm!) and join us!

Episode 66 Audio

Marcy is holding up her Zweig & Kim has her frankensocks
and the advent shawl from Forbidden Fiber Co.

What's in our Lesson Plan?

1. On the PA System
2. After the Finish Line
3. 3rd Podiversary favorites
4. Show & Tell (including FOFIF)
5. What's on our Black Board?

On the PA System

• Kim talked about her Spinning and Weaving Guild's Open House that she chaired last weekend. It was a great event and the Sacramento Weaving & Spnning Guild is a wonderful group of  talented people. She displayed several of her hand spun, hand knit items, hand spun skeins of yarn and a woven scarf. 
• Kim stumbled upon some fun Ravelry facts: there are 8,376,501 registered users and 1,014,821 makers have been active on the site during the last 30 days.
• Stitches West is next weekend, February 22-24, at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Both Marcy and Kim will be there and they hope to see/meet you if you're there too! If you see us, please say hi!

After the Finish Line

Kim wore:

• her Tegna
• her P-Rex
• hand knit socks
• her Waiting For Rain shawl
• her Ninilchik

Marcy wore:

• her Just Like Honey shawl
• her Project Peace shawl 2017
• her Hitofude cardigan
• her Spring Cloche
• her Light Gale

Our 3rd Podiversary Favorites

1. Favorite pattern: Marcy = Wool and Honey pullover by Andrea Mowry. Kim = Tegna by Caitlin Hunter and Gilead by Leila Raabe.
2. Favorite yarn: Marcy= Spincycle dyed in the wool. Kim= any of her hand dyed or hand spun yarns.
3. Favorite new tool: both agree that it's the Gleener!
4. Favorite Episode: Marcy=Episode 53 & Kim =episode 56.
5. Favorite designer: Marcy = Andrea Mowry & Kim = Caitlin Hunter.
6. Favorite knitting event: Marcy=Stitches SoCal and Kim= Stitches West.

Marcy & Kim saying Cheers to 3 Years of Podcasting together!
Marcy is wearing her Reflected Lines cardigan, and Kim
has on her new FO marled pullover.

***Kim mentions that her favorite retreat was a Knit For Fun retreat with Ann Budd.

Show & Tell

Kim is doing a FOFIF (Finish or Frog it February,) and she's really enjoying it. She made a project page for it on Ravelry and it has been very rewarding to finish things from her pile of wip's (17!!!).  So far, she has finished her faded and marled pullover, a baby blanket and a pair of shorty frankensocks. She is actively working on her Lissycasey cabled sweater and her Advent Mkal shawl. 

She has decided to continue the FOFIF into March, so stay tuned for more news about her progress in the next couple of eps. Kim also finished her Ravello pullover since the last podcast. 

Marcy finished her Just Like Honey shawl and she loves it and is wearing it a lot. She is now knitting monogamously on her Zweig pullover by Caitlin Hunter. She got her color inspiration from Andrea of the Fruity Knitting video podcast. 

Marcy is knitting on her Zweig and is wearing her After the Rain
sweater and she has her Ramble shawl around her neck.

We are Uber Crafty

One of Kim's FOFIF projects that she wants to finish is her Rose Gold shawl by Andrea Mowry. She is using a skein of her handspun  yarn and a set of gradient minis.  She ran out of her handspun, so she spun a skein using some natural white fiber and she'll dye it and then carry on and finish this beautiful brioche shawl.

What's on our Blackboard?

Kim and Marcy plan on recording at SW and Marcy's mom and friend Brooke will be there too and hopefully join in! It'll be a fun Stitches podcast party. 

Thank you for joining us! We hope that your knitting and making are going well and we'll 'see' you again in a few weeks. Happy knitting!

Episode 28: Encountering Designing Knitwear

Hello Knitters! Welcome to Episode 28. In this "in the classroom" edition we talk about our knitting, the Initiate Knit Design challenge that we are both participating in, some uber craftiness and we introduce a new segment! Grab your knitting, a soothing (or bracing) beverage, get comfy and enjoy the show.

Episode 28 Audio

Marcy & Kim after recording, Kim is wearing her
Art Walk Cardi that she made for her Legacy Sweater Spin.

Marcy at 35 Weeks!

What's in our Lesson Plan?

1. Administrati
2. On the PA system
3. Show and Tell
4. We are Uber Crafty
5. What's on our Black Board?

Administrati

Head on over to our Ravelry group and join, sign in and let us know how you've been Uber Crafty recently. We'd appreciate it if you would write a review and rate the podcast wherever you listen, thank you!

On the PA System

In this new segment we will pass along new and interesting (and hopefully helpful!) information about the knitting world. 

• The video podcast, Stitching the High Notes, that is hosted by JoAnna (operajo,) has a forum in their Ravelry group that lists all current KAL's: List o'KAL's 2017.
• If you use Instagram, tag your post with #Ravelry and it'll automatically be sent to your message box on Rav and you can quickly and easily import the picture into your stash or onto a project page.
• Craftsy classes are wonderful! If you have an account with them, you can put a class that you're interested in in your cart and within a week or two you should get an email letting you know that that class has been discounted. Also, you can go to the teacher's website and see if they have a discount code for their Craftsy classes listed there. 

Show and Tell

Marcy has made great progress on her new cast on, the Sandshore by Alicia Plummer. She is using FibraNature Good Earth solids yarn which is 53% cotton and  47% linen and it's an aran weight in the Jade color. She is also continuing to work on her ZickZack scarf by Christy Kamm. This will be a long term knitting project.

Marcy's Sandshore cardigan.

Kim is still on a sweater kick and has finished her 2nd Whispers pullover by Veera Valimaki. This was CO in 10/2016 and the yarn is Dragonfly Fibers on the Pixie base in the Apollo color way.  The Twigs and Willows cardigan by Alana Dakos is almost finished...all of the knitting is done and most of the seaming. Kim is going to use a new button band technique (new to her at least!) from the book Splendid Apparel by Anna Zilboorg. She'll report back about that in ep. 29. There was a large howler with the "Goldilock's" sleeves on this cardigan: 1st they were too long, then too short and finally just right! 

Kim has another sweater going, the Veronika by Coco Knits. She is using some of the yarn she bought while in Portland, Shibui Pebble. She also has a pair of vanilla socks OTN. The yarn is also from her trip to Portland, Three Irish Girls in the Dublin Bay color. 

***We mention the Knitmore Girls podcast, our LYS Got Your Goat in Roseville, Ca, the audio knitting podcast Knitting Pipeline and the magic knot You Tube video. 

Both Marcy and Kim are participating in the Initiate Knit Design Challenge by Aroha Knits. This free 10 day challenge has 5 steps and is a great program to help aspiring designers learn the steps and process involved. You can read all about it here. Marcy has created a project page for her design. We will tell you all about our finished designs and the process next time. #initiateknitdesign

Marcy's Swatches for her design, they are not blocked yet.

Just after recording I went to our LYS and
I found the perfect solid yarn to go
with my multi color yarn that I am using.  

We are Uber Crafty

Kim has been dyeing more yarn and really having fun with it. She has been experimenting with multi step dyeing processes that she has read about and seen on You Tube videos.

3 mini skeins that Kim dyed

4 large skeins that Kim dyed

Baby Isla's drool bibs!

Marcy has sewn some drool bibs for a friend's baby.

What's on our Black Board?

We are not certain yet! It'll be a surprise for you, but we can guarantee that there will be lots of yarn involved!

Thanks for joining us today! Have a wonderful couple of weeks and Happy Knitting.