Episode 49 - My kind of rainbow

Crochet Circle Podcast

Hello there and welcome to The Crochet Circle Podcast and the show notes for Episode 49 – My kind of rainbow

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; WIP RIP 2019; Final Destination; En Route; 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.

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1 – Old Dog New Tricks

I have a couple of things for you this month.

The first is a great way of getting accurate charts for your colourwork crochet designs. This trick came about because Claudia mentioned in a Global Hook Up that she wanted to be able to take motifs and recreate them in crochet. By inputting your swatch gauge into this website (link) you can get gauge specific graph paper which you can then colour in with your motif. This will help to ensure that your motif will easily convert to crochet stitches and look great when you have hooked it up.

The second one comes from a really good discussion in the Saturday night Global Hook Up on size inclusivity. When uploading garment projects onto Ravelry, I have been guilty of just adding ‘me’ to the box about who it is being made for. It hadn’t dawned on me that it would actually be helpful to give my measurements so that other makers could assess the size I made against my measurements.

I’m not a massive fan of having my photo taken, so I’m going to get over myself and start uploading more photos of me in my FOs so that others can see how the size I made looks on my body shape. If you are also making garments, I encourage you to do this too if you can. I often refer back to other people’s projects to see what the sizing and fit are like.

One of the things I would like to introduce in 2020 is tips from the Crochet Clan. Beyond continuing to share what I have learned in the previous month, I would also like to share your top crochet or yarn tips. Because these are a bit more involved it would be easier for me to get these via Ravelry or my email address. So, I have started a new thread on Ravelry called Old Dog New Tricks and you can add your tips to that thread. If you prefer, you can email me ([e-mail]).

Each month, I will feature a tip from a member of our community so that we are all learning from each other and we continue the Crochet Clan spirit that our podcast is known for.

2 – CAL Updates

#wiprip2019

The #wiprip2019 I am co-hosting with Sophie from A Spring Snowflake Podcast (link) is in full swing.

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 the Crochet Circle Podcast group for the FO thread.

Come and join us and together, let’s carry fewer projects into 2020.

One Skein Wonderland CAL

I was asked whether we were doing the One Skein Wonderland CAL again and I figured why not? My plan is to make this very informal and just a lovely way of us all connecting together during the festive season and throughout January.

You can start any, one skein crafting project from the 24th December onwards.

3 – Final Destination

I have finished my Bark Sweater by Sidsel Sangild (link). I’m used a 5mm hook and a sportweight Romney/Merino d’Arles blend from John Arbon Textiles. This wool was a show special and is no longer available.

It was really quick to work up because of the hook size and use of chains to create a sort of lace pattern. I made some changes to the pattern and have added these details to my project page on Ravelry. Look for a pattern called “Romney Bark Jumper”. What I would say is that this isn’t a size-inclusive pattern by any stretch of the imagination. It covers small and large. However, because of the pattern repeats, you can make it bigger or smaller, but you would have to do the maths yourself.

I have also finished three shawls for my latest design. But, more on that in the future, other than to show you how the different weights are working up.

ALT TEXT: Black background with the corners of four shawls coming in from the left. The bottom is a duck egg light blue version on heavy laceweight, the next up is a salmon pink version in 4ply, then a mid-blue version in DK and finally a biscuit brown version in Aran. With each shawl, you can see a defined stitch pattern and the use of filet crochet to create latticed areas. Each of the four yarns is from John Arbon Textiles (link).

4 – En Route

I am slap-bang in the middle of a laceweight version of my latest design, so that’s taking a while! You can see it in the photo above.

I do have a project that I am just about to start though. I was alerted to the plight of the animals that have been affected by the huge expanses of land that have been burning in Australia. The fires have particularly affected Koala habitats and crocheted pouches are needed for joeys, possums and wombats.

Podcast friend Mara, has created a PDF pattern on how to crochet up pouches. You can also knit them and the wildlife charities are also in desperate need of sewn cotton liners for inside the pouches. Don’t worry if you think that it will take you a while to crochet up some pouches. There is an ongoing need for crocheted or knitted pouches, liners and birds’ nests. They do need natural fibres such as wool or cotton to be used. No acrylics and no blends because they aren’t breathable and so can’t be used.

I was looking for a charity that I could make for during the festive season and I hope to crochet quite a few pouches. For each pouch, I also want to make 6 cotton liners because they get changed regularly throughout the day.

Crocheted pouch patterns – https://www.facebook.com/rubylovesbrains/photos/pcb.10159191872638032/10159191871513032/?type=3&theater

Knitted pouch pattern – https://www.wires.org.au/wildlife-info/wildlife-factsheets/making-possum-pouches

Sewn cotton liners – https://www.wires.org.au/wildlife-info/wildlife-factsheets/making-possum-pouches

Birds’ nest pattern - https://www.wires.org.au/wildlife-info/wildlife-factsheets/making-wildlife-nests

If you are unable to create something but want to help in some way, donations are also being accepted by WIRES (Wildlife Rescue (link)).

All donated items should be sent to Jacqui Fink, who is matching items up with the volunteers animal carers and organisations who need them. Her details are:

Jacqui Fink
PO Box 126,
Balgowlah NSW 2093
Australia

ARRINGAH MALL

NSW 2100

I have also been working on a knitted jumper called Strandir by Hulda Hákonardóttir (link). I am using Icelandic yarn from Alafoss. The 'Light Ash' coloured Plotulopi wool comes in plates (link) and I am using Einband wool that was naturally dyed by Hespa for the contrast (link) and is a blue/green colour.

ALT TEXT: Black background with my folded up version of Strandir jumper. The main body is in a very light heathered grey colour and it has contrast bubbles at the cuffs and neckline in a blue/grey. To the right is a leftover plate of Plotulopi with a broken strand to show how friable the wool roving is.

5 – Feeding the Habit

I have some yarn to share with you! For the first time ever, I found indie acid-dyed yarn in Iceland. By chance, I came across a yarn shop in Selfoss and there was a small amount of yarn from ‘From the Shire’ yarns (link). I bought a couple of skeins of a colourway that reminded me of my trip – basically snow, yellow snow poles and tarmac. These skeins are destined to become part of a design. The colourway is Betri Helmingurinn and it’s 75% SW Merino and 25% nylon 100g/425m.

Last weekend I was haring around the country doing various yarny things. On Saturday I went down to an event in Bristol called Flock. It is arranged by the husband and wife team that is Claire and Jonathan of BirdStreetUK/Mr. b yarns (link).

It’s a lovely gathering of knitters and crocheters in a community hall. People go there to craft together and purchase from the pop-up shops. You can usually buy Mr.b yarns there and Claire’s project bags and they invite another company from the yarn industry to come and join them for a trunk show. This time, Rachael from Cat and Sparrow Yarns (link) was there.

I bought two skeins if her Sweater Weather DK wool in colourway Grape. It’s a gorgeous blend of 75% BFL and 25% Masham. I have used this blend before in a 4 ply weight and it’s beautiful to crochet with. The yarn is 240m/100g and really squishy.

ALT TEXT: Black background with the bottom of two skeins of very plump and squishy wool. The skeins are both a semi-solid purple colour with a very obvious and lovely twist to the yarn.

On Sunday I headed over to the RiverKnits studio (link) for a yarn dyeing workshop. I had so much fun! The workshop was all about mixing colours and having a rainbow of 12 mini skeins at the end of it. Of course, I wanted a dirty rainbow – I am definitely not of the pastels persuasion! We had a really lovely group of five of us and all came out with different strengths of rainbow minis.

ALT TEXT: A group of five women proudly show off their rainbow mini skeins. Each is different, ranging from extremely bright to mucky rainbows and almost everything in-between. We are all wearing lots of woollies because it was chilly.

ALT TEXT: Black background with a rainbow of twelve mini skeins hanging from a twig. From L-R the colours are bluey purple, indigo blue, teal, jade green, moss green, poppy lime green, dirty mustard, orangey-brown, rusty fox, warm red, pinky-red and pinky purple.

I am very pleased with mine, especially the Rusty Fox colour that I was determined to create. I’m not sure what I am going to design with it yet, but they are going to be paired with a stormy grey to make a crochet design.

The workshop was a little treat for another year of podcasting, running the shop and designing. I already had a healthy level of respect for the dyers that I consider to be true artists. After the workshop, that respect increased massively – it’s really difficult to get to the colours you have in your head.

Becci and Markus will be running more workshops in 2020, so if you are interested in going to one, sign up to the newsletter on their website because that is where you will hear about it first.

6 – Quick News Beats

1 - Global Hook Up – There will be more than two Hook Ups in December:

Saturday 14th at 8 pm (GMT) and Sunday 15th at 9 am GMT.

Wednesday 25th December from 11 am until 2 pm (GMT) and Thursday 26th from 9 am until 12 pm (GMT).

The Christmas Day and Boxing Day sessions have been added because I know that some of you are looking forward to a festive Hook Up. I will be there at the start of the session and then might dip in and out. Each session will go on for three hours and other folks will likely come in and out during that time.

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.

2 – The next podcast is episode 50! I am delighted to have been podcasting for this long and to have consistently put a podcast out on the first Friday for that long.

To mark the fact that it’s episode 50, I wondered about introducing a new topic just for this podcast. The idea is that you can ask me any questions and I will give you the answer in Episode 50. If you like the idea and want to ask a question, you can leave a question in the YouTube dropdown box or in Podbean, or leave a question in the Instagram grid story for Episode 49 (this is easier for me to find than you sending me a dm).

It doesn’t matter if there aren’t any questions, I will be recording a podcast anyway.

3 – I have now added all of my electronic patterns (crochet UK terminology, crochet US terminology and knitting) to my Etsy shop FayDHDesigns (link). This means that all of my patterns are now available on Ravelry (link), Etsy and from my shop website (link).

7 - J’adore

This can only really be about my trip to Iceland. I had a great time with my Dad. We stayed in four different locations and did a lot of travelling, moving from the SW corner all the way to the East and then up to the North and back again for our flight back.

You can see snapshots of my trip on the grid on Instagram as I crocheted my way across the island.

Iceland is an amazing country to visit and if you are thinking about going there, I thoroughly encourage you to go to some of the places that are beyond the usual Golden Circle tourist route – there is so much more to the country.

I particularly enjoyed when we happened across a herd of reindeer up in the mountain pass as we were driving north. They were magical to watch, as were the moonrises and sunsets.

Also, my Dad has asked me to knit him an Icelandic yoked jumper. He chose the wool while we were out there and I have already made a start on it. I’ll show it off more in the January podcast.

I’ll be back on January 3rd 2020. Have a fab festive season!

Fay x

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