Knitting Festivals & Crochet

It's Maryland Sheep and Wool Weekend! In this episode, I talk about the fun and overwhelm of fiber festivals and about the joy and lessons in learning something new (crochet!)

Music credit: Ketsa "Day Trips"
For comments or feedback: mrsdefarge@gmail.com  

Transcript

[Intro music: Ketsa, “Day Trips,” an upbeat instrumental song with bells and trills]

Holly 00:33

Hello! It’s Maryland sheep and wool weekend and I am a little overwhelmed I don't know I find Fiber festivals to be tremendous fun and then also completely overwhelming so I thought I'd chat a bit about my plan and what I'm going to be looking for and I’ll preface everything by saying I'm so happy that you're here.

Holly 01:09

I'm paused a bit because…. I'm trying to figure out what to say! One of the bummers of this week– I’ve been looking forward to this week forever–but one of the bummers is that my dryer broke and so I've had to make a very expensive purchase that was not planned for or budgeted and if you've been here before you know that my budget is really talk. If you’ve been here before you know that I talk about this a lot because it can sometimes feel like I may be the only person without a huge disposable income to spend on all of these beautiful craft items. And I certainly should not discount the fact that I have a ton of yarn. I’m fine.  I don't really need to buy anything but it is always fun to go to these festivals and look and be inspired and to share the community and support small businesses as well.

Holly 01:50

So I'm a little on the fence right now because have made a very expensive purchase already this week and it kind of freaking out about it and then I'm also supposed to be heading up to Frederick, which is just a bit far from where I live to go to yarncentrick– one of these pregame wonderful shopping opportunities. There's gorgeous purveyors and most importantly one of my friends has volunteered to work there so I wanted to go and support her and to say hi and see her and oh and ah over all of the handmade goods. 

Holly 02:31 

I talked about was how I manage this so I'm really I love going to these festivals but I often find that i get very overwhelmed and that I don’t like to make purchases impulsively and I can't really spend on the quantities of yarn that I would need to like buy a sweater quantity just to have. Although I have done that in the past and I've been really enjoying just working through sweater quantities from the past year. I got a sweater’s quantity of Harrisville Daylights [laughter] that was on sale at my LYS.  I asked my mom to buy me for Christmas and she did thankfully and so I've been really enjoying planning that out. I've been working through some of the yarn I bought last year and I've really been productive because I have this yarn and I know exactly what I want to do with it and I have a plan in place and I can just hit those marks. It's been a very stressful year, so no shade on anybody who does have a ton of stash. It's amazing. It's inspiring and you do you. [Laughter] And I want to do it too, but I can't. [laughter]

Holly 03:33

But that said I would like to go with a search and find mission. So one of the things I'm thinking about is maybe purchasing a niddy noddy. I have been enjoying hand spinning on my spindle drop spindling. I have two very goofy art yarns that I've made. I really like it. I like drop spindling. I don’t think I’m going to invest in a wheel. I don't need more yarn and I really do just enjoy the process of working with fiber in a very slow way so it's fine for me to just spindle some crazy artyarn but it would be nice to have a pretty niddy noddy to help with the finishing process. If I see something that's reasonably priced I’ll get it.  I don't want to get a 3D printed niddy noddy. I bought one of those on Etsy and it snapped immediately. I've had my eye on eBay for a while to see if I can get something second hand. If you’ve researched spinning tools you know that they are pricey so I thought I would at least price that out. 

Holly 04:51

I also want to buy roving. That’s super fun as well and so I really am hoping to get an undyed braid of roving last year. Last year, I bought this rainbow roving. And they are not interested in spinning, but I have picked up the hobby for them [laughter[ and I thought it'd be so pretty to have undyed white to go with that rainbow yarn. I think that would just be really pretty handspun. And if I see a braid of gorgeous crazy colored fiber, then perhaps I’ll invest. It has to be you know one of those beginner friendly fibers– no silk and Sparkle for me, thank you, not yet. It has to be a beginner-friendly staple length. Like Corriedale. I am looking forward to that.

Holly 05:43

There’s two things already on my list. And that’s already a significant amount of money. [laughter]. For some reason my button stash is also depleted. And buying buttons without a project in mind is  never a good idea. But I do need buttons for the Kyllikki cardigan that I just finished from Veera Velimacki’s Stripes book. It’s absolutely beautiful I really love it. That would be a fun search and fine. And I’ve been thinking about my other summer project–knitting a summer shawl. I think I’ve talked about this before. Every summer I knit a shawl. I”ve done this for the past five or six years. I’ve given quite a few away, one to my sister and another to a friend. And I’ve been about this year’s shawl. I’ve two in mind. 

Holly 06:52

One is the Mare shawl, by moonstruck knits. It’s gorgeous. I’m tempted to do that because I have this beautiful sport-weight pink yarn but I don’t quite have enough. And that’s the problem. The sample is knit in coral yar with white yarn as the contrast color. And i think I’d have to flip this–white main color with the pink as a contrast color. And that could be great. I’m not quite sure. It might be worth waiting to get exactly what I want down the line. I really like that pink yarn and I really like search and find missions. So I bet I could find it over time, maybe even at a creative reuse store. 

Holly 08:02

So that’s one option. And it’s a smart one, especially to use stash since I’ve got this big expense in my budget. The other idea is to make the ziggy interrupted shawl. I have loved this shawl for a very long time. But here’s the thing. I don’t crochet. And it involves crochet elements. But this may be the one and only summer where it’s possible. My sweet child has learned to crochet. And they have taught me how to crochet. And I am currently working on my very first crochet blanket. And i’m very proud of myself.

Holly 08:38

I have just kept it simple. I have been using acrylic yarn that we found in our creative reuse Center. They had this amazing Mandela yarn– I think it's from Michaels–and it's called the Unicorn colorway. It's so pretty–with gray, blue, white, and hot pink color shifts. My kiddo and I were both like oh my goodness that yarn! 

and so I was like well let's just use up the yarn we have. it's acrylic, washable, let's make a baby blanket. So here's the thing so I've been crocheting the Granny stripe blanket that's all the rage right now. I was inspired by knitting natty to do so;  it's a triple crochet stitch after a setup row.

Holly 09:14

And you know I’ve just been learning that stitch and having that learning curve in a simple project like this has been really rewarding. But you can probably tell where the story is heading: I don't like crochet. I get it now. I finally understand it. And why would anybody knit a blanket. You should crochet a blanket. That makes total sense to me now. But. Crochet is not– as somebody on one of the knitting podcasts that I watch put it–crochet is not the language of my heart. If you're interested, I've been watching Lena on YouTube I think it's called another knitting pod. (I really like her podcast. She's really inspiring and she's the one who said that). And it just really resonated with me.

Holly 10:09

 if I was ever in doubt, knitting is the language of my heart. knitting is the thing that holds me together. Knitting–I don't know, I find it so much more engaging and soothing than crochet. Of course this is a learning curve. :ike I'm not very good at crochet,  although I have seen the value of practicing and I've got better so I can now do that fun fast move where you can pull your hook through the multiple loops. I’ve learned it and that was a little bit of magic and I was very excited when I learned how to do that.

Holly 10:47

The other thing that's important to mention is that, you know, I have these two teens. And they've been through a lot. We've been through a lot as a family. And one of the things that I love right now about this moment that I'm in is that my child,  my youngest, who I’ve wanted to share the love of Fiber Arts with them forever and they're really wonderful and I have. They like support me. They've always come with me to Maryland Sheep and Wool (mostly because they love the alpacas and corn dogs) so we go and we have a good time together. They're you know very much supporting me. But I've always wanted to teach them to knit. I've always wanted them to learn to knit. I thought we could be one of those mother child Duos that takes the World by storm or at least just share this thing that you know has helped me so much in this challenging time with them I want them to be okay. I want them to have the same access to recovery tools that I do. But of course that's a controlling wish [laughter] and recovery doesn't work that way. 

Holly 11:44

And so one of the joys right now is that my kiddo has discovered a love of yarn and making. choices they've always had an artist's soul but they really enjoyed crochet and they really enjoyed crochet recently because one of their friends. It’s their thing and I realized that there's a tension.  

Holly 12:07

We were on a trip to see my parents, just me and my youngest. And I was like oh let's bring our crochet projects and we can be in the hotel and we can watch a movie and we can have a crochet party. And they were so frustrated because they were having trouble with their project and I wasn't having trouble with mine. And I realized in that moment that: one, I don't love crochet, two, this is their thing and I'm kind of horning in on it and it's ruining it for them and 3, I can be mindful of that and maybe give them a little bit of space so that we can have adjacent but not necessarily identical hobbies. There's also something really special about having something be yours and yours alone.

Holly 12:40

And so with that said, all of my crochet journey [laughter] may be happening right now as I finish this blanket and then finally just doing whatever the motifs are for the Ziggy interrupted shawl and then move into the knitting portion and be done with. I chatted with my kiddo and they said I should just finish this blanket and then be done with it. [laughter] so again I'm always in awe with how this silly hobby helps me to talk with my kids about the things I care about.

Holly 13:16

Oh my goodness. This podcast is very long. I've been trying to keep them short and under 10 minutes. I'm going to stop now but I'm wishing you a great weekend wherever you are and especially a fun and fabulous Festival weekend if you are attending Maryland Sheep and Wool. And if you're not, I hope that you have beautiful materials to work with and you are doing whatever the thing is that is the language of your heart.

Holly 13:43

As always, take what you like and leave the rest and I’ll chat with you soon. Bye!

[Outro music: Ketsa, "Day Trips," upbeat instrumental song with bells and trills.]