I'm back from a whirlwind week up North. The Curious Handmade Country House Retreat was an amazing time: I'll have more to share about it once I've gathered my thoughts! In the meantime you can check out the lovely photos everyone took on Instagram under the #CHcountryhouseretreat hashtag. I also traveled on to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, where I got to spend even more time with some wonderful knitters, designers, and lovely woolly people of all sorts. Today, though, I want to share an interview I did with the marvelous Daphne of The Fibre Co. We talked about the development of the new yarn (a favourite topic of mine!) about the alchemy of dyeing and colour selection, and about what Daphne's looking forward to in the near future. Show Sponsor: Meadow Yarn is an inviting online retailer selling yarn, needles and notions. It's a small, family business based in rural Suffolk in the UK. Meadow Yarn was born out of a passion for beautiful yarn and knitting accessories and aims to bring you a range of great products. Yarns stocked include madelinetosh, Eden Cottage Yarn, the Fibre Co and many more. Show Notes: As you've probably heard on the podcast, the Fibre Co. and their wonderful new yarn Cumbria sponsored us on the retreat. I designed a new shawl using fingering weight Cumbria, and introduced it to the retreat participants. Today I can finally introduce it to you! The Hill Top Shawl was inspired by the rolling fields, stone walls, and craggy hills of gorgeous Cumbria in the north of England. To celebrate the launch, Hill Top Shawl is available on Ravelry at 30% OFF for a short time, until Tuesday, March 29. Just make sure to use the code HILLTOP30 when you check out in Ravelry. There is an everyday magic to this place, where a touch of untamed wilderness still endures amid a tradition of rural life that reaches back back centuries. Cumbria is the ancestral home of Peter Rabbit and the epitome of what Robert Blake called “England’s green and pleasant land,” and it stole my heart years ago. I’ve poured that love into this design: an elegant crescent-shaped shawl with a rustic soul. I’ve interspersed super simple garter stitch with eye-catching lace panels, and finished it all off with a sweet, engaging picot edge. You might drape this shawl around your shoulders as you nestle in at home with a book, safe from the elements, or wrap it snugly around your neck for comfort as you head out bravely on a weekend hike. This classic accessory will keep you warm and cosy wherever it’s worn. This is a fun, quick knit, and from the response at the retreat, I think you're really going to enjoy it! It's available to buy on Ravelry now. I've started a KAL thread and as a prize I've saved one of the retreat goodie bags to share, including a handmade project bag, vouchers for several free patterns, and most wonderfully, two skeins of Cumbria Fingering from The Fibre Co. Join us for chatter, support, and some fun over the next six weeks!

Today’s guest embodies the type of joyful creativity that I love to feature on Curious Handmade. Susan B. Anderson is a gifted knitting designer who has been sharing her playful, fanciful patterns with the world for a decade now, and I’m so excited to be interviewing her on the podcast today. We talk about how she started designing, what it’s like to handle such a prolific and varied schedule, and the joys of teaching new knitters with her new book, Kids’ Knitting Workshop. Excerpted from Susan B. Anderson’s Kids’ Knitting Workshop by Susan B. Anderson (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2015. Photographs by Lauren Volo. Illustrations by Alison Kolesar. Show Sponsor: Meadow Yarn is an inviting online retailer selling yarn, needles and notions. It's a small, family business based in rural Suffolk in the UK. Meadow Yarn was born out of a passion for beautiful yarn and knitting accessories and aims to bring you a range of great products. Yarns stocked include madelinetosh, Eden Cottage Yarn, the Fibre Co and many more. Show Links: Excerpted from Susan B. Anderson’s Kids’ Knitting Workshop by Susan B. Anderson (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2015. Photographs by Lauren Volo. Illustrations by Alison Kolesar. Susan’s wonderful knitting blog Her brilliant video podcast Susan’s patterns on Ravelry Girl Scout blog series We discuss some of Susan’s wonderful pattern books and a few particularly adorable single patterns which I have in my queue: Itty Bitty Hats Itty Bitty Nursery Itty Bitty Toys Egg to Owl Reversible Toy Pattern Mary, Millie, and Morgan Doll Patterns Excerpted from Susan B. Anderson’s Kids’ Knitting Workshop by Susan B. Anderson (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2015. Photographs by Lauren Volo. Illustrations by Alison Kolesar. Susan mentioned a few in-person teaching events that she’ll be doing this spring: March 18-20, 2016, A Good Yarn in Sarasota, FL April 1-3, 2016 ~ DFW Fiber Fest (Texas) April 23, 2016 ~ Yarnover in Minneapolis, MN May 19-21, 2016 Fibre Space in Alexandria, VA She is a gifted teacher, and if you can’t make it to one of her workshops, you can still learn from her wonderful online lessons: she has just recorded new classes for both Craftsy and Creative Bug which will be released very soon. Events: I recently had the interviewing tables turned on me by Squam founder and director Elizabeth Duvivier for her marvellous Morning on The Dock Podcast! Next week is the Curious Handmade Country House Retreat in Cumbria, and I'm so excited. The podcast schedule will change a bit temporarily. I'm taking a week off during the retreat and releasing the next episode a little early, on Tuesday March 22nd, to avoid conflicting with  Easter weekend. I’m looking forward to attending The Edinburgh Yarn Festival right after the retreat, from March 18 to 19th. I’ll be at several of the events and spending some time in the Podcaster Lounge which is being sponsored by Blacker Yarn. One place you can be sure to catch me is at the Podcaster meetup from 12:30 to 2pm on Friday the 18th.

Show Sponsor Meadow Yarn is an inviting online retailer selling yarn, needles and notions. It's a small, family business based in rural Suffolk in the UK. Meadow Yarn was born out of a passion for beautiful yarn and knitting accessories and aims to bring you a range of great products. Yarns stocked include madelinetosh, Eden Cottage Yarn, the Fibre Co and many more What's in the WIP? I'm working away on my Mind The Gap Nimbus self-striping sock yarn from Trailing Clouds following Mina's Two at a time socks free pattern and am working up to learning and using the Fish Lips Kiss Hill. I’m going to be hosting a giveaway of the Fish Lips Kiss heel pattern. I want to support the designer, Patty Joy (SoxTherapist on Ravelry) who is undergoing cancer treatment and fundraising for a family reunion. I also thought it would be a nice way to participate in Yarn in The City’s #3thingsforyarnlove challenge. So if you don’t have this pattern and would like a chance to win it, pop over to my Ravelry Group. I’ll be posting a thread where you can comment with your Ravelry name to enter Show Links Absolutely loving Gretchen Rubin's book Better than Before and her podcast with her sister Happier I'm curious - I'd love to know if you listen or have read the book and what you think?!