Show Sponsors

Alongside an eclectic yarn range, which includes Hazel Knits, Icelandic Lopi & CoopKnits, we stock a carefully chosen selection of needles and notions. We’ve also recently launched ‘hand dyed by meadowyarn’, our very own in-house, hand-dyed yarn range. Working in our tiny dye studio, nestled in the Suffolk countryside, we are able to indulge our love of colour, producing complex tonal, kettle-dyed shades across a range of weights and bases. With regular updates our collections evolve and grow, inspired by the landscape and people around us.

Find all your favourite luxury yarns and discover plenty more at A Yarn Story, Bath’s premier yarn store based in Walcot Street, Bath, UK. From gorgeous skeins by The Fibre Co and Walcot Yarns to a fine selection from Shibui Knits, La Bien Aimée, House of a la Mode, and Julie Asselin, there is plenty for the discerning knitter to enjoy. With friendly and knowledgeable staff to help you browse, there is plenty for the discerning knitter to enjoy. Visit the store at Walcot Street, Bath or shop online at www.ayarnstory.co.uk.

 

Sometimes scheduling relaxation is the best way to make sure you actually find the time: that’s what I’m doing this week. In this episode I have more Knitvent chat for you, exploring our theme of “Comfort and Joy” and our delightful community giveaway. And I’m looking forward to our first hot Aussie Christmas since the girls were born! You also might have noticed that Curious Handmade has a brand new website, so I’ve got stories about that as well as an update on some issues I’ve been working out with the podcast.

Show links:

Presales for the Knitvent 2020 Collection have begun!

You can get all six mystery patters for the Early bird price of £9.95 (over 30% off the regular ebook price of £15) when  you join us before the first pattern is released on Thursday, October 29th, 2020!

Knitvent 2020 on Ravelry

Knitvent 2020 on Gumroad

 The beautiful and inspiring Knitvent 2020 Giveaway Thread

Get 20% off the Rainforest Shawl pattern with the code RAINFOREST when you check out until the 23rd of October, 2020

Rainforest Canopy Shawl on Ravelry

Rainforest Canopy Shawl on Gumroad

October Knit 20 for 2020 Finished Objects Thread

Show transcript:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade podcast. You’re listening to episode 314. This podcast is all about crafting a life of happiness and creativity. I’m your host Helen, and you can find me on Ravelry as HellsBells and on social media as CuriousHandmade. You can also find the full show notes and transcript on my website at curioushandmade.com.

Hello there, come and join me for a little natter about knitting, yarn and crafty things. Things are really intense in the world right now, and I’m certainly feeling it every day. I think after I record this, I’m going to sit down and schedule in some blocks of relaxation into my diary for some personal knitting, maybe working on my liberty hexie quilt project, and perhaps I’ll schedule in some walks as well. I think I need to just make sure that I have some time carved out for a little bit of downtime at the moment. And I’m also going to put a ban on myself from scrolling on my phone during those times, just for an extra element of relaxation. So I hope that listening to the show today can be a little relaxing moment for you too.

Here in Curious Handmade land, we are now into Knitvent season. Knitvent, if you haven’t heard of that before is a holiday themed collection of six patterns that I’ve designed that are surprises, like windows of an advent calendar. This is the eighth year we have celebrated Knitvent here at Curious Handmade. I can’t believe it’s been eight years, but there you go. Time flies when you’re having fun. And the theme for this year’s Knitvent is comfort and joy. And the theme just came very naturally from a conversation I was having with my sister talking about the year and the rest of the year. And I was just saying how I felt that I needed to keep things very simple and uncomplicated. This year more than ever. I always feel a little bit that way about the holidays, but even more so this year.

So that’s the theme for the collection and I hope it’s reflected in the designs. I think it will be. And it’s given me a lot of comfort and joy designing the collection for you. That’s for sure. So the presales for Knitvent 2020 opened this week, and thank you so much for the lovely responses and all the excitement you have been sharing for it. That gives me a huge amount of joy and a very warm, warm, fuzzy feeling. So thank you for everybody who has already joined in. We have the pattern on sale at the moment. And during the presale period, before the first pattern comes out, it’s at a big discount. So it’s £9.95 at the moment, and that’s priced in British pounds. And then once the first pattern comes out, the price goes up to the normal price of 15 pounds for that collection.

So I think it’s a pretty good deal, especially at the moment. Even when it’s full price I think it’s quite a good deal compared to buying individual patterns, but I recognize that you are taking a risk in purchasing a surprise collection. So I have a special presale price for you, for people who are willing to take that risk. You can purchase the pattern on either Ravelry, and I’ve also set up a Gumroad page, not an alternative platform. And as an aside, a little shout out thanks to Stephen West, who inadvertently mentored me in that. I was wondering how to deliver the collection in the format that I deliver it because Etsy can’t really handle delivering the pattern in other collection in six weekly installments. And so when I signed up for Stephens mystery knit along, I saw that he was using Gumroad to deliver his clues. So thank you Stephen for that tip and for an amazing mystery knit along as well. I haven’t had time to knit any of the clues, but I have been following along the spoilers with great delight and lots of people look like they’re enjoying that mystery knit along.

Anyway, just sorry for that little diversion there, but just to explain why the pattern is on Gumroad and not Etsy, I guess. Just to spread a little more of the joy and excitement of Knitvent, we have a launch competition happening. For this competition I’ve made it my choice of gift vouchers rather than the winners choice and the dyes I’ve chosen are Ocean by the Sea, who is an amazing dyer based in London. And she just creates the most dreamy botanically dyed yarns. She writes beautiful poetry. I just love her work. We also have Birch Hollow Fibers in the US. She’s based in Hudson Valley in New York. And she is a dyer that I’ve been following for a while. She creates beautiful, beautiful colourways, and I just love Robin’s aesthetic as well. And then in Australia, we have Wren & Ollie who is based in South Australia. And I discovered Wren & Ollie a couple of years ago when I was visiting a yarn store here. And she just has such fun, beautiful colourways, again.

So, we have a gift vouchers from each of those dyers, and also I’ll be offering 10 copies of my latest pattern, which is the Rainforest Canopy Shawl to 10 lucky winners. And if you already have purchased that pattern, a single pattern of your choice. So to enter the competition, grab your copy of Knitvent and then create a project page for the first window. I have a placeholder pattern page for the first pattern that will come out. It’s called Knitvent window one. And if you create a pattern page for that and then post in the thread a photo or a story of something that brings you comfort and joy, especially around the holidays. It doesn’t have to be anything grand, just a little moment, or it could be something extravagant, whatever it brings you, comfort and joy.

There’s already an amazing thread happening in the Curious Handmade group on Ravelry. And it is full of heartwarming stories. I just love these threads so much. People are sharing about their family, pets, comforting food, snuggling up warm in snowy weather. Cooking, of course knitting and crafts, family heirlooms. And this year, a lot of gratitude for technology and Zoom, which is maybe a new thing. I do hope reading the posts that people’s wishes to be able to spend more time with loved ones can come true this year. But if not, that you can find other ways to connect. We might have to be a little bit more inventive this year. And for people who have lost loved ones this year, that they can find some comfort. I know that the holidays can be a very hard time for people.

And as always, I’m incredibly grateful and overwhelmed by the stories you share from all over the world. And I can recognize names of people that have been knitting my patterns for many years, joining in Knitvent for many, many years. And it’s just lovely to have this little way of connecting, and yeah, I just love it. So thank you so, so much for people who have posted, and if you’d like a little heartwarming cheerful thread to read, I would recommend it. This will be our first Christmas here in Australia. Last year, we were back in the UK for family reasons. We had moved to Australia, but went back for Christmas. And so this year, yeah, it’s going to be interesting. I think it’s going to be good, but it’s going to be a bit of a blast from the past to having a hot weather Christmas. We’ve only spent one Christmas back here in Australia since the girls were born. And so, it’s not usual at all.

Usually came back in the Northern hemisphere summer, rather than at Christmas time if we were doing any trips. We do have some family traditions that will translate, okay. Like giving certain gifts. And of course, Santa visiting. We have assured the girls that Santa can still deliver presents to houses without chimneys. And yeah, we might be making some new traditions as well. So I’ll be reading through the amazing inspiration thread on Ravelry for some lovely heartwarming ideas. Maybe you can find some ideas there too, of things you might like to do. So the first window will open. The first pattern will come out next Thursday, which is the 29th of October. And if you want to jump into the festivities, then jump in before the 29th of October and take advantage of the 30% off pre-sale offer.

In other news this week, some of you might have noticed that my website has finally been updated. I have been working on a project to revamp my website for about three years now. And in the midst of that, I re-branded and had to start again. So it’s taken a really long time. And then I moved and there was just always something happening. So my poor web developer had to keep being very patient for a long time. So we have finally got it live and I’m really pleased with how it’s worked out. So I’ll let you have a little look. We have had a little bit of trouble getting the podcast to feed correctly through to podcast feeders. Apparently when it was originally set up, it was a little bit complicated. So we’re still working that out and I’m having to remember passwords from, I don’t know, 10 years ago and things like that. So that’s required a little bit of troubleshooting.

Hopefully we will get there soon, but if you’re listening to this, you’re obviously able to access it, but I’ll have to let people know that it is available to listen to you on the website. But as of today, not through podcast apps. Anyway, hopefully by the time you’re hearing this, that will be sorted. But yes, very exciting with the new website, and I think the podcast is the only thing that’s gone amiss. But if you do see anything, anything that’s gone astray, please do let me know. Also, it’s nearly the end of October. So this is the last week for entering into the knit 20 for 2020 challenge. And that happens both in Ravelry and on Instagram with the hashtag, #Knit20for2020 and the prize is a $50 voucher to a indie dyer or yarn shop of your choice. So it’s well worth entering. You can find all the details about knit 20 for 2020 challenge on my new website, there is a link on the menu bar. And that’s about all I have for you today.

Thanks for joining me this week. I hope you have a good week and I’ll talk to you again soon. Happy knitting.

Show Sponsors

Alongside an eclectic yarn range, which includes Hazel Knits, Icelandic Lopi & CoopKnits, we stock a carefully chosen selection of needles and notions. We’ve also recently launched ‘hand dyed by meadowyarn’, our very own in-house, hand-dyed yarn range. Working in our tiny dye studio, nestled in the Suffolk countryside, we are able to indulge our love of colour, producing complex tonal, kettle-dyed shades across a range of weights and bases. With regular updates our collections evolve and grow, inspired by the landscape and people around us.

Find all your favourite luxury yarns and discover plenty more at A Yarn Story, Bath’s premier yarn store based in Walcot Street, Bath, UK. From gorgeous skeins by The Fibre Co and Walcot Yarns to a fine selection from Shibui Knits, La Bien Aimée, House of a la Mode, and Julie Asselin, there is plenty for the discerning knitter to enjoy. With friendly and knowledgeable staff to help you browse, there is plenty for the discerning knitter to enjoy. Visit the store at Walcot Street, Bath or shop online at www.ayarnstory.co.uk.

 

It’s one of the most exciting times on the Curious Handmade calendar! The presales for Knitvent have just launched, and I am beyond excited to welcome you all for another season of surprises and gift knitting. So I’ve got that to chat about, of course, and also lots of stories from the magical rainforest retreat I attended last weekend. So get cosy and join me for a nice big catch-up episode!

Show links:

Presales for the Knitvent 2020 Collection have begun!

You can get all six mystery patters for the Early bird price of £9.95 (over 30% off the regular ebook price of £15) when  you join us before the first pattern is released on Thursday, October 29th, 2020!

Knitvent 2020 on Ravelry

Knitvent 2020 on Gumroad

Kitch Kreative on Etsy

O’Rielly’s Rainforest Retreat

Reconciliation Australia

NNK Yarns

The Yarn Bowl

52 Weeks of Socks

Snippet Socks

Natural Fibre Arts

Rose Hip Island

Louie and Lola

Get 20% off the Rainforest Shawl pattern with the code RAINFOREST when you check out until the 23rd of October, 2020

Rainforest Canopy Shawl on Ravelry

Rainforest Canopy Shawl on Gumroad

Stillness Shawl

Get 40% off the Rewilding Shawl pattern with the code REWILDING when you check out until the end of October 2020!

Rewilding Shawl

Show transcript:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade podcast. You’re listening to Episode 313. This podcast is all about crafting a life of happiness and creativity. I’m your host Helen, and you can find me on Ravelry as HellsBells and on social media as Curious Handmade. You can also find full show notes and transcript on my website at curioushandmade.com.

Hello and welcome. Thanks for joining me today. I hope you’re having a good week and are finding some spaces in your days to do some knitting and stitching, crochet, patchwork, whatever takes your fancy and yeah, grab a tea or coffee or other beverage, and join me for a chat. I’ve had a very exciting week this week because I got to attend a knitting retreat and I have to say, after the year we’ve had and still having, it was an amazing experience to be able to join a group of knitters for the weekend.

So the event was organized by Kylie Kenny, who is Kitsch Kreative. She has an Etsy shop selling beautiful project bags, and she organized this retreat at O’Reilly’s. I think we first discussed it last year, I can’t remember when. I think fairly early last year actually, maybe about halfway through the year. So a lot in the world has changed since then. But thankfully and amazingly, we were able to go ahead with it here. Unfortunately, participants who were going to be coming from interstate weren’t able to come because of restrictions on travel. But people from Queensland, which is the state that I live in and where the retreat was held, were able to attend.

So the retreat was held in a very, very special location at a place called O’Reilly’s, which is a resort, I guess you’d say. It doesn’t quite feel like a typical resort. It’s more of a retreat in the mountains and there are really nice cabins, various sizes that you can stay in or a beautiful campground, which was sort of the original part of the retreat. But I think it’s developed into something bigger over the years. It’s up in the mountains in the Lamington National Park, which is the Gold Coast hinterland. So if you’re familiar with the Gold Coast, which is about an hour’s drive south of Brisbane, and then west from there.

And Kylie’s family still own the place today and her parents and grandparents were part of O’Reilly’s as she was growing up, and she lived there growing up as well. So it was a very special location for her and it was quite a special location for me as well, because that’s where my parents had their honeymoon. And we went up there a little bit when I was little. And yeah, I’ve been back since for camping trip and just yeah, it’s just beautiful. Just so special to experience true rainforest and bush walking, and the views are spectacular. It’s just a lovely, lovely, relaxed place. The air is really clean and fresh.

So we started the event with dinner on the first evening on Thursday, and Kylie greeted us and acknowledged the traditional custodians of the land. She said a acknowledgement of country and paid respect to the elders past, present and emerging. And we heard a little bit about the venue and about Kylie’s stories growing up there, which was just made it that extra bit special. And then over the course of a couple of days we had a room where we could sit up with our knitting and we had some vendors. So we had some yarn and project bags and other lovely things to buy. The vendors where Lisa from NNK Yarns. And she brought some beautiful hand-dyed yarns. She’s based in Brisbane.

We discovered we had a connection because when she first started her business, she was knitting items for kids and babies. And my sister had purchased a little vest for, I think, Sophie, from Lisa and sent it to me in London, which was quite some years ago now. And then she purchased another one and sent that over. And so I think that it got handed down to Lexi, and Lexi still has the little vest that Lisa made in her wardrobe and she won’t let it go. She loves it so much. It’s a beautiful color. And so that was so funny to discover that connection from many years ago.

We also had Fiona from The Yarn Bowl, which is a fairly new yarn shop in Brisbane at a suburb called Banyo. And Fiona said that they’ve just had their one year anniversary for The Yarn Bowl. And that was obviously a very popular yarn shopping destination and knit night for, most of the knitters were from Brisbane and were very familiar with The Yarn Bowl, and she had absolutely lovely things. Needles from ChiaoGoo. She had some copies of 52 Weeks of Socks from Laine, which was quite nice because I had my snippet sample there from the book. And she also had a amazing stand of yarn from Natural Fiber Arts, who is Cheryl, another local indie dyer, and Cheryl just lives a little bit north of me on the coast. So that was lovely to meet Cheryl. Cheryl was also there, the dyer behind Natural Fiber Arts.

And then Kylie had a stand as well for Kitch Kreative. And she was selling her bags, her beautiful handmade project bags, as well as yarn from Rose Hip Island, who is a hand dyer in Tasmania, and that is Hannah. And Hannah does very, very beautiful romantic colorways and also some self-striping sock yarn in really fun colorways. And because of the restrictions I think Hannah would have had to quarantine for two weeks up here and then quarantine for another two weeks going back down to Tasmania. So she wasn’t able to attend, but she sent her yarn that she dyed for the up to Kylie and Kylie had it on her stand. So we were able to see her beautiful yarn, even though we were all very sad that we weren’t able to meet Hannah in person. But next year, I’m pretty sure. I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to meet the people that couldn’t come this year at the event next year. Kylie’s already announced that we’ll be doing it again next October. And I’ll be teaching some workshops again.

So over the weekend we had two workshops, they were fairly informal. The first one was a sock cast on. So I brought a whole bunch of my samples from my sub collections and some one-off patterns. And we talked about making socks. A lot of people cast on some socks, and there are a few people there that were knitting some of my sock patterns already, which was really lovely to see and to see those projects happening, all righty. So thank you to all the participants that were knitting my patterns and brought some projects that they had knit.

And then on the second day, on the Saturday, we had a shawl workshop, and I designed a special shawl for the event and as a gift for the attendees, which was the Rainforest Canopy Shawl. It was obviously inspired by the location in the Rainforest and Karina from Louie & Lola, also in Tasmania, had created a special colorway called O’Reilly’s. And she’s having an update for that this week, or it’s already happened. So check out Louie & Lola if you would like some of the amazing deep forest green colorway that she created for the cover shawl. And I also have samples in Rose Hip Island yarn in a beautiful pink rock orchid colorway, an amazing mustard colorway from NNK Yarns, as well as another sample in Louie & Lola in the S-colorway. So if you go to the pattern page for that, you’ll be able to see all those different colorways that I’m mentioning.

And I’ve released the pattern for the Rainforest Canopy Shawl just this week after the retreat. And so that is now available and it is for sale at our launch price of 20% off with the code, RAINFOREST. And it’s an asymmetrical triangle with lovely lace panels that to me represent Rainforest Canopy and either stockinette or garter stitch sections in between the layers. And there’s also a rectangular scarf version available in the pattern as well. So two sizes of asymmetrical triangles and a rectangular scarf version, which can easily be adapted to be wider if you want to make a more of a wrap style rectangular version.

So it was absolutely lovely spending some time with knitters. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a knitting retreat. I don’t think I went to one all year last year. I think that’s right. I think with the move and everything going on, I couldn’t do anything last year. And then this year has obviously been a little bit of a shambles in that regard with COVID happening. I don’t think I would have probably been going to anything before now anyway. But I was kind of hoping to get down to the Bendigo Wool Show at some point, obviously that was canceled. So it was, yeah, it was an amazing treat to be able to meet lots of local knitters, lots of knitters based in Brisbane and a little bit further south and a little bit further north. There was 16 participants altogether in the end. So that was amazing that that many people could attend.

I met some ladies from Murwillumbah, it’s a bit of a tongue twister, and they had knit my Stillness Shawl. So that was absolutely beautiful to see. Vicki and Sue’s projects and we had some photos. And I got to meet Maureen who has been knitting my patterns for many years. And yeah, it was absolutely lovely to meet her and just everyone. Everyone was so friendly and it was just such a fun few days. The food was very good. We ate a lot. The meals were very generous and delicious. The coffee was excellent and a lot of the staff were quite young and just really friendly and energetic. And yeah, it was really nice.

So I’m already looking forward to working with all the new Australian indie dyers’ yarn that I’ve discovered through this event, which has just been so fun and meeting up with the knitters that I met. And hopefully being able to see them at future events. So thank you to Kylie for organizing the event and reorganizing it several times as the rules and restrictions around COVID changed. I do not envy you trying to manage all of that, but she did it and it was wonderful. And if you listened to last week’s podcast, I was very nervous about the windy road and the road was in fact windier and longer than I remembered. But actually it was fine in the end. So yeah, I think being in the driver’s seat and just being able to take it at my own pace was good. And I had the lovely Lisa with me for the journey. I picked her up in Brisbane and then we drive down from there together and she was super, a super winged person and very calm copilot. So that was also really lovely.

I did manage to do a couple of bush walks, which for me was unusual. I usually just manage to knit and not much else when I go to a knitting retreat, but I managed to sneak away and do a couple of walks. I did a lovely walk with Cheryl and we had a lovely chat about yarn and got to know her a little bit. So that was wonderful. We did the wishing tree walk. So we walked down to this amazing old tree that had split at the bottom and you could walk into it. So I’ll definitely be trying to get up there for a family trip at some stage. I think everyone would really enjoy doing some bush walks. There’s shorter ones and much longer ones. You can walk over to the next resort, Boonaburra.

There’s a long walk, a 20 kilometer walk that you can do. There’s a tree tops walk with suspension bridges through the canopy of the rainforest, which was amazing. That’s just a really small, short one, just lots of different walks. And yeah, definitely love to go back. I’m not sure if we’d camp or stay in one of the lovely cabins. So the Rainforest Canopy Shawl is now available on Ravelry and I’ll also put it up on Etsy and it will be 20% off on Ravelry with the code rainforest until next Friday, the 23rd of October. And I’ll try and work out what I can do on Etsy as well. I might just post it at the discounted price on Etsy. I’m not quite sure what the situation with discount codes is there, but I’ll look into it.

And amazingly, we are well into October now, which means that we are getting into Knitvent season. Every year for the past seven or eight years, we have celebrated Knitvent and it is a combination of a knitwear collection and an advent calendar. So each week for five weeks, I will be publishing six secret knitting patterns. One week we will have two patterns published on the same day, and the other four weeks there’ll be one pattern published.

The presales for Knitvent are starting today, which is Friday the 16th of October. And so when you sign up for that, you’ll be signing up for six secret knitting patterns that will be revealed like an advent calendar as a surprise. It has become a very lovely tradition over the past years. And when I was thinking about the theme for this year, I just kept coming back to the idea of simplicity and simple pleasures.

I was thinking a lot about the simple pleasure that bring us comfort and moments of joy. And so that is the theme for this year’s Knitvent is comfort and joy. I feel like we could all use a little bit of that at the moment. And I feel like it’s a really nice theme for this time of year, which I like to be a bit reflective and have moments of gratitude and relaxing, try and have some moments of relaxing. So that’s my ideas behind Knitvent is that we can share in the joy and comfort of knitting and have a knit along for the month of November and through to the holidays.

The patterns are roughly designed to be suitable for gift knitting, but also designed to be suitable for yourself if you’d like to knit the projects for yourself. That’s also a very appropriate thing to do. So as I mentioned, you can purchase the collection as a presale on Ravelry, and I’m currently setting up an alternative to Ravelry, which I will post about. I’m recording this a little bit earlier in the week, so I haven’t quite finished setting it up yet. And I’m trying to find a platform that will work to deliver patterns. You know, one pattern per week, which is what I need. And some of the platforms I don’t think will do that such as Etsy. So I’m currently looking at an alternative and I think I’ve found one. But I will put a link to that in the show notes and on the blog and so forth. Otherwise it will be available on Ravelry as per normal. And I always do an early bird price for the presale period, which is roughly a third off the price that it will go up to after the first pattern comes out.

So you get a discount as a reward for taking the plunge and trusting me. I think it’s nice to have little surprises. Not everybody likes surprises, so I understand if you want to wait till the patterns come out. But yeah, there will be a significant discount for purchasing them early. And the full price is also a significant discount on purchasing them individually. So the first pattern will come out on the 29th of October and the sixth pattern will be published on the 26th of November. And patterns two to five will be published each week in between. If you’re signed up to my newsletter, you’ll get some more information about it. And some reminders when the early bird time period is finishing. And maybe a few sneak peaks about some of the yarn that I’m using in some of the patterns possibly. I do tend to post some sneak peeks on Instagram as well.

And I’ll also set up a spoiler thread in my Ravelry group for people who don’t like surprises and want to get prepared in advance with information about what yarn will be needed. I’ll do that a little bit in advance of the patterns coming out. So that’s Knitvent, and I’m really excited about this year’s collection. I’ve been working hard on it for a few months now, and it’s always so fun when I finally get to share it with you. That’s all the news I have for you today I think.

Just one more announcement before I say goodbye. I do still have the promotion for the Rewilding Shawl running for the whole month up until the end of October. And that is 40% of the Rewilding Shawl with the coupon code, REWILDING. And we also have the launch code for 20% off the Rainforest Canopy Shawl available just for this week, which is RAINFOREST. I hope you have a wonderful week. I hope you’re staying safe and well, and having lots of vitamin C and vitamin D, keeping your immunity up. Happy knitting, and I’ll talk to you again soon.

Show Sponsors

Alongside an eclectic yarn range, which includes Hazel Knits, Icelandic Lopi & CoopKnits, we stock a carefully chosen selection of needles and notions. We’ve also recently launched ‘hand dyed by meadowyarn’, our very own in-house, hand-dyed yarn range. Working in our tiny dye studio, nestled in the Suffolk countryside, we are able to indulge our love of colour, producing complex tonal, kettle-dyed shades across a range of weights and bases. With regular updates our collections evolve and grow, inspired by the landscape and people around us.

I’m off to the rainforest this weekend to take part in a very special knitting retreat. It’s been such a long time since I was able to gather with other knitters in person, so this will be a very special trip. Today on the podcast, I’m chatting about the incredible location for this retreat, the knitting projects I’m going to take along, and in the spirit of relaxation, I’m looking for more book recommendations! Have you got a great read to suggest?

Show Links:

Kitch Kreative on Etsy

O’Rielly’s Rainforest Retreat

Louie and Lola

Rose Hip Island

NNK Yarns

Reconciliation Australia

Hermione Jean Granger Shawl by Tyne Swedish

Cyril Socks by Dani of Little Bobbins

Chanterelle Socks by Dani of Little Bobbins

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Inspector Gamache Series by Louise Penny

The Ruth Galloway Series by Elly Griffiths

Sign up to the Curious Handmade Newsletter and Get the Make Your Own Yarn Calendar ebook

(If you’re already on the Curious Handmade Newsletter list, you don’t need to sign up again: I’ll make sure to include it with the next few newsletters!)

Rewilding Shawl

Show Transcript:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade podcast, you’re listening to episode 312.

Hello, and welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me for a chat today. I’m recording a little bit earlier in the week than I normally do. It’s Tuesday, we had a public holiday here yesterday for the Queen’s birthday, and so we had the day off. I didn’t, but a lot of people had it as a holiday, and it was a day off school for the kids. And I am preparing to go on a retreat this weekend, which is very exciting. And the retreat is The Yarn Retreat at O’Reilley’s, organized by Kylie Kenny of Kitch Kreitive. Kylie has an Etsy shop in the name, Kitch Kreitive, which is spelled K-I-T-C-H K-R-E-A-T-I-V-E, so both ways words are spelled with a Km it’s both ways, on Etsy selling project bags that she makes herself.

So, O’Reilley’s is an amazing location. It’s in Queensland and it’s about three-hours drive from where I live, and it’s on the Gold Coast hinterland. So, it’s up in the mountains and based in Lamington National Park, and it survived the bushfires beginning of this year. Its neighboring venue, the Binna Burra Lodge and Campground, wasn’t so lucky, they had some of their buildings burnt. So, it would be interesting to see how they rainforest and bushland has recovered, and I think Binna Burra has since re-opened and rebuilt as well. O’Reilley’s is an amazing venue. I know it as a campground from my childhood, my parents went to stay there for their honeymoon, and we often went camping there and bush walking when we were young, and I took my husband, Steve, there when we were still dating, we had a couple of nights camping in the campground there. Now, there is still the campground, but there is much more upmarket accommodation with lovely villas, they’re called, and they’re just gorgeous on the website, it looks very nice.

So, I’m very excited to be going there this weekend and I’m really looking forward to hopefully doing some walks in the forest. There are various walks you can do, I’ll have to do some research before I go on various lengths of walks. There is a three-kilometer walk to Python Rock, which has lovely views, that’s one of the shorter ones. So yeah, so I’ll have to see if I can fit in some of these, slightly shorter walks, because I don’t want to be dipping into the knitting time too much, but definitely want to take advantage of some of the lovely rainforest.

And I’m also teaching a workshop about knitting shawls based on a new design I’ve created, especially for the retreat, which is the rain forest canopy shawl. So, I’m looking forward to sharing more details with you about that next week. It’s a surprise at the moment for the retreat attendees, and I’ll be gifting the pattern to the attendees, and I’m excited to share that with them. I have several samples, I have used some yarn from some of the vendors that are going to be at the small marketplace at the retreat.

And unfortunately, due to some of their COVID restrictions, two of the yarn dyers, who were going to be attending, aren’t able to come up from Tasmania, unfortunately. I think their restrictions at the moment would still require two weeks quarantine going into state, if it’s even allowed, I don’t know. I’m not quite up with all their restrictions, but basically it’s had to be contained to attendees from Queensland, so it’s fairly amazing that it’s still able to go ahead, for months now we haven’t been sure whether restrictions would have increased to the point of it not being able to go ahead at all, but luckily it can.

And hopefully next year, we’ll be able to welcome people from all parts of the country, if not the world, who knows. Kylie has already booked the retreat for this time next year, and has very generously invited me to teach again, so I’m thrilled about that and looking forward to that already, and hopefully we’ll get to meet a few more people, but I’m super happy to be meeting some local ish knitters, Queensland is a very big state, I’m not sure how far our field people are traveling from.

I am relatively close by and it’s still a three-hour drive away. So, I’m not sure, it’s a bit closer to Brisbane, which is the main city. And so I imagine quite a few people are coming from Brisbane. I think it’s about an hour and a half drive from Brisbane down to the national park, and I think it’s quite a lovely drive from very distant memories, you kind of wind up the mountain through a series of switchbacks, and I’m a bit nervous about that, but I think it will be fun. Hopefully there’s some substantial guardrails so that I don’t feel too nervous. I’ll be that person driving really, really slowly with a line of cars behind me getting really impatient. So I might, I might go early in the day so I don’t hold up a bunch of retreat attendees.

Anyway, the yarn that I used for my design is by Louie and Lola, who is Karina, and Hannah from Rose Hip Island, and they are both based in Tasmania. And then Lisa from NNK Yarns is, I feel like Queensland art, and is based in Brisbane, so happily I’ll be able to meet her at least. And I’m looking forward to seeing their gorgeous yarn in person. I think Karena and Hannah from Louie and Lola and Rose Hip Island, are both sending up yarn for the marketplace, so we will be able to purchase some and see it in person, even though I can’t meet them in person.

One thing that’s been nice about this retreat is Kylie has included an acknowledgement of country in her communications for the retreat. And she says, “I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I work and live. I pay respect to elders past, present, and emerging.” An acknowledgement of country is something that I have seen since I have been back, I wasn’t really aware of this being done very much if at all, when I was living in Australia, which was actually about 25 years since I’ve been living here full time, there was a brief period where I came back in between travels, but really I’ve been living away for about 25 years. But anyway, so now I see this quite a lot, which is fantastic. An acknowledgement of country as I’m paying respect for the traditional owners and the continuing connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to country.

And a welcome to country is protocols for welcoming visitors to country, which is part of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural tradition for thousands of years, and crossing into another groups’ country required a request for permission to enter. And then when permission was granted, the hosting group would welcome the visitors, offering them safe passage and protection of their spiritual beings during the journey. And while visitors were provided with a safe passage that also had to respect the protocols and rules of the land or in a group while on the country.

So I’m just reading from an information sheet from the Reconciliation Australia website, which is reconciliation.org.au. And they say, “Today, obviously much has changed, and these protocols have been adopted to contemporary circumstances. However, the essential elements of welcoming visitors and offering safe passage remain in place. A welcome to country occurs at the beginning of a formal event and can take many forms, including seeing dancing, smoking ceremonies, or a speech in traditional language or English. The welcome to country is delivered by traditional owners or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who’ve been given permission from traditional owners to welcome visitors to their country.”

And then with an acknowledgement, an acknowledgement is for anyone to show respect for the traditional owners. And I noticed that at the girls’ school, on the reception desk, there is an Acknowledgement of Country statement, and some of the teachers have in their email signature an Acknowledgement of Country. So, this is a way to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first Australians and traditional custodians of the land, and I’m always encouraged whenever I see an acknowledgement. I guess part of the reason I bring this up is because, the location, that the retreat is at, is such a special place. It’s a world heritage nature reserve and has just such a rich, natural heritage. It’s been protected for a long time, and it’s really, really beautiful, location, so it makes me think about ancient things and the people that live there.

So next week, I’ll share some more about the retreat and some photos, hopefully I’ll remember to take some good photos of everything and I’ll share all about it with you. Of course, I’m thinking about packing and what projects I’m going to knit during the retreat, that’s obviously something I’m looking forward to a lot as well. And I think at this stage, the main projects that I’m going to work on are the Hermione Jean Granger Shawl by Tyne Swedish, which I didn’t know how close I am to the end, I’m kind of just knitting beyond the pattern at this point, just to make it a bit bigger and use up some more yarn because I’m just really enjoying the simple goddess stitch pattern and it is absolutely perfect retreat knitting, so I’ll work on that a little bit and also my Droplet Capelet by Denise Bayron, and I think that will also be quite simple, relaxing, retreat knitting as well, so it would be nice to make some progress on two personal non-work knitting projects.

And I think the retreat is a good time to do that, so I’m looking forward to that. I might take a sock project, vanilla socks or something else, I’m not sure, I’ve got a few sock WIPs that I should probably have a look at. One of my sock WIPs has been around for a long time, it’s the Cyril Socks by Dani of Little Bobbins, and I was meant to be test knitting them, and I think the reason I put them down so much is because it’s in quite a dark yarn and with my eyesight, and if I’m knitting at night, I drop stitches and struggle to see the stitches very clearly, but if I’m knitting during the day and the light is good, I should probably take them and maybe try to finish those.

Speaking of Dani from Little Bobbins, she has just released a new sock pattern, which is absolutely gorgeous. I’m very taken with this design. It’s the Chantarelle Socks. So these socks are just delightful. They have a ribbed leg across the foot, which is fairly simple and straightforward, except they have a fluffy ruffle around the top of the leg. It’s knit in mohair, silk mohair, and just so whimsical and adorable. I could see you wearing these with short boots, with the little ruffle poking out the top. And they’re just so cute. So, maybe I will cast these on actually. I saw them on Instagram and she just released them this week. So that is the Chantarelle Socks, C-H-A-N-T-A-R-E-L-L-E, because I’m sure I have some mohair leftovers from projects floating around somewhere. So I might just dig that out and see if I could take this on the retreat as well.

I’ve also been doing a little bit of reading in the evenings. I’ve been trying to get into a slightly better bedtime routine, that sounds like I’m about three years old, doesn’t it? But yes, I’ve been trying to give myself a better routine in the evenings, and so I’ve been reading paper books. I’ve quite a huge collection of books I haven’t read, but inevitably I end up buying something new and I have some friends that are now scattered around the world now, and we were all in London as our mum’s group when Sophie was a baby, which is nearly 12 years ago, she’s almost 12, and one of the girls suggested we have a book club as a nice way to keep in touch. And so we are reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, which is set in the South, in the US.

And it covers kind of a long timeframe of the main character’s life. And I have probably read about a third of it so far, so I can’t really talk about it too much, but I’m enjoying it. It was a little bit slow at the beginning, but I think that’s mostly because I’ve been reading some racy action and detective thriller type novels quite a lot lightly. And so sort of maybe a literary fiction, I’m not sure, I’m not very strong on my genres and what the names are. I’m really getting into it and really growing to be interested in the characters and the story, so would recommend so far, even though I haven’t finished it yet, and that’s The Vanishing Half, and yeah, if people have any other recommendations, when I posted, I think last summer or the summer before, for recommendations for some summer reading, I really got some good recommendations.

I was put on to Louise Penny, who’s written the Inspector Gamache Series, loved that series, just kind of raced through those books. And also the series by Elly Griffiths, the Ruth Galloway Series was also another fantastic series. If you like sort of police thriller, mystery kind of genre, again, I don’t really know what genre it is, but it involves mysteries, and detectives, and people like that, people getting killed, and solving the puzzle. Yeah, so if anyone has any recommendations of series like those, I very, very much enjoyed them, and they were recommendations from my podcast listeners, so hit me up with anything similar. And if anyone has any tips on how to be a good book club participant, I’ve never done that before, never been part of a book club before, and it’s going to be virtual, so we can’t really meet up and drink lots of wine together, which I think is probably the purpose of a lot of book clubs, I’m not sure, maybe coffee, tea. So if anyone is running virtual book clubs at the moment and has any tips, that will be great too.

And just a couple of announcements before I sign off, that Knitvent is coming up very soon and the pre-sales will be opening up. And in the meantime, I have a how to make your own advent ebook, I guess you would call it, it’s a booklet really, available to download from my website. I’ll put the link in the show notes, and for this year’s scrappy project for Knitvent, I used yarn from my lovely sponsor, Meadow Yarn, and dyed up a special advent set, a special set of 24 minis for the design to match the theme or color scheme that I gave her a few little clues about, I didn’t really have to firm an idea, but she took my little mutterings and ran with it and came up with something gorgeous. And so Anj is going to have an update for these sets on her website on the 12th of October, which is coming up super soon.

And I just want to make it very, very clear that she has very few sets. She just has a few sets because she wasn’t able to get the minis from her supplier. Well, she wasn’t able to get very many minis from her supplier due to COVID restrictions. So, I want to give her a big shout out to let you know that she will have some sets, but I also want to just caution you that there won’t be that many available, and that’s just down to things beyond her or my control at the moment, so I hope you can also be understanding about that. But there are a lot of other super talented, lovely, indies who are providing sets of minis and whether they’re advent kits or just sort of small mini sets that you might like to put together your own collection of 24 minis, or make your own, or swap with a friend, there’s lots and lots of alternatives to put together an advent yarn set.

And I hope you enjoy whatever you choose to do. I think it’s really fun to actually make it from scraps of yarn you’ve used in projects because it just brings back all those happy memories of the projects you’ve made. The other little announcement I wanted to make was that I have my Rewilding Shawl on offer this month as a featured pattern to celebrate nature, and getting into nature with the retreat, and getting out into some walks recently with the girls. And you can get 40% off the Rewilding Shawl pattern on Ravelry with the code Rewilding. And so that brings it down to three pounds reduced from its usual price of five pounds. So if you’d like to take advantage of that, you can for the month of October, that’s running throughout the whole month. So on that note, I don’t think I have any other news for you this week. I hope you have a great week and I’ll talk to you again very soon.

Show Sponsors

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In today’s show I have the winners from September’s Knit20for20 KAL, and some other light-hearted knitting chat. I’m looking forward to Knitvent, which will be launching very soon! There’s also a little life update of what we’ve been up to over the school holidays here in Australia, and a surprise flash sale on one of my favourite patterns.

Show Links:

September Knit20for2020 Winners!

Ravelry winner: maryann7211

Four Purls Yarn Shop in Florida

Instagram winner:

@toni_sweeney

Yarn Over New York

Skyppy Stripes by Annette Schleicher

isenfriesen’s beautiful Stillness Shawl

frauWolle Yak-Seide

Sign up to the Curious Handmade Newsletter and Get the Make Your Own Yarn Calendar ebook

(If you’re already on the Curious Handmade Newsletter list, you don’t need to sign up again: I’ll make sure to include it with the next few newsletters!)

Rewilding Shawl

For the month of October, you can get the Rewilding Shawl pattern on Ravelry for 40% off by using the code Rewilding when you check out!

The Fibre Co. Meadow

Show Transcript:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade podcast. You’re listening to episode 311. This podcast is all about crafting a life of happiness and creativity. I’m your host Helen and you can find me on Ravelry as HellsBells and on social media as curious handmade. You can also find full show notes and transcript on my website at curioushandmade.com.

Hello, and welcome to the show. How are you going this week?

I hope you’re okay. I know from my small amount of news watching and Instagram scrolling, that things are pretty stressful in a lot of places. The UK has seen increased restrictions and the US is going through a turbulent political time. Here in Australia we seem to be coming out of a lockdown in Melbourne.

So things seem to be easing here slightly, hopefully. And yes, it’s just watching and listening to people around the world. There’s a lot of people going through some heavy times, so hopefully I can bring a little bit of lighthearted, crafty, cheerful, knitting chat to you today. That’s my goal. And so I hope you’re well, and able to spend a few minutes with me relaxing, maybe going for a walk, maybe doing a little bit of knitting, or maybe just doing a few chores, getting organized, I don’t know.

Anyway, welcome and I’m happy to have you with me, whatever you might be doing. So unbelievably, we are into October. So welcome to autumn, if you’re in the Northern hemisphere, it feels a little bit strange to be around the wrong way, upside down, in the coming into spring here in Australia and in the Southern hemisphere. It’s such a different mood from autumn.

I know most of my listeners are in the northern hemisphere. I do have some listeners in Australia and New Zealand and maybe a few in other countries in the Southern hemisphere, but mostly northern hemisphere.

And so end of a month or beginning of a new month means that we have Knit 20 for 2020 September winners to announce. And the winner for the Ravelry thread for September Knit 20 for 2020 challenge is Maryann7211, and Maryann knit a Hilltop jacket by Joanna Johnson and has a photo of her proudly wearing her cardigan. And she said, in the comments, “It checks off bucket list and cardigan.”

And Marianne has nominated Four Purls in Florida. So congratulations, Marianne we’ll be in touch to organize your gift voucher from Four Purls. And on Instagram we have the winner, Toni_Sweeney, who knit bright sunny socks in yarn from YarnOver New York. They’re the Skyppy stripes pattern. So congratulations, Toni. And again, we’ll get in touch with you or feel free to get in touch on support@curioushandmade.com or on Ravelry, HellsBells.

So, congratulations for everybody who entered in the challenge and has knit some wonderful finished objects. I had a lovely time scrolling through, in particular the Ravelry thread. The Ravelry thread seems to have quite a few more entries than Instagram.

So that’s just a little tip if you’re on Instagram and participating in the challenge, do be sure to tag your finished projects with the Knit24for2020 hashtag because I draw a prize of a $50 gift voucher from a yarn store, or indie dyer of your choice each month. And so it’s a nice little knit along to participate in, and it’s also quite open if you’ve finished an item that ticks off one of the prompts on the challenge checklist, then you can be in the draw.

So, yeah, but there was a particularly gorgeous Stillness Shawl posted in the Ravelry thread. And that was knit by isenfriesen who is Iris based in Austria. And she’s knit her Stillness Shawl in Fru Valborg Yak Sida which is yak silk, I think. Really gorgeous colors and she’s posted pictures in her project page on Ravelry of the still life painting she’s been inspired by.

She says, “I’ve loved still life as a genre for a long time from Dutch artists impressionist and post-impressionist particularly Cezanne and Cubists like Braque and van Gogh. But if I did think about stillness, I think of one particular painting by Chardin and of Giorgio Morandi, who tirelessly painted the same boxes, bottles and vases all over again. I have seen two exhibitions Museo Morandi in Bologna and another one in Austria and visited his studio in Grizzani Morandi where you can see all those objects that appear in his paintings.”

She’s posted the pictures of the paintings and her beautiful shawl, which you can instantly see the color inspiration from the paintings in her shawl. Thank you so much Iris for sharing your beautiful shawl and inspiration. So, we’ll link to her project page as well in the show notes. And thank you to everyone who posted and joined in the challenge and shared the beautiful projects with us this month.

We’ll set up a thread for October, so in other knit along news. We have Knitvent 2020 coming up very soon, and we are just putting the final touches to the patterns behind the scenes. And that will be opening up for pre-sales in a couple of weeks. And in the meantime, we have a little giveaway, which is an ebook on how to make your own yarn advent calendar.

So, some of you may have exciting advent calendars either already or already arrived, or on order from your favorite indie dyer. And if you’re like me who struggles to get organized, or maybe haven’t ordered one this year than we have created this little ebook on how to make your own from scraps that you may have in your stash from previous projects.

And I just think it’s such a nice thing to do with a friend to make one for each other and then do a swap. And that way you can be surprised by the yarn and it’s a lovely gift you can put in little extras, like tea or some special stitch markers or other little trinkets that you think your friend would like. And yeah, it’s just a really nice festive thing to do. So you can find a link to get that ebook on my website, in the show notes for this episode. Or on Instagram, in my links, there’s a link to sign up for that as well.

So that’s something we’re doing in the run up to Knitvent. I’ve been quite busy preparing the patterns for the upcoming season and I’m really pleased how it’s going. And for once I think I might have been able to organize it so that all the patterns will be released before December. And so maybe a little bit earlier than previous years, maybe by a week, not by a huge amount, but just by that little bit, that hopefully will give you just that tiny little bit more time for your gift knitting, if you like to gift knit for friends and family, otherwise just a little bit earlier that you can use your Yarn Advent calendar, if you choose to use it on my design.

I’m sure there’s lots of other lovely options as well. And I also have, I think three previous years, I have designed a pattern now for the advent calendars and four scrappy projects. So there’s a few to choose from, but yes, that will be the first design for the season that will come out. And that will be late October.

This week, we have had school holidays here in Queensland, and it’s been a really nice relaxing time. I had some friends for lunch yesterday, who I haven’t managed to catch up with since we’ve been back in Australia and that’s been over a year now. So that felt really good to finally see some dear friends, really good friends, but we just have had such a busy year and with the lockdowns and things hadn’t managed to catch up in person.

So, that was really nice. And we’ve gone for a lovely walk in nature. That was one of my goals for little nice moments to have with the girls on the holidays. I wasn’t planning anything too ambitious, but yeah, just a little lovely moment of a walkout in nature. And that made me think of my Rewilding Shawl pattern. So I just thought I would read the description of that, that my lovely writer, Amanda wrote for me and share that with you today.

Sometimes all it takes to heal a place is to gently step away. Ecologists call this process rewilding, and it is transforming landscapes around the world. Rewilding means stopping the bustle of human activity and giving the land back to itself, allowing the earth and the creatures that live there to get on with the work of growth and balance and restoration.

It is a beautiful concept. And one that is doing so much for biodiversity and the health of our wildlife. It’s also a lovely concept for people stepping away from the busy-ness of our lives and just letting ourselves be for a little while. That’s one of the greatest gifts we can get from a creative retreat, the chance to rewild ourselves, just a little bit. The Rewilding Shawl was created for the autumn 2018 Curious Handmade Country House Retreat.

So, many of the Shawls I create for retreat knitting are simple and relaxing. And there are some fun tassels that you can add to your shawl if you want to. It’s a one skein shawl. And I knit the sample in the beautiful Meadow Base from the Fibre Company, which is 40% merino, 25% baby llama, 20% silk and 15% linen. And it has a really generous 498 meters per 100 gram skein, which is 545 yards.

And it is really one of my very favorite yarns to knit with. It’s so lovely to knit with. And it’s nice and light and quite nice for the climate here, with the lovely linen and silk as well as the merino. So I just thought I’d share that design with you today as a little bit of a featured pattern, and maybe while I’m chatting about it, I will do I spontaneous discount on that.

So. I’m going to set up a 40% off discount with the code rewilding for the month of October for this little shawl, because it’s one of my favorites and I want to share it with you. So, that will be 40% off with the code rewilding for the month of October.

You can find them at meadowyarn.co.uk or you can click on the ad on my blog. So thanks for joining me today for a little chat. I do hope you have a good week and I’ll talk to you again soon. Happy knitting.