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.

In this week’s short and sweet episode, I have puppy stories: we’re learning to train our little rascal and keep her entertained (and out of my stash!) I also have some WIP reports and a gift for anyone who might be suffering with Yarn Advent Calendar FOMO right now. Finally, as we enter the last quarter of the year, I’m taking stock of the Knit 20 for 2020 projects and seeing what’s left to check off my list.

Show Links:

Kong dog toys

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

(If you’re already on the mailing list, I’ll be sending out a copy in the next newsletter, so you don’t need to sign up again!)

Hermione Jean Granger Shawl by Tyne Swedish

@clevereststitch

Píosa by Renée Callahan

The Knit 20 for 2020 KAL instructions

Knit 20 for 2020 Ravelry FO Thread

Barrett Wool Co.

Show Transcript:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade Podcast. You’re listening to episode 310. 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 curious handmade.com.

Hello, and welcome. How are you this week? I’m having a great week. My tactics that I talked about on the show to reduce anxiety are definitely helping. It’s still there, but I seem to be keeping it at reasonably manageable levels this week, and I hope you are too. If you can hear a little bit of background noise, that’s puppy playing with her new toy, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. This week is the first of two weeks school holidays here, and we’re not doing too many activities, but I’m aiming for some fun gentle moments with the kids throughout the two weeks. It was the spring equinox here for us in the Southern hemisphere this week on Tuesday, and here in Queensland, it felt like we were going straight into summer some days. It was 28 degrees Celsius. I don’t have a conversion for that off the top of my head, but it was quite warm. And also quite humid.

The kids had first swim in the pool for the season this week, Lexi had her cast taken off on Friday before the holidays, much to her delight. And my delight as well. What else have we been up to? Oh yes, yesterday we had a puppy training session for Sindy, which was really fun and I learned a lot, and then as soon as the puppy trainer left, I couldn’t really remember exactly what he did and how he managed to do things. So I think I need to spend some time just focusing on that with her. It’s a little bit difficult to do that sometimes. But I just thought I’d mention a really interesting tip that he gave us. He introduced us to a toy called a Kong, which is K-O-N-G as in King Kong. I’m not sure what the name means, if anything. It’s the name of the company. It’s a cone-shaped thing that you can… It’s hollow, so you can put food into it or just the puppy can just chew on it.

I’ve seen them around, but what he said was quite interesting, was that… He said we could put all her meals in it, and then she eats the meals from that all the time. And he said he has a client who has six of them, and they hide them around the garden for their German shepherd throughout the day. It gives them an activity as well as their food. So he said you could get good value out of meals by making them into drawn out activities for the puppy, and that keeps them quite occupied and happy throughout the day. So I thought that was pretty interesting, and I’d never really heard of that as an idea before. I always thought you just put food in the bowl for them. So, yeah. I just thought I’d share that for you, and I’ll put a link to the company in the show notes. I’m sure there’s other companies that do this kind of thing as well, but this is what I’ve seen around here and what he recommended.

On the Curious Handmade work front, I have been doing a little bit of work this week. Not as much as the last couple of weeks where I was quite productive, but still managed to get a little bit of work on Knitvent done, and I’m so working away on the collection and putting final touches to it. Inevitably I decide to do an extra sample of something just to have a bit more variety in the photographs and things like that. So even after eight years, it still takes me a lot longer than I anticipate to get everything together. I’m doing some photographs on the weekend, so I’m looking forward to that. As I mentioned last week, the past few years, I have included a pattern designed especially for the Advent Yarn Kits and this year I’m continuing that tradition.

I remember that last year we created a little make your own yarn advent calendar ebook, with some tips and ideas for creating your own yarn advent calendar, because I’ve had a lot of comments from knitters asking where they can get hold of yarn advent calendars. Some people are always sad because they do get sold out quite quickly, and a lot of the dyers put them on sale very early in the year because they’re so time-intensive to make, so they sell them and get them ready quite early for four people. So if you’ve missed out or it’s outside your budget, then it’s a great way to use up scraps if you’ve been knitting for a little while. Most of us have a lot of leftovers in the stash already and if we tend to stick to a particular color palette, they probably coordinate quite well. I have quite a few friends now who established an annual tradition to swap with their knitting BFF or in their knitting group where everybody makes up a yarn advent calendar from their stash and then they swap.

If you don’t have lots of leftovers, but still want to make your own, you can use full skeins of yarn and then either divide it up so that some of the colors are repeated or dip into some skeins to top up a set of minis or something like that. So you can be quite creative with it, and I think now is a really good time to think about this. So I have a revived the ebooklet, and I’ll put a link in the show notes where you can get hold of that if you would like to get a copy and make your own yarn advent calendar. I think I’m going to make one or two this year for some friends. I really enjoyed putting together the minis for the prize.

I put together basically a yarn advent calendar for the prize for the habitation throw knit along, and I used a nostepinne, which is a little wooden stick for want of a better word. It’s a bit nicer than a stick, but it’s just a shaped wooden turned knitting tool to hand wind yarn around. So I did that with 24 minis, and it was a very relaxing activity while I watched some YouTube videos and knitting podcasts and things like that. It was very enjoyable. So I think I’ll make another couple of those with some of my many leftovers.

Apart from working away on Knitvent samples this week, I have been knitting on my Hermione Jean Granger by The Cleverest Stitch, who’s Tyne Swedish, and I’m just kind of making that a little bit bigger than the pattern calls for, because I have some of the gorgeous La Bien Aimée yarn to use, and the pattern doesn’t use all of the… It’s a three skein, three color pattern, but it’s not using up much of some colors, so I’m going to extend it and add in a few more stripes. So that’s been a super relaxing knit. It’s garter stitch and just fun stripes, perfect TV relaxing knitting, so I’ve been working on that and highly recommend Cleverest Stitch’s patterns. She has some gorgeous patterns available in her collections and they all look very fun, so I’m going to probably do another one after this.

I’ve been having a little look at my Knit 20 for 2020 list, and this will cover a new to me designer. I haven’t knit any of her designs before. And also a shawl. And it’s just reminded me to let you know that this is the last week for September if you’d like to enter into the Knit 20 for 20 knit along. The prizes are a 50 US dollar gift voucher from your yarn shop or indie dyer of choice. And there is a prize drawn from the Ravelry thread in my curious handmade group on Ravelry. And I also draw a prize from Instagram with projects tagged Knit 20 for 2020. So please do go ahead and post your projects in either place, and I draw two winners, one from each. And if you’d like to know more about it, you can find out more on my website, curioushandmade.com, or in the rivalry thread in the group.

I’m not sure that I’m going to manage to tick off all 20 prompts myself before the end of the year, but I think I’m going to do reasonably well. I have my kit from Barrett Wool Company for the really cute panda and I don’t know if I’ll finish that before the end of the year. I’d like to try. I definitely want to finish my Piosa cardigan to tick off the cardigan category, and I haven’t yet attempted brioche. So I definitely really want to try to do some brioche knitting for the end of the year. Otherwise I probably can make the other categories work with the projects that I am knitting or have finished. But yes, definitely brioche and knitting a toy are ones that I would definitely have to start new projects for to be able to fulfill those.

Anyway, it’s been a fun challenge so far, and while we still have a quarter left, October, November, December. Yeah, just quarter. Yeah, went very, very slowly at the beginning and has now speeded up quite disconcertingly. I’m not sure if you’re with me on that, but for everybody playing along, just know that there’s one week left for September and then three months left for the year. I think it’s going to be a really short and sweet episode this week. There probably a bit of background noise. Hopefully my podcast editor isn’t too frustrated, but my children are kind of rampaging. The dog’s passed out out of tiredness from today, but they seem to be ramping up activities so I better go and sort that out.

So I do hope you’re well and going okay, wherever you are in the world. Have a good week. I’ll talk to you again soon. Bye.

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.

Big Little Meg!

Today we have some more lucky giveaway winners to announce, and I’m chatting a little bit about my current approach to goals and habits and how they are working out for me these days. I’ve also got a special pattern update to share: after many requests and much ado, I’ve just released a second, larger size of the Little Meg Shawl: some very cosy, comforting knitting for these difficult days.

Show Links:

Tiny Habits book

Habitation Throw KAL Winner

AnnaRobyn

Hedgerow Yarns

Knit20for2020 July Ravelry Winner

Qtar – Nuuk Pullover

Nurja Yarn

Instagram Winner

The_Knitting_Gurg

Snowmelt Shawl

Kitch Kreative

O’Rielly’s

The Little Meg Shawl

Curious Handmade on Etsy

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade podcast. You’re listening to episode 305. 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 the full show notes and transcript on my website at curioushandmade.com.

Hello, and welcome to the show. I hope you’re having a good week. It’s a stressful time, I think in the world at the moment. There’s a lot of things going on and I guess we’re all just trying to do our best to stay calm and healthy as possible. And I feel like that’s all being done in the face of a lot of uncertainty, a lot of conflicting advice, or a moving feast of advice that’s changing constantly. And I think everybody is trying to do their best to stay well with themselves, their loved ones and society as a whole. But I have to say it’s pretty difficult to know what we’re meant to be doing at any point in time. We have had a spike in cases here in Australia, in the state of Victoria. And also to a lesser extent in New South Wales, we have had some new cases here in Queensland, which is not that high by worldwide standards, but by relative standards to what we’ve had, it’s high. So there’s a certain amount of freaking out happening.

I went to the supermarket yesterday and the toilet paper shelves were completely bare again. So I think that’s a bit of a indicator of the state of mind of people. I feel like there should be some kind of toilet paper availability index as to how we’re all feeling about things. I have had the kids home from school this week because they have colds and can’t go to school. I don’t think they’d be well enough to go to school anyway, but if they’ve got any sniffles or coughs they can’t go in. Which is completely fair enough. And I just feel a bit frustrated because they seem to be getting a cold every two weeks. And I think it’s maybe because we’ve moved back to Australia and they don’t have immunity to the local bugs. Maybe it’s like when kids start going to school or daycare and they’re just sick all the time for the first year, I feel like that’s what’s happening here.

Anyway, we’re taking lots of vitamin C lots of vitamin D trying to get lots of sleep. I’ve been working on sleep as a particular habit to improve. I mentioned a few episodes ago that I recently listened to the audio book of Tiny Habits, which is by a guy called BJ Fogg, and really, really love this book. I’ve been implementing some of the strategies and would highly recommend it if you’ve tried to change habits and not succeeded. I really like his method, and it makes a lot of sense to me. At first, I thought it was a bit strange, the whole concept of flossing one tooth, I kind of thought was a little bit pointless. But once he explained that it’s all about making habits doable, that you have the ability to action them and that you make them small enough to be able to do and have success and have that feeling of feeling good about yourself and your ability to do the habit and then really gradually build it up.

And so I’ve been doing that with a couple of things and it’s working pretty well. And so I’m now trying to have one night a week where I have eight hours sleep. And I’m not really succeeding yet, but getting closer. So it’s a long, drawn out, painful process to get these habits in place. But I guess hopefully it will be more sustainable. Anyway, that’s just what’s happening here. You’ve had a bit of a random personal update there. But I hope that you’re all finding ways to cope with the uncertainty and disruption that’s happening everywhere at the moment. I’m certainly not complaining because we have it pretty good here in Australia, especially where I’m living. But it’s still causing a lot of disruption to our life. And things like travel and the ability to get together for knitting retreats and everything like that. It just is making me appreciate a lot of things.

So just a little update on knit alongs and things happening in Curious Handmade world at the moment. We have the handmade sock society. The last sock pattern was released and the knit along is continuing until the 8th of September. And that day is for both the altitude socks and the grand prize for people who’ve knit all six socks. We’ve opened up a thread in Ravelry, and the Curious Handmade group for that now. And we had some knit alongs finished. So I have drawn the winners for the habitation throw knit along. We have the winner, AnnaRobyn, who is from California and she knit her habitation throw in a gorgeous, advent, mini set from Hedgerow Yarns, who’s one of my favorite indie dyers in the UK. I just love her beautiful, pretty colors. So congratulations Anna Robin. I have a physical price to send to you.

So if you can get in touch either via Ravelry, HellsBells or email me Helen@curioushandmade.com and I’ll need your address to send that to you. And for the knit 20 for 2020 challenge, the Revelry winner is Qutar Q-U-T-A-R, who knit a gorgeous nuk N-U-U-K pullover designed by Jonna Hietala. And she’s nominated. Nurja, I think you say it N-U-R-J-A which is a Finnish yarn shop. So congratulations and I’ll get in touch with you, or you can get in touch with me to let me know your email address so that I can organize a gift voucher. I might need some help with this one because the website is in Finnish and I can’t see an English version, so I might not be able to purchase a gift voucher. But I’m sure if I email them they will be able to help me.

Our Instagram when it is the knitting gurg And she knit a snow melt shawl as a gift for her daughter in law for her 30th birthday. In lovely, beautiful green Fru Valborg yarn. So again, if you’d like to get in touch or I’ll try and get in touch with you to organize a prize for you for the July knit 20 for 2020 challenge. We have the thread up on Ravelry for the August challenge, and you can also post on Instagram using the hashtag knit20for2020. I’ve been getting quite behind in my knit 20 for 2020 challenge because I’ve been doing a lot of design knitting lately for the past month or so. I don’t know, it’s gone very quickly. I’ve been working on a design for a retreat I am very hopefully attending in October, which is local. So it’s in my state. So hopefully that will still be okay to go ahead.

And I’ve designed a shawl for that. That retreat is organized by the lovely Kylie from Kitsch Creative, and it’s at a place called O’Reilly’s, which is a beautiful camp and resort in the rainforest in a national park here. So I’m really looking forward to that. I think it’s going to be a beautiful location, and retreat. And just fingers crossed that we can go ahead with it, but I’m sure we will be able to. Thinking very positive and optimistically. And the other design work I’ve been working on is knit vent patterns for this year. I’m really excited about this year’s knit vent. And I feel really pleased that I’m working on the designs relatively early in the year for me, probably not for other designers. But for me, this is quite early and quite on top of things and yeah, they’re coming along really well.

I think it’s definitely helping that it’s not last minute pressure and that I can have a little bit more time and ease to get a bit more creative and just think it out and plan it out a bit more. And have a bit more time to let the muse visit. So that’s going really well, but it’s meant that I’ve been really focusing on that pretty much exclusively. And I haven’t had time for any of my personal projects. So my sewing projects and quilting projects and other knitting projects, are all just waiting for me at the moment. And I think what I might try and do, hopefully is to work really during the week this week, and then do some fun projects on the weekend and take at least one day of the weekend off to do a little bit of personal crafting. But we’ll see, I don’t know. I’m just wanting to really focus on the designing at the moment.

I have released a pattern this week, which is an update to the Little Meg shawl that was originally published in 2018 and was quite a popular little shawl. I designed it for a retreat, the country house retreat in Cumbria. And so I designed it as a shawlette so that people could potentially knit it during the retreat, or knit quite a bit of it during the retreat. And I had a lot of requests for a larger size because it is just a really lovely, simple triangular shawl. And so I’ve had the sample and photographs for ages, maybe a year. And so I finally got it together and updated the pattern. I’ll just read you the description so that you can hear the inspiration behind the design.

“The ancient fields of Cumbria are scattered with fragments of time worn buildings and monuments. Many layers of history have been laid down here. And these remnants hint at the stories of the people who lived here long ago. Some of the most mysterious ruins of all are Cumbria’s prehistoric stone circles. Whether they were once used as ritual sites, way markers or for some other purpose, we can never know. Today, they are places of wonder. Little Meg is named after one of Cumbria’s smallest circles, which has endured since the bronze age and her magic is intact. One of her stones is carved with graceful symbols, spirals and circles within circles. This triangular shawl was created for the Curious Handmade country house retreat in March, 2018, using the magical canopy fingering from the Fibre Company designed to be an ideal retreat knitting. The design is simple. Eyelets dotted across a field of stockinette stitch, just like the standing stones of Cumbria moors. Wrap the shawl around your shoulders and the circle is complete. A crisp, garter border provides an elegant finishing touch.”

The small version can be knit in 100 grams of the Fibre Company, canopy fingering. And that’s two 50 gram hanks. It comes in 50 grams and canopy fingering is a gorgeous blend of 30% Merino, 20% Rayon from bamboo and 50% baby alpaca. And then for the large, it uses five times 50 gram hanks. So for the small, it’s about 400 yards and for the large, it’s about a thousand yards. I have the pattern at 20% off for the month of August. So it’s £4 rather than £5. And I’ve just put it at that price of £4 without any coupon code or anything. It’s just a reduced price. So you don’t have to worry about it. But it will go back to its normal price of £5 at the end of August or beginning of September.

So if you would like that pattern at a discount, it’s available now, it’s available on both Ravelry and Etsy. I have a pattern shop on Etsy now, which is curioushandmadeshop, curious handmade was taken. So I now have curious handmade shop and I have some of my patterns available there, not all of them, but some of them. And I’ll post the newer ones there until I figure out a more permanent solution.

So that’s about all the news I have for you this week. I’ll just keep it to a fairly short episode. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you have a good week. 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. 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. My long lost Barrett Bear kit has arrived! We've passed the halfway point in this crazy year, and it seemed like a good time to catch up with how things are going and how many things I've managed to cross off my 20 in 2020 Happiness Project list. There are a few things that recent events have made impossible, but plenty of other things to be happy about, and even some opportunities in the midst of upheaval. I also have a lovely bunch of winners to announce from our #knit20for2020 and Stillness MKAL giveaways! Show Links: Knit20for2020 June Giveaway Winners: Ravelry Winner: Cuppacha with post #35 Edin Cardigan by Bonne Marie BurnsHazel Knits Instagram Winner: Aviatrix1979Amulet Shawl John Arbon TextilesYou can find all the details on how to enter the July Knit20for2020 giveaway on Ravelry or Instagram, you can visit this link! Stitch Mischief Laine Skein Australia Winners of the Stillness MKAL Giveaway: Grand prize winner:Post 314: https://www.ravelry.com/people/deesuhr 10 Pattern of their choice winners: Post 270 https://www.ravelry.com/people/Llindhardt Post 490 https://www.ravelry.com/people/Fynbos31 Post 5 https://www.ravelry.com/people/Knit4Keeps Post 440 https://www.ravelry.com/people/quiltnyarn Post 494 https://www.ravelry.com/people/gypsycraft Post 266 https://www.ravelry.com/people/Andystitch Post 589 https://www.ravelry.com/people/Konkyliedesign Post 380 https://www.ravelry.com/people/emmoswmr Post 536https://www.ravelry.com/people/ceglaw Post 548https://www.ravelry.com/people/NellyJake Stillness Shawl MKAL Stillness MKAL chat thread Clue 1 Spoiler Thread Clue 2 Spoiler threadJuly Knit20for2020 FO Thread Barrett Wool Company Hermione Jean Granger Shawl by Tyne Swedish@clevereststitch Píosa by Renée Callahan House Quilt Block Tutorial SHOW TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to the Curious Handmade Podcast. You're listening to episode 301. 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, welcome to the show. I hope you're well. I hope you're having a good week. I've been having a pretty good week. It's been a little bit up and down and I feel like a few weeks ago, or maybe it's a couple of months ago, now, I said on the show that I was a little bit fed up with my family. And this week, I feel like I've just been fed up with myself, maybe for a couple of weeks. I've just felt fed up with not maybe doing the habits I wanted to do and not being able to get my act together,

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. Three weeks of homeschooling down, maybe two more to go? Somehow, I'm still managing to get some exciting knitting done in between it all. Today on the podcast I've got a short and sweet life catch-up, some KAL winners to announce, and more news on the upcoming Curious Handmade Mystery Knit Along, which I'm really excited about. Show Links: Download the 20 for 2020 Challenge printable Follow #knit20for2020 on Instagram May #knit20for2020 FO Thread April Ravelry winner: porthardy1 with Post 46 April Instagram winner: BlankSlateYarns Snippet Socks 52 Weeks of Socks Book Farm to Cable Yarns LYS Unnathi Shawl by Lana Jois The Ambient Socks is ending on Tuesday the 13th of May, so get your photos into the Ambient Socks FO Thread on Ravelry! The Handmade Sock Society 3 Impressionists Shawl Píosa by Renée Callahan Píosa KAL Sweet Fiber Yarns House Quilt Block Tutorial SHOW TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to The Curious Handmade Podcast. You're listening to episode 294. This podcast is all about crafting your life with 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 full show notes and transcript on my website at curioushandmade.com. Welcome and thank you for joining me for a chat today. I'm just snatching a moment in a busy day to record so it might be quite a short episode, but I just wanted to pop in and have a quick chat with you and not let a week go past without recording. It's been a really busy week. We are now just finished week three of homeschooling. The girls' school is providing a really great service with online classes and a lot of support for them, but especially with Lexi, she needs a lot of support here at home as well to encourage her to do some work. So I have her set up in my office on a little folding camping table beside me, and I've decided it's been quite interesting to see how she works. Sophie is a couple of years older and is doing really great. She has a little desk set up upstairs and she doesn't need as much support but still needs help with some things. I just kind of decided when we were homeschooling that I was going to enjoy the process and I was going to be patient with it and not expect to get any work done or expect too much of them in terms of what they would do. So that's been working pretty well. They've been doing more than I expected that they would to be honest. Their school's been really sensible and has just basically put on a schedule that goes until about one o'clock rather than the normal three o'clock, and in Lexi's case it really only goes till about midday. So that's really good and we can manage a morning quite happily.