Curious Handmade with Helen Stewart

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 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 [email protected] 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 year

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 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 [email protected] 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 c

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 2

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

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.

After an unexpected break to wrestle life into a reasonably manageable shape, the podcast is back! Today I have a giant group of giveaway winners from Today on the Curious Handmade Podcast I have some hints about the upcoming Knitvent collection (did someone say scrappy?) I also have a chat about how I’m coping with anxiety these days, with some resources to share. One of the things that helps ground me a lot is having a few tiny habits to anchor my days, and I’d love to hear about yours.

Show Links:

Resources I’ve found to help with Anxiety:

Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

Healthline Anxiety

Black Dog Institute Anxiety

Very Well Mind Anxiety

Other show links:

The Strawberry Thief

Droplet Capelet by Denise Bayron

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade Podcast. You’re listening to episode 309. 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 this week? I’m having a pretty good week feeling okay and being reasonably productive. The kids are well and puppy’s well, and all the mice seem well also, yes. As I talked about last week, the thousand-item purge major decluttering session in the last month or so has really done wonders for reducing anxiety and I’m already planning another session tackling some remaining problem areas and, yeah, just keeping going on the quest to lead a simplified life. It’s already helping me be more motivated and get things done more quickly so that’s fantastic.

Although I have been reading a little bit of the news this morning and I don’t do that too often, I find that it stresses me out too much and this morning was really no exception. I’m sort of reading the news and then I start thinking about all my friends and family all around the world and all of you and wonder how you’re all feeling and doing. My thoughts are with people on the West Coast in the U.S. battling terrible fires and smoke, and my thoughts are also with the refugees on Lesbos in the Moria Camp where a fire broke out and destroyed the refugee camp there. So that’s also another terrible situation.

It’s a lot altogether with COVID and racial injustice and divisive political situations all around the world at the moment. It can be very anxiety-producing and give you a bit of a feeling of helplessness really. And I don’t know, I guess I didn’t want to start this episode with a big downer, but I just wanted to acknowledge all of this today because I know that there are just so many people who are so worried and stressed, especially in the U.S., but all around the world with kids going back to school and just so many things, all the things. I just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking of you and I hear you.

I’m going to pop a few links in the show notes today that I’ve found helpful for some tips to manage anxiety for what it’s worth. I’m following the Tiny Habits which is a great book I read recently by BJ Fogg, and that method of just trying to incorporate one or two tiny habits into my routine to actively try to manage my anxiety. And it does help. So some things I’m doing is I’ll just generally try to focus on my circle of control and influence and not on my circle of concern and the worries.

At the beginning of the year one of my happiness projects was creating a gratitude journal that I do each evening with the goals and we each write down three things we’re grateful for. And we are definitely a little bit ad hoc

about doing it but we’ve kept it up over the year, not every day, but at least in a way consistently. And that is a really nice moment in the day and I think it definitely helps us all.

Yesterday I made sure that I’m on the electoral roll here in Australia, and I found out that the next election in Queensland is the 31st of October this year so I was glad that I finally did that to-do item on my list. Having been out of the country for many, many years I wasn’t sure what my status was, and today I’m going to set up one or two regular donations to charities and maybe some one-off donations as well for really topicals issues at the moment.

I’ve been getting a lot of joy from my small gardening efforts and yeah, one of the most successful efforts for my gardening which is really I feel like a tiny habit is growing sprouts. That’s been my most consistent gardening effort and it’s also been my most productive, growing a batch of sprouts each week. And I’ve mostly been doing alfalfa but also sometimes broccoli sprouts, which I hadn’t even heard or thought of before but it’s apparently incredibly good for you. And I quite, I really like the taste. It’s a bit of a weird paste but I really, really like it. It’s gives a bit of a punch to your sandwich if you put your sprouts on your sandwiches or in a salad. So that’s a little tip of, I think a gardening thing that probably anyone could do is grow sprouts in your kitchen.

I’ve actually been using my standing desk to stand up and I am standing out right now as I record this and wondering why I haven’t been doing this more because I already feel more energetic, and you can probably hear it in my voice that are more energetic talking while I’m standing up. And one thing I have been wanting to start doing all year and have done a tiny bit of but not very much is some kind of breathing, meditation, stretching habit. That one is a to-do, is still on my wishlist, I wish I could start doing this more regularly.

But I think from everything I read about managing anxiety and stress this is always comes up as the best thing you can do for yourself, so I think I’m quite silly not to be doing it, but I don’t know. Like a lot of things that are good for us we don’t do, but I’m going to just try again to tackle this as a tiny habit and see if I can manage to get myself to meditate or do breathing exercises for one minute a day or something like that. I have to design the tiny habit to work in my routine.

Anyway, that’s some things I’m thinking about and doing and might give you some inspiration of small things you might like to try as well. I’ll put the links to a few articles in the show notes. And of course I am not a health professional, I have no background in this kind of thing but I thought I’d share some encouragement because I’m finding these things helpful to keep me going, keep me positive and yeah, I just thought I’d share today. If you want to share with me one tiny thing you can be proactive and take a bit of control or you’re welcome to email me or drop a note on Instagram and let me know your little tiny habit and give yourself a big yes and a big pat on the back for when you do it.

In knitting news, I did promise you some knitting news this week after my decluttering chat last week. I’ve been doing a lot of work and designing and knitting samples for Knitvent 2020, which is coming up quite soon now. I can’t believe we’re halfway through September, it’s all the crazy. I felt like time slowed down massively through March, April, May, June, and now it seems to be speeding back up again going into the end of the year, but that’s the way it goes, isn’t it?

Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of work. And the last few years I’ve designed a pattern especially for Advent Yarn Kits, which typically have 24 mini-skeins, and this year I’m continuing this tradition for Knitvent. And I think I can tell you that it’s going to be suitable for a 10 gram mini-skein set. So people who have a 10 gram set can do the pattern and also a lot of the Advent kits are 20 gram sets so they can either do two of the item or perhaps do a different scrappy project wit

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.

After an unexpected break to wrestle life into a reasonably manageable shape, the podcast is back! Today I have a giant group of giveaway winners from Today on the Curious Handmade Podcast I have some hints about the upcoming Knitvent collection (did someone say scrappy?) I also have a chat about how I’m coping with anxiety these days, with some resources to share. One of the things that helps ground me a lot is having a few tiny habits to anchor my days, and I’d love to hear about yours.

Show Links:

Resources I’ve found to help with Anxiety:

Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

Healthline Anxiety

Black Dog Institute Anxiety

Very Well Mind Anxiety

Other show links:

The Strawberry Thief

Droplet Capelet by Denise Bayron

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade Podcast. You’re listening to episode 309. 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 this week? I’m having a pretty good week feeling okay and being reasonably productive. The kids are well and puppy’s well, and all the mice seem well also, yes. As I talked about last week, the thousand-item purge major decluttering session in the last month or so has really done wonders for reducing anxiety and I’m already planning another session tackling some remaining problem areas and, yeah, just keeping going on the quest to lead a simplified life. It’s already helping me be more motivated and get things done more quickly so that’s fantastic.

Although I have been reading a little bit of the news this morning and I don’t do that too often, I find that it stresses me out too much and this morning was really no exception. I’m sort of reading the news and then I start thinking about all my friends and family all around the world and all of you and wonder how you’re all feeling and doing. My thoughts are with people on the West Coast in the U.S. battling terrible fires and smoke, and my thoughts are also with the refugees on Lesbos in the Moria Camp where a fire broke out and destroyed the refugee camp there. So that’s also another terrible situation.

It’s a lot altogether with COVID and racial injustice and divisive political situations all around the world at the moment. It can be very anxiety-producing and give you a bit of a feeling of helplessness really. And I don’t know, I guess I didn’t want to start this episode with a big downer, but I just wanted to acknowledge all of this today because I know that there are just so many people who are so worried and stressed, especially in the U.S., but all around the world with kids going back to school and just so many things, all the things. I just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking of you and I hear you.

I’m going to pop a few links in the show notes today that I’ve found helpful for some tips to manage anxiety for what it’s worth. I’m following the Tiny Habits which is a great book I read recently by BJ Fogg, and that method of just trying to incorporate one or two tiny habits into my routine to actively try to manage my anxiety. And it does help. So some things I’m doing is I’ll just generally try to focus on my circle of control and influence and not on my circle of concern and the worries.

At the beginning of the year one of my happiness projects was creating a gratitude journal that I do each evening with the goals and we each write down three things we’re grateful for. And we are definitely a little bit ad hoc

about doing it but we’ve kept it up over the year, not every day, but at least in a way consistently. And that is a really nice moment in the day and I think it definitely helps us all.

Yesterday I made sure that I’m on the electoral roll here in Australia, and I found out that the next election in Queensland is the 31st of October this year so I was glad that I finally did that to-do item on my list. Having been out of the country for many, many years I wasn’t sure what my status was, and today I’m going to set up one or two regular donations to charities and maybe some one-off donations as well for really topicals issues at the moment.

I’ve been getting a lot of joy from my small gardening efforts and yeah, one of the most successful efforts for my gardening which is really I feel like a tiny habit is growing sprouts. That’s been my most consistent gardening effort and it’s also been my most productive, growing a batch of sprouts each week. And I’ve mostly been doing alfalfa but also sometimes broccoli sprouts, which I hadn’t even heard or thought of before but it’s apparently incredibly good for you. And I quite, I really like the taste. It’s a bit of a weird paste but I really, really like it. It’s gives a bit of a punch to your sandwich if you put your sprouts on your sandwiches or in a salad. So that’s a little tip of, I think a gardening thing that probably anyone could do is grow sprouts in your kitchen.

I’ve actually been using my standing desk to stand up and I am standing out right now as I record this and wondering why I haven’t been doing this more because I already feel more energetic, and you can probably hear it in my voice that are more energetic talking while I’m standing up. And one thing I have been wanting to start doing all year and have done a tiny bit of but not very much is some kind of breathing, meditation, stretching habit. That one is a to-do, is still on my wishlist, I wish I could start doing this more regularly.

But I think from everything I read about managing anxiety and stress this is always comes up as the best thing you can do for yourself, so I think I’m quite silly not to be doing it, but I don’t know. Like a lot of things that are good for us we don’t do, but I’m going to just try again to tackle this as a tiny habit and see if I can manage to get myself to meditate or do breathing exercises for one minute a day or something like that. I have to design the tiny habit to work in my routine.

Anyway, that’s some things I’m thinking about and doing and might give you some inspiration of small things you might like to try as well. I’ll put the links to a few articles in the show notes. And of course I am not a health professional, I have no background in this kind of thing but I thought I’d share some encouragement because I’m finding these things helpful to keep me going, keep me positive and yeah, I just thought I’d share today. If you want to share with me one tiny thing you can be proactive and take a bit of control or you’re welcome to email me or drop a note on Instagram and let me know your little tiny habit and give yourself a big yes and a big pat on the back for when you do it.

In knitting news, I did promise you some knitting news this week after my decluttering chat last week. I’ve been doing a lot of work and designing and knitting samples for Knitvent 2020, which is coming up quite soon now. I can’t believe we’re halfway through September, it’s all the crazy. I felt like time slowed down massively through March, April, May, June, and now it seems to be speeding back up again going into the end of the year, but that’s the way it goes, isn’t it?

Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of work. And the last few years I’ve designed a pattern especially for Advent Yarn Kits, which typically have 24 mini-skeins, and this year I’m continuing this tradition for Knitvent. And I think I can tell you that it’s going to be suitable for a 10 gram mini-skein set. So people who have a 10 gram set can do the pattern and also a lot of the Advent kits are 20 gram sets so they can either do two of the item or perhaps do a different scrappy pr