56 - A Crochet & Knitting Podcast - “The Ugly Blankets"

[Music] hello and welcome to episode 56 of the little Joseph wonderful podcast this is my channel where I talk about all things related to crafting and knitting and crochet and all of that lovely good stuff my name is Ali and I live in Kent in the very south of England in the UK with my husband and our two daughters and you can find me on ravelry and Instagram as starry eyes alley at show notes for this video and everything i talked about are underneath in the description box and are also timestamps for every section because i divide things up into sections just to make it all nice and neat and tidy so if you want to see or I'm currently working on you can jump to that or if you want to see what I've finished or if you want to see what I'm just rambling inanely about you can jump to that too so we are going to talk today about finished objects works in progress a project from your giveaway winners and an unfine lee section where i'm going to be talking about diaries what else what else oh and I want to talk about very quickly right before we get into the podcast proper I am organizing a simple snail mail swap so this is a swap where we swap this is how many times can i say swap this is a swap well we can swap just letters that's the idea of it we've done it before and it worked really really well many many people connected with other people all over the world and made genuine friendships and now have regular pen pals which is really lovely and I decided to organize it using a secret santa type online site thing and it didn't quite go to plan and it's completely my fault I don't know why I hadn't got my common sense switched on but and what the elf stirrer site does is it draw partners it gives you a name that your to send to you and then someone else will get you so it wasn't like an exchange oh my goodness considering I was kind of taking a bit of a hands-off stance to this it has been rather full on the last week so thank you to every single one of you all of you without exception have been brilliant about this mess up on my behalf my part I should say and everyone has said they're more than happy to write to more than one person and I've still got quite a few messages on the site and quite a few emails to get through by and replying to everyone so do keep in contact with me if there's any problems if you end up without a partner at all let me know because I will find someone for you but I am so near applying to all those messages so if you've emailed me or something a message by elf star I will get back to you behind home for me already and if you have any questions just email me my email is on the screen now and I'm really sorry but I think some of you what are you writing to each other so that's good brilliant and next time I arranged X I will arrange another one because it is such a popular thing and people seem really enthusiastic about it I will do it manually like I did it last time with a good old-fashioned spreadsheet okay moving on it's a very sunny day here in Kate in the UK and which makes you change because all it's done for the last couple of weeks is poor with rain but today we've woken up to sunshine which is marvellous we planted some potatoes in the garden yesterday for the first time ever so they had a good dose of rain yesterday and now today they're getting plenty of sunshine so that's good must make them happy I hope and not that they'll see this long time because obviously they're covered in soil sitting in the dock but you know I mean I'm just gonna try and whisk through this one today I am very overwhelmed with stuff around the house that I need to get sorted out and for obviously every two weeks on a Monday is and I ain't podcast and yeah I wanting to talk to you about a few things I'm working on today so we'll leave some stuff out and talk about other stuff but yeah that's what keeps it interesting I suppose and what else oh yes so if you're new to this channel or unfamiliar with what I do I do podcasts full length podcasts about my knitting and crochet projects every couple of weeks I also do little reality vlogs in between those podcasts just about how I fit my crafting into my everyday life and every so often I'll just do a daily vlog series as well my next blog series will be in April my last one was vlogmas and there's a playlist for all of each one of my vlog series on the front page of my channel so if you want to see any of my past daily vlogs you can and quite often I'll get messages from people who are back watching a vlog series foam-like a year or so ago which is really really lovely so yeah that's all on the front page of my channel if you'd like to go and watch and I also have another channel or I should say we have another channel me and my family have a channel which is a bit more indulgent it's called this is a wonderful life got hair in my I know the scene of my jumper is ripped fortunately it's the same so it's gonna be really easy for me to sew but this is quite expensive this job I that's not good is it right I'm gonna have to be careful and not pull that otherwise it's gonna make it worse boy was like oh yes this is a wonderful life is are slightly indulgent family channel where we just share blogs from days out and adventures and things we're doing around the house there is a new video up on that channel and we took a trip into London to go and see a art installation which was all to do with the Korean k-pop band BTS which my eldest daughter is obsessed with and while we were there we had a little adventure around Hyde Park and we went into Oxford Street and we just a little blog of the day I'll link to that on the screen and underneath this video if you want to go and have look I'm gonna stop ya booming on and start talking about finished objects okay I have to finish objects this week or this episode I should say the first finished object on my shorty socks and I'm gonna put these away away for my eldest daughter Lily out it's her birthday at the end of this month and she absolutely loves shorty socks and she's already got three pairs that I made her three wari two pairs that I made her this is the third and she wears them all the time mainly just around the house but she loves them and she's also got a pair of knee-high rainbow socks I made her and she wears those a lot but she normally tucks her pajamas into those so yeah it's quite a sight to behold but um she it's just so lovely to see her wearing them she is very very sock knitting worthy and and where was I going with that whole tangent yes so anyway these are gonna be for her I had a bit of a disaster with them I made them using so basically I made the drippity drops socks by Kay James and I had enough yarn left over to make another pair of shorty socks which I have done and the yarn is somewhere over the rainbow bye Ellie of craft house magic and the blue is called cloudy skies and that came with the somewhere over the rainbow young and I bought this because of the song somewhere over the rainbow by the Hawaiian singer is is I think it's just as I said he has got much longer name but I wouldn't be able to say it he did a version of somewhere over the rainbow mixed with it was a wonderful world and my dad loved that version of the song so when I saw this was called somewhere over the rainbow I bought some for me and I bought some my sister to remember our dad boy they're just playing shorty socks I just made them up and on the heel i used from Ellie's candy clean socks pattern I used this little Christmas tree and pattern on the heel I've no idea if you can see what I'm showing him I am going to be investing in a new camera soon I hope yes I did that just for a bit of interest the toe I took from the little bobbins Danny of little bobbins towards the night before Christmas socks because I really like that back toe it gives a nice finish but I did if you watched my last wool allottee TV I feel like I'm really rambling I'm really sorry I feel like I'm using a lot of words just to talk about one little pair of socks but in my last video on this channel my wool allottee TV for late February and I talked about the fact that I had finished both socks but one of them might actually finish 10 rows too short because I just wasn't paying attention and I had to rip right back and in and then redo it so I'm really glad to have sorted that little problem out and have a nice pair of video socks so these have all been washed and blocked and I can now go and pop them to one side to give to Lily and later this month my other finished object is my cheer up buttercup mitts so way back in 2018 I'm just going to take a sip of tea when my dad was ill know if you hear me went to my dad a fair bit my dad died and just under two years ago he died in May 2018 was it me I think it was May 2018 and and he was very sick for about three months with brain cancer before him and my sister bought me this yarn from my favorite Dyer at the time but they don't die anymore little French made a it's called cheer up buttercup and and I made her a pair of socks and I knit those socks mostly while sitting at my dad's side and I had some yarn leftover from making those my sister has very small feet she's got a UK size 3 which is like child sized feet sorry all this rambling his thirsty work and so I had a bit beyond leftover and I decided to just just knit a tube until I ran out and then I was gonna divide it into socks but I quickly realized that actually the tube wasn't long enough to turn into socks so I turned them into little whiskers and I was he I was thinking of putting an afterthought thumb in but well quite frankly I couldn't be bothered stay so I did it again on my wool allottee my last will allottee episode I filmed me cutting this tube in half and getting that wrong as well of course but all is well now they are finished and what I did was I cut them in half so I started at one end with a rib eye knit achieve and I finished with the river at the other end and as you can see I just did a little contrast dark grey I didn't cut them in half and I joined in the dark gray again and what I've done here is I've done groaning stitch and granite stitch is really good fun to do not so good from with a very dark yarn I have to say but it gives this really lovely sorry if I just kick the table it's really lovely textured stitch which is lovely for the top of them a mitten or a wrister like this and it does cinch it in a bit because with granite stitch what you do is you knit let me see if a memory you knit a row and then you do a round of purl two together and then on the next round you knit and purl into each stitch and then you do another nick row so it does cinch it in a bit and makes quite a type of texture and it's just really really lovely it's a pizza it's a stitch I learned from the Skyrim mix which is a free pattern on Ravelry for worsted weight yarn and I made those for a friend of mine and have always meant to make them against there was such a lovely quick project and when I was trying to decide how to finish these registers off it just popped into my mind about that planning stitch and I decided to try it with this fingering weight yarn and I'm really glad I did so as you can see I now have little wrist warmers that I can hold in a are you very posed way whilst having my hot drink yeah I'm really really pleased with them these will be perfect and where I work I work in a museum it's their old building with originals huge sash windows so even with the heater on the wind kind of whistle 3 and these would be perfect when I'm typing keep my missable these are my cheer up Buttercup twisters hmm alright moving on to works in progress like my most favorite whip of the moment is living in my yak bag now this is not a cheap a official project bag I bought this from the Tibet Tibet and relief fund ages and ages ago and it's got a yak on it and I've also got a pin on here this is a pin from the museum where I work I don't try and show you and yeah and I've also got one off because I've got three different ones of these types of pins but this is one of mine by parking fiber pins which is an initiative that I am invest what's the right word invested when someone does crowdfunding crowdfunding and you have different levels anyway I invested I think to five or ten pounds and as part of that when they got it off the ground I've got three pins to show my support which is really really good and I'll put a link to that project underneath it's being run by Jeannette Sloane yeah it's a really really good project good initiative and I shall link to it below so that you can find out more no see a pshew oh that could have been a disaster right living in my yak bag is my just feel better sure and this is a pattern bike Alicia Ryan who is the host of the quirky Monday Kraft cast and I was watching her one of her videos where she was talking about this pattern which is designed just as a super simple don't have to think about it type pattern we can just get stuck in and enjoy it and I thought yeah I could do with that I need that I need that kind of project and it's all granny stitch and I'm using I'll just show you the young before I show you the project I'm using great crop corner this is me label it's a bit crushed because I'd lost it I found it together it was a bit squashed quite craft corner this was a gift for my mum she bought it for me when we went to I think it was festival one year hope you can see that the color is red velvet it is an acrylic yarn it's 200 grams in a cape of it which is about a thousand meters and it's really interesting it's like three strands of very thin yarn and it fades and the way that's done is it's tied so you've got three strands they have red and then after a time one of those strands is tied in with a slightly darker shade of red and after a time the next strand of the darker red comes in so on and so forth it's very interesting and what I've been doing though is because my philosophy is never trust a knot that you haven't made yourself so every time I've come across one of these teeny tiny knots I have just done my own I've just doubled it over and tied an additional not like not going to be able to see and then I've been weaving in the resulting end and that I feel a bit safer I'm sure there's nothing wrong with the knots but never trust her not unless you've made it yourself I originally had a stitch marker on here to remind me which side was the wrong side which side was the right side but actually the pattern is so intuitive you can really just read your work as you go and you know exactly where you are at all times you've got one definite straight edge one increase edge and every six rows you do something slightly different on the increase age and it's so easy to keep track I just hit the very last section of the fade which is the earth it's a kind of dark brownie black and it goes from red all the way through like that and obviously the failure to gets narrower because the rows get longer and you get a kind of asymmetric triangle as you go I have loved doing this I have mainly worked on this in the evenings whilst we watching Downton Abbey so every time I pick it up it makes me think of Downton which is really nice you get that if you're working on a particular project whilst you're watching a particular film or a particular series I find that when you pick it up to open it again you remember what you were watching the last time and I really like that and so in terms of wearing it I'm assuming there might have still got a few rows to guys it will get bigger so it's gonna be like triangular like that oh it's so warm and I've got some ends to weave in there and and that's how you gonna wear me and it's gonna be a bit bigger than this still because this end is gonna get longer and longer so the yarns lovely because it's a critic it's just doesn't there's nothing to react to it's just perfectly soft and lovely to wear next to your skin I think this is gonna be really lovely and warm and it's nice to have something that's slightly different color to the things I normally work with this kind of nice bright red I think that makes a lovely chain so yeah and someone pointed out that kaliesha also has another shawl in this kind of what's the word genre um it's called the just feel festive shawl which is designed to use with minis that you're getting an up in I think that is lovely as well so I'm I think I'm gonna make that as my Advent sure this year at Christmas with the any minis that I get in Advent sand swaps and things like that so I'm really looking forward to doing that one and again it's free this pattern is free and so is the just feel festive sure so yeah that's fantastic I am making it with a three point two five millimeter hook and I think this is no it's not clothed for one I don't know what it is but it's quite nice to hold and yeah so that's my sort of favorite whip of the moment and I'm so near to finishing it and then yeah I've just I might really really enjoying it and my next width that I wanted to show you it has been a bit of a disaster so I have been talking and talking and boring the pants of everyone who will listen on this channel saying that I'm gonna be casting on any moment the allottee which is a pattern by Shea Johnson of knit and crochet I wanted to make these for ages I've had the yarn for ages I've just had to get up and do it and I finally did I cast it on so excited I did a provisional cast on being very smug and clever and I knit the rib and then I started missing about an inch of the body and then I realized that I was knitting a möbius or mobis mobius might be want to call it so I'm gonna have to rip out these needles and stopped for being boots could not be more annoyed with myself oh someone did point out that it might be better for me - when I was doing the provisional cast on to work in plain knitting into that original cast on and then pick up and do the rib at the end so that I don't get a kind of bump in the rib if I have to pick it up because I want to make it slightly longer than the pattern I'll wear it more if it's not quite so cropped so yeah I'm just taking off the needles I'm gonna have to restart this and I'm so upset so I was really enjoying it and I'm so pleased to have it started and in the end I had done a swatch which put me at using the needles about a half a millimeter up from the ones in the pattern but I was worried cuz I wasn't keen on the fabric it was giving me so in the end I've decided just to knit it using the recommended needle size so I wasn't that far out and someone commented saying you it's never going to make such a difference it's not going to make like a huge amount of difference like inches and inches you're talking like the centimeters of difference I thought you know what I'll start it's gonna be quite clicks it is this worsted weight yarn and I'll get an idea fairly quickly of what I think about the size of it and at the moment I'm quite happy with it in a way it almost seems too big so yeah it's going to be a challenge this one you're gonna hear me talk about this project a lot brace yourselves it's all living in my lovely lovely Caroline love to sew bag that's the tag there and and this was a gift from my husband before our anniversary one year I love this bag this bit here is like soft it's like a velvety fabric so you can cuddle it if you're that way inclined to color we all project bags and okay now I've got a few other things on the go but I'm trying to just keep things a bit condensed in this episode even though it doesn't appear that way because I am rambling so much and but I've got two ugly blankets I wanted to share with you I talked about these on my wool allottee TV episode which is before this video and I wanted to just share it on the podcast proper and the cause I was going through my yawn sash a little basket they did these in taiga a few years ago and I absolutely love them so I've got a yellow one and both my girls have got one I think Lily as is blue and Phoebe's is pink I can't remember all white so I'm keep I'm using this as a little project bag for this particular ugly blanket I've got a box not a box but I mean I'm talking a small shoebox eyes of acrylic yarn just remnants of a quickie on which I've had just in case you know you never know when you might need it and quite frankly I've had it long enough now to think there's never gonna be a just-in-case and it's just taking up room I stopped using it a creep yarn as much it wasn't ever really a conscious decision it just happened I've started using more natural fibers but I still definitely would buy critic on the project called for it I'm my cousin's having a baby and so when we hear what she's had I'll definitely be making an acrylic blanket because that's nice and easy for them to wash and use and so on but anyway this is very long way of saying that I've got some remnants that I'm just not gonna use anywhere else and they're not enough a lot of you very cleverly suggested that I might want to donate them to say to the charity shop or to the primary school for them to use in crafting but I'm talking like let me show you like bits like this like it's just not what is that that's weird oh yeah that's weird isn't it it's like a chunky yeah sorry distracted yeah but they're bits like this so I thought what I didn't want to happen was to donate it and then actually it never end up getting used and it just gets thrown away anyway so I wanted it to turn into something I knew at least wouldn't be in landfill and that would be being used so I'm gonna make a blanket to keep in the car before putting on laps and so on and you know for emergencies in case you ever cold I've broken down before and I've been in need of a blanket so um I decided to make another ugly blanket or as Phoebe calls them lovely blankets and I showed my the original ugly blanket on the reality TV blog before this one God how many times can I refer to that video so I won't show it again now but basically it is just any yarn any way any colour in email and it goes into a granny square and time run out so I've got this weird yawn I've got a ball of scraps that has all been tied together here you can see that the green I mean I'm barely got like 30 centimetres of green this is actually our Packer DK way I've got some black and so on I bought another 3.25 millimeter also three point seven five millimeter hook to do this with and I've got them all the bits and bobs that I'm going to put into it in here and I've got some more upstairs and this is how it looks I'm opening any of the ends yeah so the first lot here the Friday bit in the middle and the pink and the peach they were all in a kit that I had given to me a long time ago but I've never made the things I probably will make there were four little M people little crochet people like Elvis and Audrey Hepburn and the characters from Titanic and I probably will make those in future so I've kept the little book clip with the patterns but I wouldn't make them in this like nylon e scratchy horrible acrylic yawn I would make them using cotton so that yarn has gone into the the ugly banking and I've just started doing this I'm doing the granny square where you turn after each round so that it stays nice and square I'm really enjoying that and yeah it's something very soothing about working on something that aesthetically doesn't matter it's just an anything-goes it's kind of like just doodling squares you know where you're not trying to make a work of art you're just passing the time well short of the telephone and just giving yourself something to do and so I keep this but a bit and I just do a couple of rows of an evening if I'm feeling up to it so that's the first ugly blanket and then other one is the slightly less ugly blanket and this is the one where I'm using scraps of fingering weight hand-dyed young or playing young to go into it so it's creating a slightly lovelier blanket and I am using a three point two five millimeter hook now this is a is it an it pro colors no addy addy color hook and I hate it it's horrible I ordered a copy there's only three quid and and it's a tittie horrible first of all there's a join here which comes undone like that so I don't know why it needs to come undone but it does and it comes off so and it'll work its way out every now and then secondly it doesn't have the signs written on it and there's plenty of places it could have the size written on it so I've had to write it on with a sharpie on the end and thirdly the hook isn't very nice I don't got anything to compare it to I can grab easily but yeah it just doesn't catch the yarn nicely at all so yeah I do not like this addi color hook do not recommend I think I'm gonna have to get when I finished my just feel better sure and I'll still the three point two five millimeter hook from there to use ya really disappointed for that because I was excited to try a new hook anyway this is the not so ugly ugly blanket and I'd originally started this and I wasn't happy with the fabric I was using a bigger hook so I ripped it back and I started again and I'm much happier now with this smaller gauge even if I'm not happy with the hook that's giving me that gauge and and I just what I do when I come to change color is I work two colors together for about three or four stitches and though quite often the way I've done it this time I have got some knots but I'll cut that knot out and then I will work the the yellow and the brown together for about three or four stitches and then weave in the ends so I know it's nice and knotted in with the stitching because essentially that's what the stitches are is a knot and then I just weave in the ends I know it's all nice and secure because I have made some early blankets when I first started to crochet where I just didn't pay attention properly to making knots of weaving ends in and I have had to carry out some repairs where they've unraveled a bit so I'm making sure that's not gonna happen yeah and I'm really really pleased with how this is going I just every time I've got a little scrap of yarn I just pop it in this bag like this is leftover from my socks I showed you earlier that's just the the rest of the cloudy sky so it's not enough for a five round mini swap it's just enough to put in my not so ugly ugly blanket and it's all living in my fabulous lobster bag there you go not stuck because I love lobsters and this was made for me by lucky viewers podcast called Suzanne she's insight number 22 on Instagram and somebody asked me where my lobster my love of lobsters comes from so I shall tell you and when Dan and I got married we went on honeymoon to the Maldives so this was in 2003 just quite a long time ago isn't it and we went on honeymoon we got married at the end of November so we went on honeymoon for the first two weeks in December and in the Maldives and it was the most amazing holiday of our lives it was so incredible but there was one day when it rained and it rained all day so we did what any honeymooners would do on honeymoon on a rainy day and we went to our hunt and we watched a documentary on a National Geographic Channel about lobsters and we learnt a lot about them and then it became a bit of a joke between us after that that we would buy each other and lobster thing or make reference to but the habits of lobsters and do impressions of yeah it's just making us sound entirely normal but that's how it all comes from and over the years it's just grown into just this lots to think and that's where it comes from so we love lobsters you can see probably quite a few lobsters by me yes and there's more besides all over the house so that's where the lobster thing comes from right next thing oh yeah things we're talking about projects I thought I'd share with you I'll go and get it hang on I thought I'd share with you this project which I haven't shown you in a wee while and it's living in my bag from Hannah of of Hannah from sheets Allie we did a swap quite some time ago now and she may be one of her but I love this so much it's so Hannah on the back that is a big crochet doily in yellow of course and this house is a scrappy project which I have had on the go whoops I'm throwing yarn on the floor I've had on the go for some time and there were lots of gorgeous minis lurking in here and I really need to get moving with this project so that I can use them so many gorgeous mean he's always so pretty oh I need to get cracking with this oh this is my corner to corner crochet Moss stitch blanket um it is a pattern Oh who's it a pattern by I think it's by every trick on the hook I will put it underneath this video and on the screen I am doing it with my using oh please tell me I know what they've come using and I haven't used I think I've taken the hook to use in another project hahaha right okay this gives me an opportunity to show you something else what concentrate Ally come on stick to the program okay so this is my corner to corner scrappy crochet blanking and putting full minis into this and basically you work it on a diagonal until you've got it to the the width you want it and then you work it kind of even until you get to the length you want and then I'll probably put a little water on it just to make sure it looks nice so this is what I've got so far and it's quite so going because I'm doing it obviously a single crochet more stitch but it just produces such a gorgeous fabric is so drapey I love the way it makes the minis play with each other I absolutely love it to this day my favorite mini of all time is this one here if you can see that green and purple e1 there and that is a mini with no name by gamer crafting and I think it was just a one-off but I absolutely loved that mini and I love the way that this stitch shows off yarns and I definitely have not worked on this enough I'd like to see this grow but so I was panicking about not knowing what hook hose using however I have got on my work this little guy this little cheap that says 3.5 and this is to remind me of the hook that I'm using on this project now obviously this would work with knitting as well because you know what it's like you have to sometimes borrow hooks or needles from projects and then you forget what you were using so this is a stitch marker buy booze booze beautiful things I'm trying to remember this is that get booze beautiful things I'm sure that's it but I'll put it on the screen and she sent me a bunch of these just to see what I thought of them and well I'm genuinely obviously think they're really good because I'm using it and it's so handy I'm so relieved that I put one of these on my project so now I know which hook I need to go back to you when I come back to this project so there you go that is my ramble about my scrappy project what else in the works in progress Oh needle felting I have this one of these random boxes that looks like but I think my mother-in-law got me it is perfect for keeping my needle felting work in progressing and I've dabbled in a bit of needle felting and I really really love it but I have literally no idea what I'm doing and no brain space or time to get properly good at it but what I like about it is you can kind of just get some fluff and you get your sponge so this is my sponge and I've got three needles here and none of which I really fully understand the difference I just used the one that feels correct and and basically you stab your flap until it does what you want it to do and in that manner of speaking it's a bit like doodling but with yarn or with fiber and it's very very relaxing and very addictive so I've made a few little things perhaps my most favorite thing is my gnome with nostrils which I'm gonna go and get to show you so I made a few at least but I just grabbed this one this one lives permanently on the bookcase in the living room so this is my looking needle felted known and if you can see he does have nostrils yes I like him he looks wise he's my wise old gnome yeah he's a funny little dude so he lives in the living room I just pop him there so you can keep an eye on me and and I had this idea in my head of something that I wanted to make so I just started doodling oh here's something else I made I showed these I think in vlogmas I was making baubles I want to make her brief I want to make a Christmas wreath and I was making little baubles so that's just a plain yellow one and then I was needle felting patterns onto the ball balls but what I think I might play around with is stitching and like embroidering patterns onto and then this is this is supposed to be like you know like those 1950s glass ones which were that kind of shape but again I'd like to play around doing that and Stitch a pattern onto it but yeah I really really like these want to make some more of these little ornaments I mean the point is I was doodling with my needle felting and I made a little house it's not finished and it's very much just a mucking about experimental things so for example though it's a pot with flowers on the side which is taller than the front door so you know proportions are really there but we've got a little house with a little front door and so lovely what do I do Rose is growing up I know you've owned it's got a chimney an old window and then at the side it's got some wisteria and the gigantic pot of whatever they are cosmos marigolds more Rosie's pansies whatever you want to say they are and then obviously that I have a window on the back look at the view there's still some more things I want to add to this and then I intend to make a little hill with this green little hill and it can sit on top of it's a tall Hill yeah so that's my little doodle with new needle felting and I really enjoyed doing it and I think it look quite cute a bit doesn't stand up quite cute just sitting sitting on a shelf somewhere once I get it to stand up anyway ladies a half I like peace creating little places where I think I'd like to live think that's my needle felting with like how are we doing oh I've got plan as well I wanted to share with you I was on Instagram and I follow on Instagram a Danish knitter and knitting designer called shin and she's shopping our SHINee superhero it was a bit of a tongue twister for meaning and and uh she's great I absolutely love what she does see she designs some very unique things and uses a lot of color and a lot of intarsia which I've never done before but she's released a color work hat now I printed this in black and white so I will message her and see if she's okay with me using one of her photos from Ravelry so that I can put it on the screen to show you in all its colorful glory I am aware that I'm probably not got the skill level to make it but it was very reasonably priced this pattern it comes in three sizes and this is the black and white version of it and it's a really beautifully intricate color work cat and it's got like a double a double brim and so yeah this is something I really really want to try it as you know I have got hat on the go which I've had to put on pause because I ran out on your butt lovely lovely Zoe and journey at carciofi ons have died up some more and it is winging its way to me thank goodness so I will be able to finish my paper work Hatsune but I do like knitting hats and I think I'd like to just keep having a hat on the needles and I would really like to make this it's whether or not I've actually got the skill for it but if you don't push yourself you never know D so that's my plan oh sorry and it's called the Molly Hume Hat I don't think I actually said that and the money Hume hat by SHINee super here right and okay from your I haven't done one of these sections for a while formula is where we talk about project from the past and I thought a really good one would be another it's underneath all of my whip so I just talked about them okay so I talked last time about a book that I am reading that I've got in the charity shop I haven't read very much of it had time but I am loving this book it's all the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr we know of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2015 it's absolutely lovely it's setting the Second World War in Paris I think and it's about two different characters I don't know where it's going but I'm enjoying it so far but and one of the first places it mentions is and I'm gonna see if I can find it in French l'hotel de really I wish I haven't found it mail okay I know there are people who are french-speaking or from France that watch this podcast please feel free to put it in the comments below the pronunciation look Lu tell des hommes be --less anyway it means and I can say it in English Hotel or B's now when I read that bit it's right at the beginning of the book I was like how many tell him please hang on a minute and then a few people commented to say did you know that that was the inspiration for the pattern by Christina a dream hotel at be sure I've made the hotel visual I made it there was a crochet along wrong by Sandra of Cherry ha and Sam of Betsy mates a couple of years ago some a lovely viewer of this podcast bought me the pattern as a gift and I use drops flora in this gray and this is a Kate saline yarn which was a gift from a lovely online friend called Heather and it was cool I think peppermint peppermint candy possibly it was called and and this is my hotel be sure so I thought I'd just share it with you soon as it seemed relevant I'm showing you the wrong side of it and because of what we've been talking about over the last concepts the last past episodes valchek so this is supposed to represent different things to do with bees you've got honeycomb section here and then a different type of honeycomb section here these bits represent wings then you've got more honeycomb and then you've got bits that represent bees as well let me see if I've got a good one so here's like let you use puff stick and they they represent a bee the bee's body with wings there well I just knocked open my known with nostrils and then you got the honeycomb and yeah it was a really enjoyed making this and I do wear this a lot I love how it sticks I love how you get is long bit down here and I love the colors the only thing that stops me sometimes is I have noticed over the years since I started using more natural fibers that I do react a little bit to our packer and drops Laura has alpaca in it I can wear pretty rustic yawns without being bothered but if it's got alpaca it does tend to irritate me a bit but not enough to stop me wearing I've been wearing this a week and were at this morning for the schoolroom so that's my project from your and Christina how doing is a spoonful of yarn and she does have some pretty amazing patterns she also designed oh what was it the history of bees sure that my friend Sarah who is young monks had with her when we met up a few weeks ago and I really really liked that when I saw her so that's definitely somewhere in my future let's face it all the projects are somewhere in my future aren't they all the patterns I just need an extra week in the week okay giveaway winners last time we had a giveaway before the downtown shorty sock so it's a lovely pattern pattern by sweet lavender knits that is Cristina gladwyn she has the podcast sweets that the sweet lovin Denise which apparently I can't say today and I Nick her downtown Shorty's sauce as my strictly Sox last year and she contacted me very very kindly to say would you like a copy of pattern to give away to one of your viewers I was like yes please so I put a prompt on Ravelry and I checked this morning and there were about 40 43 or 44 entries for that so I asked our friend whose name I'm not gonna say because every time I do it I upset everybody else's but I asked her you know who I mean and to choose a number between two and whatever the last number was I didn't write it down and she pulled out number 19 who unfortunately has a Ravelry username which is really difficult to say can't just be like Bob or something like that kamek note it is in garage Stoker on the screen now and you are I'm I'm guessing your name I didn't actually go and look at your profile which was silly and I'll tell you why in a minute so I'm guessing you're Ingrid and you're in Sweden and she says so I asked I want to tell me about your local town because either downtown shorty socks but she said I live in Allen sized now I'm probably pronouncing that wrong the feet per town of Sweden there are plenty of cafes in this town it's a lovely center with low buildings no local yarn shop anymore though now I went and googled this place because I was like well that sounds nice and it looks gorgeous and now I want to go I want to go to Allen SAS which I'm probably pronouncing it incorrectly and I also looked up what fika town means now fika is the Swedish word for shopping and coffee basically so it's a fika town shopping and coffee town and when you look it up and google it it is the fee clerk at the fika capital was awesome yeah the fika capital of sweden all of Aling SAS i don't know how many times I can force myself to say a word I don't know I probably look really stupid apology apologies to anyone who actually knows how to say that word or loop said apologize to everyone in Sweden and but it looks absolutely gorgeous I think we should just all go and I mean there's no lucky on shot but we can take knitting with us we can do some shopping we can drink some coffee or in my case tea because I don't drink coffee and we'll have a lovely time we'll sit together in all those cafes we'll do a bit of shopping we'll do a bit of knitting so let's go who's coming let's go to Sweden Ingrid we're on our way anyway Ingrid you have won a downtown shorties person what am I going on about oh right you plod knows that's not the pattern and I will ask Christina to send that to you by Ravelry congratulations okay a couple of episodes ago I also had an 8 has a subscriber giveaway and I still can't quite get over that there are 8,000 subscribers to this channel and I'm genuinely so thrilled about that and yeah I can't even tell you why I'm so thrilled about that it's just it feels like such a milestone and I had a giveaway and I was gonna show you what the prizes are but they are now like buried underneath a sea of works in progress and finish things but I had a little prize package of a dodgy bag and some yarn and other bits and bobs so if you want to see everything that's in that prize package it is not been episode before this one not the episode before that was a 55 episode 53 and I drew we now and I've announced it the last couple of episodes but she hasn't got in touch and normally I would try and trace someone down but I can't because it's from YouTube comments so I can't get in touch with them and also it was a subscriber giveaway so it definitely needs to go to someone who watches I mean I know what it's like I can sometimes not watch my favorite vlogs for months but yeah so I've drawn another winner and I did feel slightly bad but I didn't know what else to do and I've got the prize to send out so I asked and I'll friend no I didn't that's a complete lie I went on to comment picker a comic comment picker site to help me draw the winner from the comments on the YouTube video and it drew another winner and that is Heather Everson Oh name I can say and she was watching for the first time when she commented and she said she was coming back for more so Heather if you have indeed come back for more and you were watching this you have won the subscriber 8000 subscriber giveaway please get in touch with me by my email which is underneath this video or you can get in touch to me on ravelry or Instagram my time story is Allie okay let's move on to and finally this is the bit where I talk about anything I like and this episode I'm going to talk about my bullet journal again so a couple of episodes ago or possibly even the last one I can't remember I talked about how I've never really got into bullet journaling because it seems a lot of work just to make to-do lists then I realized I was using it in the wrong way and I should just use it for what I actually want to track and it doesn't have to be a to-do list it could be something else entirely and I had my lovely little Lobster book which was another gift from Hillary here's a view of this podcast I think happens to have this dotted page set up which is really good for doing the bullet journal set up and I did now I'm no artist and you will never catch me doing proper really lovely bullet journal layouts because I can't but what I did was I completely copied a fun from Pinterest I chose a nice quote about February and I did a little calendar thing and some of my little rubbish doodles and then I did a little tractor page now there's nothing special about this I just did something that worked for me to see if it would make a difference to like working out how things affect my moods but also to make sure that I'm staying on track with you looking after myself and my body in my mind so what I've been doing is tracking and though you won't be able to see it um happen days when I read five pages my book or more days my vegetarian I color it blue when I'm pescetarian days when I drink two liters of water I also track noise I have I suffer from anxiety and a lot of it centers on noise and a friend of mine suggested that tracking it might help me to see how much of a genuine problem it really is in my life so as you can see I've got one tiny little red line there and that is out of most of the brief which is quite eye-opening for me and it helps me to maybe address some of the ways I react to things not 100% and it's gonna be a long piece of work for me to finally get to a place where I can feel calm up but it really is helping and I also wanted to when I do the team Tom thirty minute clean which as you can see is very rarely yoga and meditation I didn't do at all in February and exercise I began to realize I wasn't doing any so towards the end of the month I did start to do and then five a day I generally don't have any problem with I also did a book tracker apology apologies if I'm going over stuff you've seen before but this is my book tracker here and this is what I've done for not all that haven't so called my days so I've drawn a little daffodil and I've done again I'm just copied a full but I saw on Pinterest and in my really rubbish writing I have written a little quote it was one of those March days when the Sun shines hot and the wind blows cold when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade and just in case that looks decent from where you are I'll just show you close up show you how rubbish my writing is and the reason I'm showing you this is because you don't have to be an artist you don't have to have gorgeous copperplate handwriting you don't have to have a talent for anything you just have to do something that makes you happy and doing this little page genuinely made me happy I even copied that from Pinterest there is no like there is no talent here it's all just plagiarism and and then I've done the same tracker system again but I've changed it slightly this time I've added a mood a mood thing and a mood traffic app as well but otherwise it's the same and I've grouped walk exercise yoga into the same tracker and I've each got a different color so you can see exercises orange I've done that twice so far this month and it always surprises me like how fitting exercising is really difficult it's only 20 minutes and I really enjoy it but I find it's so difficult to fit that into my day it really is tricky so having the tracker is building me a picture of how little I do it and then I can start to build a solution to that and try and work out how to prioritize it and so this is very much a work in progress helping me to see how I'm doing in aspects of my life where I should be giving it priority of that maintenance so again I've got read five pages or more days I'm vegetarian days I drink two liters of water noise I've got a couple of red bits here over the weekend but again if you compare it to the grey that just told you about mid height is something I want to start doing but as you can see I am not doing five a day and my 30-minute clean and this time I've added my mood tracker so I've got happy mid and shifts not great and down like not great at all and so I can build a picture of my meetings over so that was what I'm doing and again it is no way artistic or clever or anything it's just it's just a way of tracking things so if you're thinking a lot of you commented last time to sort of say I know I was the same I I didn't really see the point of doing it as just keeping a list and but I'm going to try that just to check you know what books I'm reading if I'm walking everyday that kind of thing start small I think that we'll start small together and you know if you if you're not artistically naturally artistic just go into Pinterest and copy someone else's and eventually you might develop your own style I'm hoping that's what happens to me I can doodle and I do do you I can't do too well but I like doodling and I guess that's the main thing isn't it and I use I've got this little set open faber castell polychromos pencils I've just got a very basic set they come in all kinds of colors but I've just got the very small one I've had these since last summer and I really really like these you can blend them they're really really high-quality colored pencils and oh yeah I would really recommend those as a pencils just for doodling and sketching so one more on the subject of tracking things in a daily life I wanted to share something else that I do every day of my life so um I've done this well I do I've done this before it's like I'll show you what it is I'm talking about this is the one line add a five year memory book and it looks like this you get a date at the top and then you get one two three four five little sections designed for you to write one line a day every day for five years now what I do though is I actually write a little sort of almost very tiny diary entry and so if you can see here I just write really small and fit as much as I can into what's happening do a little doodle and I always write what day of the week is so here it says something just so I know over the years I did this from 2012 to 2017 and then I decided to give myself a year off which actually worked out really well because that was the year that my dad got sick and died I don't think I would have been able to record some those memories nor would I wanted to so I didn't do it in twenty eighteen or nineteen and then for Christmas in 2019 I asked if I could have another one of these my husband bought me one and I started in January it's amazing how quickly you've filled these things up as you start and you think you know Here I am in February twenty twenty I can't imagine where I'll be in 2025 and you will get to this entry in one three to twenty four and you will get there a lot quicker than you imaginings it's quite scary but I every night when I go to bed I will really the entries from my other diary for that day to see what was happening you know all those years ago like seven eight years ago and it's absolutely fascinating to see where you were those years ago and what happened over the years on that day and I type try to record short of things that are happening in the world as well as well so if there's something significant has happened or you know or celebrity I admire has died or you know like when we left the European Union and just recording that knowing that one day my children will read it and go oh my goodness can you believe that you know our parents were living through that you know knowing what they know in the future so it's like the record it's a historical record of what's going on in your life and it takes me I mean you literally could just do one line about what happened that day but I do like to record a bit more and I sometimes are called what we're watching you know I remember we've binge watched you know what's we in 2012 or whatever well we might record you know meals that were meeting regularly cuz yeah just things like that it's a really nice way and it doesn't take long and sometimes I do it when I get into bed sometimes I'll just do it as baby's brushing their teeth a bit evening yeah so I do that every single day and that's it that is my ramblings over it's five past ten so my pasta thing that's not too bad I think that means I've been talking for about an hour I hope I've been talking for yeah I'm gonna make it easier to edit um as usual it feels like I've just rambled at you and talked to load of nonsense and it's all going to be absolutely disastrous so hopefully when I go to edit it it will be a bit less than disastrous I hope you've enjoyed this I will be back with a rule allottee TV episode in the next week or so and I will be doing April vlog so the next podcast is two weeks today so what's the date today the 9th so then it'll be the 16th no yeah 16th and then the 23rd yeah Monday the 23rd of March and then after that it's April books I'm gonna do April Vox this year and then it'll be apprehensive about it and I'm hoping to invest in a new camera before then I don't know because I'm in indecision city about which one to get and I'm rambling again so I'm going to say goodbye I'm going to take my little known with nostrils back into the living room and I will see you for a lovely TV or I will see you in the next episode happy knitting happy crocheted bye [Music]

Channel: Little Drops of Wonderful

Views: 10,944

Keywords: little drops of wonderful podcast knitting podcast crochet podcast, crochet vlog, knitting vlog, UK, knitting, yarn, crochet, yarn dyeing, starryeyesali, knitting podcast, crochet podcast, UK podcast, UK vlog, vlog, crafts, England

Id: 3bkynjGEsGc

Length: 63min 59sec (3839 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 10 2020