72 - Crochet & Knitting Podcast - "The Hat That Didn't Want to Be Knit"

[Music] hello and welcome to the little jobs wonderful podcast this is where i talk about all things to do with crochet and knitting and all of stuff relating to yarn and craftiness and all of the stuff that i absolutely love my name is ali i live in the very southeast of england um in the county called kent with my husband and our two daughters i'm gonna say right now that i've already filmed half of this podcast and then i ran out of memory so i went to take some stuff off of my memory card and deleted everything not only that but the dishwasher leaked this morning and it leaked so badly that it flooded under the kitchen cabinets hit the earth wire and tripped the electrics so we had a complete power cut for about 45 minutes we've also had still with um a spinach in lilia's bedroom she's spilt ink all over her bed duvet pajamas mattress everything so we've had to deal with that little disaster um and now i've deleted my podcast which i've just spent an hour filming so who knows how the rest of this episode is going to go and i'll have to just apologize in advance for what's clearly going to be a disastrous one also my hair also a disaster because we're in lockdown 3.0 here in the uk and the hairdresser's all closed and i'm not very good at cutting my own fringe so we're just gonna have to work with it um all of the show notes for everything that i talk about underneath this video in the description box so if there's anything i talk about and you want to find out a little bit more i do try to link or at least mention everything so you know what you're searching for underneath you just gotta click that little chevron down button which is somewhere down under the video and it will all magically appear uh if you're down there make sure you press like just a little reminder it helps the video reach a bigger audience and it helps the channel so that's really handy thank you for doing that if you've already done it uh if you're not already subscribed um please feel free and you can find me on ravelry and instagram as story is abby i'm going to talk today about yeah i pretty much know a lot of this off my heart because i've already done it but um i'm not going to talk about any finished objects because i don't have any it's only been a couple of weeks since the last podcast and i've been very busy with homeschooling work so i haven't had a lot of time to get stuff finished but i'm doing very well with the works in progress i've got plenty of those to talk about so lots of um works in progress to discuss today oh and i've got a new one a pair of socks and i'm stuck and i need your help so if you're a knitting expert please hang around because i think i'm going to need your advice i have no idea what to do um and i'm going to ask you i'm going to announce the giveaways from the last episode and i've got a fantastic new giveaway it's a very exciting one to announce so stay tuned for that i've got a couple of little incoming things i'm going to talk about some books and stuff so sort of stuff i'm reading stuff i finished stuff i'm starting stuff i'm listening to watching that kind of thing i'm bringing back the box of singular loveliness now if you're fairly new to the channel you may not know what the box of singular loveliness is it's this underwhelming box and in it is a special scheme of yarn which i've only got one of and i used to do this quite often i used to select a special skein of yarn and we used to have a look at it and decide what i could make with it um and i kind of stopped doing it so i'm reinstating it we're going to talk about the special yarn that's in this box sparkly box and by the way if the lighting is weird it's because it is weird because i'm in my bedroom it's saturday which is about the only time i have to podcast these days and the girls have got their drama school on zoom so phoebe my youngest is downstairs right underneath me in the living room doing her zoom classes um for drama school which means it gives me a bit of an opportunity to come and film a podcast because the rest of the time i'm never never alone i'm either homeschooling cooking or working or hoovering um yeah so where was i going with that oh yeah the lighting um so i'm up in my bedroom but it's saturday afternoon and for some reason the sun is really low in the sky and it's been really dark until the moment i pressed record about an hour and a half ago and then the sun started beaming in so i've had to shut one of the curtains so if the light's a bit weird i apologize as soon as the sun goes behind the clouds i'll open the curtain up again and then right at the end i'm going to talk about um anything i like my and finally section a little bit of waffle about life stuff and other stuff and um is there any other stuff other than life stuff just stuff just stuff and pom poms there's going to be stuff and pom poms in and finally so stay tuned for that if you hear my chair creaking it's because i got a creepy chair from the kitchen which i bought upstairs to sit on and let's get started with well not finished objects because i've got any let's get straight into works in progress the first work in progress i want to show you is living in my piggy's market bag which i bought myself a year or so ago and i bought it because it reminds me of our trip to denmark the area of denmark where we were in there was lots of bikes these colors remind me of denmark the bikes themselves remind me of denmark because you know everyone goes everywhere by bike where we were and just a wonderful holiday um and i love this bag and her bags are gorgeous here's her little tag there piggy's market beautiful i first heard about her on kaz's podcast the we so and so um the scottish knitting podcaster okay and in here is another slight disaster well no it's not a disaster it's just had its disasters it's the hat that doesn't want to be knit basically it's the molly hugh hat which is a pattern by a shiny superhero her name is shin she's a danish she's danish she's in um denmark and my copy of it is really really terrible but i'll hold it up nonetheless to give you an idea it's a beautiful colour work hat it's a painful pattern it comes in three sizes and it's designed to be made with two strands of fingering weight yarn held double so effectively a dk weight so the first thing that went wrong if you watched last time you'll know this already was that i made the entire hat and loved it loved making it in fingering waiting on and didn't hold it double because i'm an idiot i love the hat i loved making it um i'm not gonna ruin my locked down hair anymore by sticking it on my head just now but then i finished it and realized it's too small the gauge is all wrong and blah blah blah and i don't like the color i've inherited my dad my dad was my parents are scottish so i've got the scottish translucent skin my dad was a redhead so i didn't get the hair but i got the pale skin and the freckles and this color just makes me washed out just makes me look i don't know i don't think it suits me basically that was a very long-winded way of saying this colour doesn't suit me so i didn't like that and i didn't like i didn't think the contrast was quite high dramatic enough contrast either it was fine though because i really enjoyed making it i wasn't like bothered about needing to make it again it was also a relatively quick knit so back to the drawing board i went and i kept the orangey pinky yellow yarn which is um knittology by knitcrate in the colorway citrus squeeze this was a gift for my friend annette who is also danish this is a bit of a danish themed project isn't it um and i mixed it this time with a dk green unidentified green which i was a gift and i think it was from you carla but i may be wrong please do feel free to correct me there we are there's the green and the contrast it's giving me is brilliant now i think that sun has gone in now so i'm going to risk opening the curtain and getting a bit of a better light hold on that's a bit better isn't it hopefully that i think there's a big black cloud now so hopefully that is hopefully or stop bothering me now it's kind of going that way so it should go out of the beaming into the bedroom zone um yeah so the contrast i'm getting with this yarn is amazing this is everything i wanted when i thought about doing it now i'm new to colour work so i'm sure i've made plenty of errors in doing it i knit continental um and i hold both the yarns in my left hand and i just separate them on my finger and i grab them as i need them ah i went i risked it too soon i'm gonna have to shut that curtain again honestly if i hadn't stopped dry january on tuesday i'd be stopping it today [Laughter] i did well i made what is it 20 days 19 days it's not bad but there's only so much dry january you can do when you're up to your eyeballs and work on home school and stress so yes i did cave and i will be caving later today as well where was i yes the hat so i'm new to color work i knit it with my left hand i did try to kind of teach myself to hold it one yarn in this and one yarn in this hand that did not work for me i did not find it comfortable and so i taught myself to do it holding both strands in in on one finger i don't know how that's going to work if i ever do color work with more than two colors but i'm very happy with how it works with two colors i'm really pleased with it i love the fabric i've got as well and i'm going to talk about further problems i've had in a minute isn't that glorious look at that pattern it is just amazing and look at the rim is a folded brim so you don't do rib you do you knit um well you're supposed to knit this section here that's orange it's supposed to be green i read the pattern wrong that's another thing i did wrong and then you fold it over and then you knit the color work bit and then you fold it over and you you sort of stitch them together when you get a folded brim oh it's just so lovely and it's so squidgy i love it um so i did that and then i took it i put it on waste yarn and took it off the needles tried it on and it felt huge so i decided to knit i decided just having done the swatch i decided to knit size one when i previously did it i'd knit size two and i'm also using two and a half millimeter needles um whereas the pattern calls for four millimeters now i'm a very loose knitter but even for me i thought two and a half seems quite excessive however like i say i love the fabric that i'm getting but i and i've taken it off since i took it off when i got to about here put it on waste yarn put on my head it feels snug but not terribly tight but i am worried about my row gauge i like i don't want it to be a really flat beanie against the top of my head i would like a you know a bit of wiggle room so i'm going to knit it to the point where i'm about to do the decreases and then i'm going to take it off again and see where i am and see if i can maybe jiggle it so that i do a bit of an extra few rows before i start the decreases um but we'll worry about that when we get to it um and if it doesn't fit perfectly i would be more than happy to knit it again for a third time because honestly i am loving color work loving it especially this kind of nice easy two color color work i think the biggest gap between colors so the biggest sort of space where you knit all one color is six stitches so i have to catch the floats there but otherwise it's sort of two stitches three stitches four um and i don't really have to catch the floats at that point my phones by the way look like this i'm sure they are not in any way anywhere near perfect but i am a beginner and they're not too bad and they're not too tight they're not affecting you know how the hat stretches or pulling the stitches or anything like that so so far i'm very pleased even though at every turn i seem to make a wrong choice and the pattern is beautiful so i'm really pleased with it um and hopefully by next time it will be finished haven't got anything else i want to say about that no it just says in capital letters show bag because i forgot to show the bag last time i'm terrible at wittering on about the projects and forgetting to show the bag it's living in but the next project i've got to show you is actually not in a bag it's in a box so in this cardboard box it's christmas box it says ho ho ho on it to prove that it's a christmas box i have 11 yards there should be 12 but one of them is on the floor by my feet because it's currently in play which i shall show you in a minute i've got 11 yards here 12 if you count the one on the floor they are bts themed yarns and they're each 50 grams and this was an incredible generous surprise gift from someone who i can say is my friend k k james at the bakery bears if you if you don't watch bakery bears are like um a kind of knitting and lifestyle program i don't think i can call it the podcast really because it is like a like a program like it's like sunday night a sunday night program that you would watch they talk about knitting they talk about history they talk about walking they talk about books yeah it's just it's a whole thing um and kay actually talks about yarn dying techniques she does a whole segment a whole series throughout their episodes where she talks about how to dye yarn and so i'm going to show you some of the yards and i'm going to explain the story behind why i have this so i'm not going to show you all of them close up but i'll show you on the last day i've got a beautiful yellow one which i'm sure she did on purpose because yellow is my absolute favorite color sparkly as well look i mean honestly how beautiful is that and all sort of beautifully caked up and this one is called this color is called wishing you a dynamite christmas now i'm not going to explain these names yet i'm going to let you see if you can work it out before i tell you in a minute mike dropped round for a sherry in a mince pie cozy winter army warmers what could that mean sugar topped mince pies let's do one more so pretty that one is i believe in christmas magic now if you're like completely in the dark going no that doesn't mean anything to me i shall explain um kaye and i have kind of become friends for a shared love obviously of what we all love of knitting and talking about knitting and crochet and just crafty stuff and the fact that our daughters are both exactly the same age they're both well lily is almost 15 and and kay's daughter bryony is 15. and they are both uh huge obsessive fans of the korean k-pop group bts they both absolutely love it they are as they call themselves as all bts fans call themselves they are army uh and they have their biases you don't have favorites you have a bias i believe brownies is tae young and lilia's is j-hope now k is a lot better than i am and paying attention to all of this i'm rubbish i tend to just smile and nod when lilia talks about them they've all got about five different names they've got like their own names their stage names their nicknames i can't keep track and it seems that they all keep dyeing their hair different colors but they all keep doing it so one day some of them might be blonde some of them might have pink hair some of them might have blue hair green hair lavender hair i can't keep track but whenever they change their hair it's it's enough you know that she has to come down the stairs to let us know it's exciting but i never know what she's on about so she's a huge fan and so therefore so is my youngest daughter phoebe and kay sent this and it was such a generous gift because it's such a personal gift she knew how important that is to lilia my daughter and and phoebe and she wrapped them all up beautifully and they had little pictures of bts in with each of the yarns they're all bts themed you know that she's dyed them with that in mind and every other day during advent me and the girls sat down and we opened them together and we talked about them and they explained to me what their names meant if i wasn't sure but for example have a dynamite christmas dynamite is the name of one of their most uh successful songs be leave b is the name of one of their albums and and so on suga is one of the members of bts and it was such a personal lovely gift um and it was a lovely memory that she kind of gave us for christmas so thank you kay it meant a lot it meant a lot to us and um the girls were absolutely thrilled and they know what they want me to make them now i was making my advent blanket um my crochet blanket during advent with them a couple of advent swaps i did and i knew what i wanted to do with these yarns i kept changing my mind but i kept coming back to the same thing and that was i wanted to make the uh dynamite mitts which is also one of kaye's patterns she released it in january and she very kindly gave me a copy as a gift and i knew that i wanted to make those for the girls and that's what the girls really wanted as well they love mitts they love arm warmers and stuff like that they wear them all the time and so i started on that but i got my gauge wrong again i don't know what's wrong with me so here they are so the yarn that was missing from the advent is this beautiful one oh can you see that sparkling focus oh look how sparkly you can really see how much sparkle it's got on it must be the weird light and that one is called i think that's rocking yeah rocking around the christmas v b is the name of one of the members of bts and i started on the mit and basically it's a myth inspired by the old shale is it old shale or old sheath shale lace it's quite difficult to say that old shale sounds like a tongue twister and one of the i think it was taehyung bryony's favorite was wearing a jumper with the old shale short motif on it just a cream jumper and kay designed mitts using that motif they're just a really simple mitt i think they just come in one size and that's what i'm making i'm striping the yarn and she gives instructions in the pattern for how to stripe them you know how how many rows of each stripe i'm all tangled so i put this on waste yarn to try them on because i was thinking that they looked a bit too big and they are um i mean you could probably get away with it but you don't want them to be so baggy that they're falling off your hands so you can just about see the pattern emerging there i'm only on a few rows in um but it's looking lovely but i took it off the needles last night because i just wanted to double check that i was right that it was feeling a bit too big so i'm going to go down um i was using 2.5 millimeter needles which is the needle recommended but like i say i knit very loosely so i think i'm going to have to go down to 2.25 which is fine i'm knitting them on dpn's because that's my preference that's how i like to knit um things like mitts and socks but i was using these and i really enjoyed them these were a gift as well from annette who i mentioned um before who had gifted me the orangey pinky yarn in my molly hue hat and back in 2019 she sent me some knick pro smart sticks and they're they've got they're marked um the colors are all an inch long and they're supposed to help you with gauge and things and they're kind of coated so they're not very slippery which are actually quite light it may i quite liked how it felt to knit with them so i was a bit sorry to have to put them away because i was enjoying them the smart sticks so i'd use those again i might see if i can get some in a 2.25 to try for knitting socks and because i did enjoy those i'll put those there because i need to put them back in my needle box so i'm going to rip this out later and start again the only 2.25 millimeter needles i have at the moment are my longer ones which are because you can get dpns in 15 centimeter and i think 20 centimeter i can't remember and these are the longer ones which i bought once just to try and they are quite a bit longer and it can feel like you're wrestling a bit more with that hedgehog because they you know because they're longer but i actually really do like them because you feel a lot safer with not losing stitches off the end you know and i have my friend rachel make me a special so remy rachel she made me a special extra long dpn cozy so they're not living in a bag they're just living in a they're living in a box they're living in a cardboard box don't sing on the podca i honestly i need to put that on a sticker and put it on my tripod because i end up doing that every vlog every podcast don't sing on the vlogs don't sing on the podcast that is my dynamite mix and hopefully i might even have a pair ready to show you next time i talk to you because i think that's going to be quite a quick project once i get the right gauge i've not made any progress now last time i talked about my ziggy interrupted short i haven't started it i do want to i've got it here but i won't show it because i haven't even wound up the yarn but i really want to get started i've just not been in that kind of zone i've not really been in a crochet zone which is not like me i love crochet although that's about to change with amagurumi which i'll talk about shortly but i've been making some socks um i cast on these just because i had the yarn and it was a new year and i was feeling a kind of let's clear the decks and get things done kind of mood and when i first started knitting socks i actually cast these on and messed them up and then thought no i'll have to come back to that when i'm a bit more experienced with sock knitting um and i thought well i'll definitely be able to do that pattern now it's living in this glorious bag oh this is by conchetta of butternut handmade and she has donated a prize every year of the soccer long so far here's her little um label inside there butternut handmade um oh just beautiful it's the perfect sock size and the print is just gorgeous i love it um and in here is living the wild flower and honeycomb socks oh i didn't write down who designed it but i'm pretty sure it's this handmade life it's paid for pattern so i've had it for years since i say i must have had it for about four years and i've also had a ball of yarn balled up for at least three years now i know you're not supposed to do that and it was quite tightly wound as well and i was getting a bit worried about it like it was going to go off or something so i thought i'd better knit with it and see what happens so i started and i was going great guns it was going brilliantly i'm knitting two at a time couldn't cut well too concurrently so i need like i said i knit on dpn's so i am up to the same point on both socks oops see i've got me two dpn holders this one is um made by my friend who naomi of cozy cute knits there she is and this other one is made by my friend shimmy of olly and bella here we go very lucky to have such clever friends who can make these things and i've gone got up to i've done the leg which i've done a bit shorter than the pattern just because i prefer a shorter leg in my socks because i wear skinny jeans and they fit nicely under my jeans and i've done the heel actually that one is a bit behind the other one so that one i've done up to the heel and the other one i've actually done up to the heel and i've got back into the round ready to do the decreases the gusset decreases so the yarn by the way is little french meadow it's called lemon drizzle cake or no lemon drizzle it's actually a very um subtly yellow yarn um the light's a bit weird so i don't know if it's going to pick up as being yellow or if it's just going to look natural colored but it's also sparkly um and it's absolutely beautiful i won't know until i edit whether that color has come out or not um but it is a just a beautiful subtle pale yellow and it it's such a lovely color little french meadow don't die anymore so you can't get it um that feels like so you can't get it no no i didn't mean it like that and it's got this beautiful heel that's the honeycomb heel there that was fun to do and then it's got this beautiful um flower pattern which is all a chart which was also fun to do very simple i don't know how i messed it up when i was back as a beginner but i suppose you do with these things you you learn how to keep track don't you now so i've got back in to do the gusset decreases which i'm fine with and i've got a start knitting in pattern across the top of the foot again that's fine now i am making the smallest size which is 56 stitches when you do the heel when i double check the pattern you have half of your stitches on the back to work your heel so i've worked my heel on 28 stitches five six yeah that's half of 56 so on my on the front i've got 28 stitches which is the other half that makes sense you divide in half you do the heel on one half and the top of the foot is still on the front half are you with me so far um and it's time to start working in pattern but the pattern is it's an eight stitch repeat so i'm so confused by this that i'm just checking that i've written that down right so i've got 28 stitches to knit across but the pattern is an eight stitch repeat now i am rubbish at maths and i am reminded of how rubbish i am daily because i'm homeschooling a ten-year-old who's doing ks2 maths which is way beyond my capabilities thank goodness thank goodness dan is good at maths because don't even get me started on lillia's ks3 maths i've no idea what she's doing but even i know that eight doesn't go into 28 it would be 16 24 it goes in three remainder two no three remainder four so what do i do how do i make an eight stitch repeat work on something that doesn't divide by eight and not only that i can't show you because it's paid for pattern but you cut i thought oh that's no problem what i'll do is i'll just do it so that i'll just do it so that i can you know put the it doesn't work basically because it goes acro i don't know how to do it help i can't even explain my problem but if eight doesn't divide into 28 then i can't do an 80 stitch repeat can i because i go 8 i've got four stitches left what do i do now help have you knit these the wildfire and honeycomb socks i know i could message the designer but i thought i'd ask you first just in case you're like don't worry i've knit them i know exactly what your problem is here's what you need to do and i thought oh thanks thanks very much um yeah i am so confuded by that and there's nothing in the pattern to say that and it must work for other sizes so what's the next size up from yeah so the next size up from 56 stitches is 60 which means you'd have 30 no that doesn't work either does it because eight doesn't go into 30. what about 64 then yeah so yeah the only one that would work with is 64 stitches because then 32 divides by eight doesn't it yeah 8 16 24 32 yeah i should change don't sing on the podcast to don't do maths on the podcast but if anyone can help me please do please leave me a comment or drop me an email or something i would i would love to finish these socks because i was i was going brilliantly i think i knew and it up to this point in like three days and i was like well hey i'm gonna have a pair of socks to show off i'm gonna be like oh hey i haven't seen you in two weeks but i've knit an entire pair of socks aren't tied brilliant and then maths no so let's just hide it in the pretty bag and wait for help to come in right what's next on this we're now past the bit where i filmed it before so we're on new ground now so who knows what will happen harry styles cardigan a few people ask me about the harry styles cardigan so this is not a whip that i have been making it's a collaboration between me and my mum um she did the knitting because she loves knitting um different squares and stuff like that so she did they're not actually squares they're strips so the harry styles cardigan was a big sort of thing that trended on tick tock or somewhere and so many people were trying to make out work out how to make this cardigan that harry styles wore a rehearsal and the design i was so impressed with people's creativity it was jw anderson they released the pattern so lilia um really fancied the idea of it so in this gigantic m s bag here is all the pieces completed for the harry styles cardigan and they're all bagged up according to sections but you knit everything separately including even like the cuffs so this is the front what does that say front rib okay so that's i don't know what that means i'll have to look at the pattern um and then this is another bit of ribbing as well and then you've got all the sections so my mom hates seaming things together but she likes the knitting so she did the knitting on the proviso that i would then sew it all together um so that is a job for next week is sewing together the harry styles cardigan so i thought what i might do is make an extra little vloggy video for this channel a little wilality tv video which i haven't done in a while about how i'm going to work it all out sew it together and how i'm going to fit that in with everything else that's going on next week that might be a fun video to make it's a free pattern if you're interested as well just google jw anderson harry styles cardigan if i remember and if i can i'll put a link to it underneath um so yes for everybody that's asked thank you very much for your interest in it that's where it is i do have it the knitting is complete and now it's over to me for the seaming so i better not mess it up oh right giveaways and all that jazz is what i've written yeah uh basically i wanted to say all the strictly prizes that have been claimed are now on their way to you they were posted last week some of you have already been in touch to let me know you've received them which is brilliant thank you if you do have the time to do that i'd love to know you've received them safely it's really good to know um some are still unclaimed not many i think there's only a couple so if you did take part in a strictly soccer long go and watch the last episode episode 71 all the prize winners were announced there so if you haven't watched it you might be a winner a winner baby as a rune pool would say um but in a much better way and if you've won a scheme from lay family yarn i've been in touch with kelly about how we're gonna coordinate that and i will be in touch with you again soon i think i've already messaged all of you but um i'll get back in touch to let you know what to do and as usual if you have sent me a message anywhere and i haven't replied i'm really sorry i'm just really really bad at replying to messages um i get a little bit overwhelmed sometimes i love hearing from you but um it's just because of the day job really and homeschooling at the moment i don't have any time to just go right i'm going to make myself a cup of tea and sit down here at this computer and catch up on messages because i don't have that time in my day and i really wish i did because it's one of the greatest joys of doing a podcast is getting messages and reading them and responding and having a little chat with people but i'm so i'm really sorry um and thank you for your lovely messages um okay winners winners of the giveaways from last time we had two giveaways last time the first one was to win the little snowman pattern by alyssa of anaya's toy box it's so cute i think i want to make it for next christmas i'm really tempted to start making things now for next christmas just pop them away even socks like i've got this yarn that i dyed hang on i've got a little pile of yarns over there which are all christmas related because i was going to try and knit some socks in december pipe dream and but one of them was these this yarn which i dyed and i solar dyed it at the height of summer um so it was back when the weather was so unbearably hot and i hate summer i can't even tell you how much i hate someone i hate everything about it that doesn't mean that you that um i'm right you might hate winter uh for another season but honestly i i i find it hard to survive in summer so i dyed this yarn thinking that when i knit it i could knit it in the colder months autumn winter spring um and sort of think about how it's not unbearably hot and maybe plan getting an air conditioner a portable air conditioner and because we don't have air conditioning in our homes here that doesn't help either so i'd plan these to be christmas socks but never got around it but i see it every day it's right next to my side of the bed and every day i look at it and all i can think of is pebbles and pathway socks by hay brown berry i've got that pattern sitting in my um like ravelry library is it called pebbles and pathways i'm sure if it isn't i'll correct myself on the screen and every time i see this yarn every day i think pebbles and pathway socks and i don't know i don't know why but that's what i've got in my head for this yarn and i think i'd quite like to do that and call them christmas socks and put them away and then sort of give them to myself at like the end of november so i can wear them in december i know that people do box of socks and i've probably got quite enough christmas yarn to knit myself a box of socks but i'd quite like to do other things as well other christmasy things anyway what a tangent to tell you the giveaway winner for the snowman pattern and so the winner uh so it was in the comments so everybody had to use the word snowman i drew a winner using the comment picker um website um and the winner was theresa young well done teresa you have won a copy of that pattern i have a code that i can send you so you can go and download it i just need your email address basically or your ravelry name if you can get in touch with me my email is littledropsofwonderful gmail.com it's in the description box underneath uh just drop me a line and i'll get that to you well done and thank you so much alyssa for donating a copy of your new pattern that was really kind of you thank you and the next uh giveaway we had was from valerie miller who is knit bug vowel and she's given um me four codes for four one each for four winners i don't even know how to say that there are four winners each of you have won a patent and i have codes to send each of you which i can do on ravelry so i'll just do that straight away it'll be a nice surprise for you and the winners are gorgveda harkness angels nicola nitz and eveline001 and the prompt was tell me something you like about january so i screenshotted what you all said this morning so that i can tell everybody in case you i love january but i know not everybody does um so i wanted to share a little bit of the joy of january so nicola nick said i love every season and every month has qualities that make it worth appreciating which is very true and that makes me feel very bad for say i hate summer because it's true even i i i really genuinely do not like someone i struggle with it but even i can appreciate um the good stuff about it like going away on holiday spending time with family time outside the wild life um growing things in the garden all of that i can appreciate all of that and you are of course right nicola um january is a time of deep winter which in my part of the world often means snow and subsid sub zero temperatures in fact i sometimes feel cheated when it doesn't get really cold like winter didn't go like winter didn't really do things properly the kind of cold when you go out for a walk the glare from the sun on the snow makes you squint and your nose hairs freeze [Laughter] i love that nicola that's that's such a lovely entry into the thread uh what did the others say harkness angels thank you ali and valerie you're welcome i'm done anything it's all valerie i love cozying up by the fire especially if there's snow hot beverage right next to me and surrounded by my crochet and knitting projects the twinkle lights are on candles are lit and listening and watching to podcast i also love celebrating my twins birthday these are some of my favorite things about january that is so lovely i love how everybody's just like really got into the spirit of that i really enjoy reading these things okay number 19 and 26. uh okay gorg vida that's your ravelry name not your real name i love the beginnings of longer days in january we started to notice this it is a little brighter a couple of days ago the best is a cold sunny day and the crunch of snow under one's boots the chris fare feels fresh and invigorating it's great oh that i really like that although i'm not so keen on the longer days but i'll let you have that and then number 26 was evelyn001 i love it that the dark weeks of december are over and that the days are finally getting longer again yay i'm always looking forward to the time that we get more daylight again and i think a lot of people feel exactly the same um i know a lot of people do struggle with the shorter days and darker nights um which are the things that i love so it was so nice to hear and read everybody's comments and entries so thank you to everyone so to the four winners i'm going to send you each a code and you can go and choose one of valerie's um painful patterns and go and enjoy it uh thank you so much valerie for donating those prizes right the sun has definitely gone in so i'm going to open the curtain and i'm going to tell you about the next giveaway you're going to love it i'm i mean honestly the the the millisecond that i opened the curtain how fast are those counts [Applause] we watched percy jackson last night the second one and now i'm beginning to think zeus is up there having a laugh like when he turns the guy's wine into water it's like every time she opens that curtain let's just move a cloud to one side the new giveaway i got a lovely message two nights ago from zoe who is uh one half of the partnership that organizes the knit tea retreat here in the uk um it is zoe is has the pins and needles podcast and she runs cartrephyon that's a 100 welsh yarn um which she runs with her friend jenny who is a yarn dyer herself um and she owns the company owl about owl about yon and together they run the nitty retreat i think twice a year at different locations in the uk which obviously they haven't been able to do due to covid and they're doing an online one this year in february in fact it's running the 19th to the 21st of february which is friday to sunday and they've given me myself they've given me a ticket to go to the retreat i've never been to a yarn retreat a knitty retreat in my life so i'm very excited about this and they've given me a ticket to give away to one of my viewers now it's all online so you don't need to go anywhere don't need to pack a bag you might just need to tell the people you live with that you're going to be otherwise engaged for the weekend and there's talks and different things happening over the course of the weekend there's going to be talks from kate katie westerman she is uh i believe she's a scandinavian designer who lives in scotland uh becky and marcus have river knits estelle midwinter yarns there's going to be zoom knitting natters there's going to be a marketplace on the sunday the ticket you can you can choose to buy a ticket with or without a gift bag the gift bag is extra and they did that so they could keep the cost affordable for those who might otherwise not have been able to attend if the gift bag was included so the prize this giveaway is just for the ticket you don't get the the gift bag but you can buy one if you want um and if you want to just you've just got to get in touch with them whoever the winner is get in touch with zoe and she'll arrange for you to be able to pay for that and get your gift bag um i'll be there i don't think i'll be able to take part in the zoom knit and natter on the saturday night just because of how things are for me on a saturday night in this house but i'm going to try and drop in but i'm definitely going to be there for the talks and everything and a little wander around the online marketplace i think that's going to be really good fun and i'm really interested to see how it all works and sorry i should have said at the beginning as well the theme for the whole thing is nordic retreat so it has a nordic knitting theme oh a nordic crafting theme which i think is going to be really really interesting um and i want to open this to everybody i think we'll do it in the comments i think that's okay um so just make sure when you are leaving a comment that you use the term nordic retreat and i will draw a winner before the next podcast which will be in a couple of weeks time so you'll have so what's the date today the 23rd so it'll be around short the 7th 8th of february by the time i release the next podcast so look out for it about then i'll announce it and then you'll still have a good 10 days or so to get yourself prepared for the retreat so thank you so much zoe and jenny for that really generous giveaway prize and good luck everybody and make sure you leave that comment underneath and we'll uh draw a winner for the next time and i'll see you there whoever wins how exciting and doesn't matter where you are in the world that's the other good thing it's open to everybody because it's online exciting okay let's move on have we got anything else i want to say no let's move on to incoming um i think it's a fairly subdued incoming which is good because sometimes that can seem all a bit too much can't it uh what do i want i'll hear this it was all blending in there's a lot of lobster stuff around and it kind of blended in a bit there um a lovely viewer of this podcast called cali got in touch to ask um if she could send a little something it was a little while ago now and it arrived and it is just gorgeous um there's some there's one part of this i don't have i'll explain why in a minute it was all so beautifully packaged as well so she sent me this gorgeous drawstring bag with lobsters on it i have a bit of a lobster obsession it's got drawer strings it's got a lovely handle it's got a little tag with um the little clip on for putting your stitch markers and things and it's got this beautiful nautical lining it's so beautifully made i love it it's going to be perfect maybe i should put my dynamite mix in here oh i might do that actually yeah i might put this straight into use for the dynamite mix so that i'm not just carrying around a cardboard box yeah so there was that and then matching she sent a little pouch a little zippered pouch and it's got the same um nautical lining but in a different color blue and it's just lovely with that lovely handle lots of possibilities for this really love this little pouch she sent two dpn holders slightly different she said she sent two because she messed one of them up but they both look absolutely perfect to me so i disagree i love them and because dan is still on at me to teach him to knit um we can have his and hers dpn holders if he ever moves on to dpn's but the absolute best thing in this parcel she made the most exquisitely made amica roomy objects now she sent three christmas bears you just get a little look there she sent three christmas bear key rings and they are beautiful they are so perfect but what i've done is i when i was putting away the christmas decorations i kept them in their little bags that they came in and i've put them away with the christmas decorations i'll put the names on because everyone chose one and i put the names on so when we get the christmas decorations out next year we'll go oh yeah i forgot about these and we'll get a lovely surprise all over again so that's where they are but look at the lobster oh my goodness and i've got to show you close up just so you can see her stitches um um i can't even begin to imagine i mean i do a lot of amigurumi and and this is just perfection there isn't a gap must have used such a small hook it is amazing now dan and i are doing our bedroom this year it's been we've been in this house for six years and we've said we're doing our we'll be doing our bedroom since day one it was to be fair it was supposed to happen last year got a bit of scuff discovered by covid so this is going to take pride of place in our new bedroom but well actually it can take pride of place now i'm going to put it on top of my chest of jaws so he can keep an eye on me when i'm getting my deodorant out in the morning have you got your deodorant on make sure you're wearing clean knickers [Laughter] i'm gonna put put him over there i'm gonna chuck him in that direction so thank you so much callie we were we were blown away by how clever you are and this lobster is amazing but yeah it's definitely going to be in the bedroom because dan and i lobster obsessed and if you want to know why we actually i meant to say this at the beginning thank you so much to everybody who's left such nice comments or sent messages about the q a that i did with dan just before christmas i completely forgot to mention it in the last episode but yeah we had a load of questions that we've been asked over the months and then i sort of said look if anyone's got anything specific you want to ask just drop me a comment or a message and we wrote them all down and then we did a sort of 45 minute to an hour um q a where we answered all the questions and your comments have been wonderful thank you so much i'm so glad you enjoyed it and we'd be happy to do it again um if if you have any more questions um we found it really fun to do and it was really interesting to think about some of the questions and you know it was interesting to see what people wanted to know and so on so yeah we'd happily do it again if we had enough questions to fill 45 minutes or so but thank you but we spoke about there someone a couple of people had said what's with the lobsters what's all that about and we explained why the lobsters okay right that was incoming what else have i got an incoming oh yes i bought a new book but that leads me nicely onto books and stuff i finished clan of the cave bear i went and have my covid vaccination and i don't know if i've already said this or not because like i said i've already filmed it twice so i might have said it at the beginning of the first attempt and not said it at the beginning of the second attempt so just in case i went and had my first covered vaccination and i went on um saturday just so a week ago today it was fine didn't hurt her afterwards my arm hurt i had no reactions i didn't feel unwell it was absolutely fine the reason i got it so early is because i work for the nhs i'm employed by an nhs trust even though i don't work in a hospital i work in a museum and they want to vaccinate all of their stuff they have enough vaccinations to vaccinate everybody and that's what they're going to do so when we got the call when you get the call you go don't you when it's your turn it's your turn and you go so that's why i got mine so early i was very lucky and i did grapple with it a little bit but i speak about that i made a vlog about going to get it on my other channel on this little wonderful life so i'll link that underneath if you're interested in seeing that um and i'll get my second one in april and i hope that your countries and areas are all rolling it out as well i know for example dan probably won't get his until the summer but i would really like to see my mum who's 73 getting hers very soon i think i feel a lot better once mom's got hers um yeah so where was i going with it oh yeah so on the train on the way to get my vaccination i finished kind of the k bear oh my goodness oh my gosh just amazing so immediately i had to order the next one that's which i've done and received so i've just picked up something else that's an incoming i'll show you that in a minute as well the next book is valley of the horses um so that has arrived as you can see it's quite the commitment it is a big old book as was clan of the cave bear i was really surprised uh that i got through kind of the k bear because um i don't consider myself as having enough time to do a lot of reading i tend to just read in bed and a lot of the time i just fall asleep but i've been having trouble sleeping recently so i've been up later reading which has got the advantage or i managed to finish a book so yeah if i have the horses i'm really looking forward to getting stuck in but whilst um i was waiting for this to arrive i started another book which is uh one i got for christmas from dan and it is by claudia winkelmann and it is called quite and it's not a novel it's basically a collection of articles and essays about things that she thinks uh on a variety of subjects from summer to footwear makeup fashion strictly she's one of the presenters of strictly come dancing here in the uk um all kinds of different topics she just gives her opinions on and she's so she's so funny i mean she's very funny on television but she's so funny as a writer and quite often i'll be sitting in bed reading laughing and going dan will be saying what are you laughing at and i'll be like it's just she's just so funny you know she's dedicated three pages only to the topic of summer which she hates as much as i do so i appreciated that she describes herself as a short orange woman with a fringe um i'm really enjoying it yeah on the back all it says is pirate boots melted cheese a heavy fringe are these things important um i'm really enjoying it and i'm whizzing through it i'm almost halfway through it already i've only been reading it for a few days um it's just yeah it's a really light-hearted cheery make you smile make you laugh out loud and make your partner jump book i'm loving it and then i also mentioned last time about david olisoga um i'm listening to the audio version of the adult version of this book which i haven't been doing recently because i normally listen to it in the car because that's when i have time and i'm not commuting to work at the moment because i'm working from home so i put this on my bedside table thinking i'll pick that up and what's happened is every night before phoebe goes to bed so phoebe goes to bed at 9 00 about half 8 20 to nine she cleans her teeth and then we get into our bed and we have a little cuddle and a chat and mess about and sometimes we read i write in my diary she might write in hers and she picked this up the other night we started reading it together so she's been reading this aloud she's we've only read like the first chapter but she's been reading it aloud to me and asking questions and it's been it's been really lovely it's lovely when she just picked it up of her own accord and we can chat about the subjects around it and also somebody messaged me to let me know that david olasoga um very very recently was on desert island discs now i i used to listen to desert island discs religiously i loved it but i stopped listening so much when lauren laverne took over because i always loved kirsty if you listen to desert island discs you'll know what i mean i just kirsty was for me desert island discs was kirsty and it's not the same with lauren the van um and she i'm sure that she seems lovely but she just as an interviewer just not as good as kirsty so i haven't really listened but i did tune in i've listened to about half of the one um with david and um yeah it was brilliant he's a lovely person to listen to he's very interesting man he's had a very interesting life yeah really really good desert island discs one of the good ones sometimes you listen to a desert island and you're like yeah well there you go that's half an hour of my life i'm never getting back but sometimes you listen to him and you just think yeah i've learned something from that and i've taken something away and i feel richer for having listened so if you're interested in desert island discs it's on podcasts um it's definitely worth a listen uh what else have i written down for books and stuff okay so i have oh we've been watching right i'm opening the curtain again zeus unaware he's hiding behind a cloud now uh we have been watching scorpion that was recommended uh by my friend naomi uh dan and i have been watching that and we are really enjoying it it's very very kind of light-hearted don't have to think about it can knit a color work hat while it's on we've also been watching drag race and we're very lucky at the moment because we've got the us drag race and the uk drag right race on at the same time so we look it's drag race tastic at the moment we love rupaul's drag race love it and uh i just think it's such it's a it's a great show because it covers a subject in a way that is very honest and not sensationalist it's not making a mockery of anything or you know and it's really it's eye-opening and full of heart and it's and and silly as well and it makes us laugh at the same time and it's it's we love it it's just such a good show and it's really lovely to have the uk version now as well so we've been watching that we've been watching the masked singer which is literally we watch that every saturday night as a family and we love it we love it and we are we know if you're watching them our singer how are they not knowing that blob is lenny henry or i mean or is that just us that is lenny henry because when he sings he sounds like theodore p wildebeest is that what the character was called do you remember theodore p wildebeest anyway the blob has got to be lenny henley mind you this is what this is only going to mean it means stuff if you've actually watched the program the swan i was convinced was um nadeem that's it nadine coyle i was convinced this one was nadine coyle martine mccarten who knew anyway but so maybe i'm wrong maybe blob isn't lenny henry it is lenny henry isn't it so yeah ma singer one of the best things on telly is bonkers and also podcast wise i've talked about this over on my vlogs i've been watching wendy of the unexpected gypsy i'll say she's an artist she makes vlogs about being an artist and art journaling and lovely things and she's just a one like just seems to be such a lovely soul and i think you'll like her so i'm recommending that podcast to you it's just i just i love it whenever she uploads a video now i'm like oh i'm going to watch that that's what i'm going to watch whilst i'm chopping the potatoes zeus is back it's literally the sun shouldn't even really be up it's got coming up for four o'clock i don't know what's going on i really think i've angered the gods [Laughter] um what am i on about now it's too much rambling that's what's angered then okay i think that's it for books and stuff that's very quickly do the last bits which is the box of singular loveliness for which i've just written wing it and and finally also i forgot about this for incoming look what i got today in the post i ordered some postcards um so that i had some little notes for when i send out prizes and things i got quite a big batch of them so i've been putting them in with some of my orders that i was passing up today uh so they haven't gone in all my orders they only went in the orders that i was passing after these arrived and there's a little bit of a problem with them otherwise i might sell some in my shop you know just as a fairly low cost thing because it'd be quite nice to send to someone wouldn't it in that there seems to be some bleed in the um oh it's kind of gray um so they're not good enough to sell uh but you know they're good enough for me to use to write notes i'm really pleased with them so you might see these in the shop at some point once i've sorted out that little issue if i can uh yeah okay the box of singular loveliness is still the same scheme that was in here the last time i talked about it and i can make it reflect on my face like that um because i can't remember now what everyone suggested so i thought i'd just bring it out again because the colors of this yarn this was a very a fairly early scheme of yarn so it's pretty much deep stash it was a gift for my sister it is nick cosmic strings um it's an edinburgh based yarn dyers uh it's called wabi savvy and it's a hundred percent superwash merino so i can't make socks 100 superwash merino and it's single ply and the color like i say is wubby subby oh it's so lovely it's rather like reminiscent of the skies at the moment it's kind of like luminous and gray at the same time how gorgeous is that but what will i make with it let me unravel it but first of all let me put it on my head to give you an idea of colors and then let me unravel it to give you an idea of how it sits in the skin there we go now if there were socks i would say that's probably going to give you kind of broken micro stripes isn't it not quite stripes but your broken stripes but because there's no nylon i don't really want to make socks do i want to make a scarf or a cowl of some kind might be nice quite like that do i want to make a hat of some kind or ear warmer do i want to make some mints for the meat along could make mitts couldn't i that might be a good idea oh yeah sort of nice luminous mix what shall i make with the skin of loveliness leave your comments underneath with pattern suggestions or if you're looking at it going i know exactly what you could make i've got just the thing or maybe you've had this yarn and you've knit something and you're just like it's amazing this is what you need to make i've made it before and this is what you need to make any ideas appreciated for wubby sabby smells lovely because there's a huge huge thing of lavender in here that's the box of singular loveliness disgust i don't know what that was okay and finally this is where i just talk about stuff i like which is basically what i've just done for the last 11 billion minutes uh so we'll just keep going amigurumi along i very briefly mentioned last time you know should we maybe have an amigurumi along because i did a video all about amigurumi and a lot of people have been commenting that they would like to give it a go or they love doing it and i suggest that we might want to have an along i've just finished a strictly sock along though and that does take it out of me a bit so i don't want anything massive however i do have to make some amigurumi over the next couple of months because lilia has requested something for her birthday my kids always get a handmade amigurumi for their birthday i thought lilia had kind of grown out that didn't make her anything last year got a complaint so now to make two things this year apparently so i've got my big bag here this is my highland coo bag by julie of so unique it is beautiful and i've even got my little highland coo badge that she sells in her shop so unique uk i think she is but the bag was a gift i love it oh focus here i am um and it's stuffed full now because there's double the amount of stuff that was in here last time so last time i spoke about i'm going to make a jester or or joker or whatever it's called this little guy here from the book mini kingdom crochet 36 tiny amigurumi royals by alka novist i've pronounced that one um but it's the little guy there with the hat so that's what she she had previously asked for oopsie um and there's so many gorgeous patterns in here that i pretty much just want to make everything and then she also wants a brachiosaurus wearing a polenic obviously brad the brachiosaurus there we go there he is and that is from the book dinosaurs mama some more prehistoric amigurumi which you've seen before because i made phoebe the triceratops that is in here but phoebe also wants the mammoth the strawberry eating mammoth max the mammoth eating his strawberries and lilia also wants me to make a little what's the other asaurus diplodocus for her boyfriend because she calls him diplodocus because he's very tall and stretchy so she wants me to make him a diplodocus so i've got some colors for brad the brachiosaurus this is i have this in stash i thought it's all cotton i like to make my ammo green with cotton it's not quite the colors in the picture but um it's close enough and it means i can use stuff that's in stash i think this will be enough i hope so anyway and that is all i think that's light worsted weight and then for the jester i've got um some sort of i think is it dk or fingering i can't remember i won't start waffling about that so i've got to make those and the mammoth and those so i thought well i've got to do that by lilia's birthday that's the 31st of march so maybe we could have an amigurumi along kind of just for fun and i'll open a ravelry thread like now and i'll just have one ravelry thread so we can all chatter and post what we're making and stuff like that and i can be flaky and keep forgetting to check it because that's what i'm good at and anyway we can have a chatter and share ideas and like um what we're making and just do that until the end of march and i'll just draw one prize winner i don't need any prizes i've got some yarn i've got some bags i could make a dodgy bag and put in some pins and stuff like that just draw one winner at the end from one thread and it can just be like mainly for fun but with the chance of maybe winning one prize what do you think i'll go and open her thread and go go and hop along if you're interested in joining in and we'll do that until the end of march and we'll have some fun making creatures and it'll be really lovely at the end of march to maybe try and do a montage of all the creatures that were made in the amigurumi along i could take all the pictures that were posted and maybe put them in a little moving montage that might be good fun what do you think let me know uh okay i need your help with a decision about a pom-pom or pom-poms so my full of minnie's hat it's been quite cold here we haven't had proper weather but it has been hot weather i made this a couple of years ago and i love it it is so warm and so beautifully squidgy in bonkers i made it with um advent yarn mainly from a swap i did with my friend chevy i can't have my fringe in front of my eyes when i wear hats at the moment because of locked down fringe there we go let's disappear the fringe there we go i can see now and i love this hat i love it so much but i feel it needs a bit of a finishing thing on the top so i thought i was going to use one of my little creative sheet pom-pom i did a a swap with um oh is that focusing i did a swap with anna who is the lady behind little creative sheep she makes and sells amigurumi things including members of bts by the way and she included in her swap these little um puppet um pom-poms which she makes herself and i thought that would look pretty good that nice dark contrast dan and lilia think i should go double pom pom and white i think i'd feel ridiculous so that's so his but also part of me also thinks i kind of love the idea so do i go small furry woodland animal with fluffy ears oops i just dropped one or do i go sophisticated 40-something woman i don't want to lead you in any way but what do you think which pom-pom am i going to go for sophisticated or daft again discuss i said i wasn't going to mess my hair up didn't i and i've just done it finally breathe a sigh of relief we've reached the end oh the view the light over there like if i finish talking quick enough i'll quickly film the light to show you i wanted to say a huge huge thank you to everybody for their very kind comments on my last video and on the q a video that i've done and anyone that's over on this little wonderful life when you leave comments or yeah even if you're not leaving comments i know i always say thank you for comments but even if you're just watching and pressing the like button even if you're just watching thank you just thank you for being here on the other side of the screen thank you to everyone that's bought me a kofi that's incredibly generous of you it makes a huge difference to me being able to contin continue to do this and i appreciate every single um person that does that thank you so much and um thank you for everyone that sent me messages again i'm really sorry i'm slow to reply but honestly it means so much to me to read your comments and get your messages and i'm very very grateful i feel very lucky to be able to do this um and without wanting to sound like i'm making an oscar speech i did want to make sure that i i do make sure i say thank you to you because i wouldn't be sitting here doing this unless you were there watching would i i'd just be someone on our own in our bedroom talking about pom-poms um so yeah thank you and thank you to everybody who's ordered pins recently i've i've talked about my new style of pins last time i put them in the shop and um loads of you have ordered them and i'm really grateful uh so yeah thank you for supporting my little shop if you have done and um yeah and just generally thanks for being here just thank you thank you thank you thank you and you can thank me now because i'm going to shut up everybody breathe a collective sigh of relief i'm going to go now and tidy up the mess that i always make during um filming i'm going to try and film the view opposite because the light has just changed to the most amazing light i'm going to try it and go and film that to show you and then i'll see in a couple of weeks when i will announce the winner of the nick t retreat ticket and um waffle on again hopefully i have a finished hat maybe some mittens and stuff to show you as well but if you want to keep up with me in the meantime make sure you hop over to this little wonderful life i'm always vlogging over there and and i will see you again very soon until then happy knitting happy crocheting happy crafting [Music] bye [Music] you

Channel: Little Drops of Wonderful

Views: 11,743

Rating: 4.9928122 out of 5

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, vlogger, daily vlogs, vlogging, podcast, knitter, knitting chat, crocheter, crochet chat, video talking about knitting, video about crochet, chatty

Id: yfTpjPGda8Y

Length: 70min 28sec (4228 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2021