Angora Garnet – Ep. 113 – Fruity Knitting

[Music] [Music] welcome to fruity knitting i'm madeline and i'm andrea and this is episode 113. fruity knitting is a 90-minute program filled with knitting inspiration from around the world as well as some extra snippets of travel history and storytelling that we hope adds joy to your life and brings a smile to your face very good thank you so back in episode 112 our feature interview was with pinilla silverberg who shared the amazing story behind the development of boha's sticking and we're going to continue on with that story in this episode as well so just to recap for you the boho stickening brand started in the 1930s to provide an income for poor families in the bowiceland area of sweden and then over the next 30 years the brand became known worldwide for its exquisitely beautiful high fashion designs and then bohus stickney closed in the late 60s but it had a major revival in the 90s so in the interview today we cover the 90s revival pinilla shows us some more boho sticking designs and gives us some really great technical advice on how to knit boho sticking but the majority of the interview is all about panilla's angora rabbits because panilla and her husband farm around 250 angora rabbits for their wool which is then blended together with the superfine merino wool to make the very special bohus thickening yarns and pinilla clips the rabbit's wall herself with scissors and you're going to see footage of her doing that and she's quite the expert on all the special qualities of angora wool and how to knit with it so i think it's a really good follow-on interview from the previous one and i think it's just wonderful that we can learn more about the wool from angora rabbits because we haven't had that on the show before yep mum's actually knitting one of the bow sticking designs herself that apple's design very exciting yeah so in our meet the shepherdess segment we featured tammy from wing and a prayer farm and tammy's farm is the kind of farm you'll find in classic children's books like charlotte's web for example it has a wonderfully diverse selection of animals tammy has pigs ducks chickens goats alpacas and about 10 different breeds of sheep and she creates her own unique blends of yarn from all her fibre animals and then naturally dyes the fiber from plants of a very own garden yeah i know she does so much and she's also doing a really special breeding up program on valet black no sheep which is fascinating to hear about so on top of all of that we have updates on our own projects and there's a little segment on invisible mending that we hope you really enjoy so i think we'll start off with you madeline so now we're up to under construction last episode i showed you the mittens by sofia camera born that i've been working on um the pattern is called shine this is it and i've been using these two dk weight oopsie dk weight yarns for it which i think look very lovely together as you know from last episode i've been working on loosening my gauge mainly by switching to a larger size needle and i'm happy to say they're finally at the recommended gauge so i've never knitted mittens before so when i reached up to about here i then started to worry that actually they would be too loose and too wide because i thought they were supposed to sit fairly tightly um but mum assured me that's not the case and mom's got slightly smaller hands than me but when i wear them they do fit me very well so she was right and now the challenge is to knit the second mitten at the same gauge because when i ripped out a lot of it i ripped up to about here so that means everything underneath is still in the really tight gauge and i didn't think of that when i started the second mitten so i knitted it too loosely at the cuff and then i had to rip it all apart again so i've been doing a lot of ripping apart for the fact that i said it's a fairly easy pattern yeah well it is but you're not knitting on it that often and like you said with the gauge that was really important but actually i think it looked you can tell that the the cuff here is sitting tight but i think that's good because it means that you won't have to mess around with your with your coat because it's really annoying having to mess around with coats and and cuffs and make sure that they're sort of sitting flat underneath so i think that's going to work really well yeah i hope so and you also did a few less stitches here didn't that's true yeah because i can't remember exactly how many stitches that you're supposed to pick up but i think we subtracted it by four and now it just sits a bit more tightly and i don't need to wiggle my thumb that much it's looking very beautiful though yeah i love it i think it's really gorgeous um yeah so i did say it was easy in principle it is but there was one more thing i had to watch out for basically when you knit this pattern around here you knitted on five double pointed knitting needles and when you finish knitting all the stitches off one needle and switch to a new one you need to make sure to knit that first stitch slightly tighter than the rest otherwise the last stitch on the previous needle will be too loose and i had no problem doing that when i was knitting too super tightly anyway but then once i made the effort to loosen my gauge i ended up with this vertical column of bubbly bulky stitches it didn't look very nice mum recommended that i um pick it but i'm not sure that i did i don't think you did i did so much i'm picking but mum also showed me a different way to avoid this problem which i really really like so basically when you finish knitting all of the stitches onto your new needle you knit one more stitch off the upcoming needle as well and you do that for all the following needles to come and that means that you avoid switching needles at the same spot every single row and you don't get that vertical column of bulky stitches yeah yeah yeah that's worked well for me um yeah i haven't been working on the mittens every single day so it is taking me a bit longer i'm hoping that i'll have these mittens finished by the end of this week or maybe next week uh so it will definitely be finished by next episode sophia has such lovely patterns she has very pretty patterns very charming last year she published two gorgeous sock designs which look like they belong in a classic children's book here's a picture of them and the socks on the left have little owls they're called ugla socks and the ones on the right have ladybugs and they are called wish socks so sofia is kindly offering fruity knitting patrons a 25 discount of all her self-published patterns in her ravelry store apart from those gorgeous socks designs she also has lots of cute mittens hats cowls and also a color work yolk lopey cardigan and they all have a very charming scandinavian feel to them yes i've just noticed how colorful we look together that's true you're wearing your smarty dress yeah they're actually makarong we we got this in uh quite a few years ago it was a very generous birthday gift by mom in paris we got it from a parisian boutique with macaroni on yeah i think we were with uma yeah it was a weekend trip i think yeah so my mum was with us and we i think we spent four days in paris yeah i got a pretty dress and you did too yeah you've worn your dress heaps of times on the podcast i have to the one with the tulips it's gorgeous yeah it's fun to go to paris and get a pretty dress okay so uh and we are so colorful together aren't we so it's actually surprising but we have the section bring and brag for two episodes in a row that's because we only get to bring and brag about finnish projects and many of you will recognize that this was the beautiful project andrew was working on it's called bowie it's by the designer lisa richardson and it comes from the book the rowan magazine number 67 and it's knitted in the rowan fine lace here and andrew just did an absolutely beautiful job of this and he knitted the vast majority of it but just in the last couple of weeks i've finished it off and sewn it up because i wanted to get some wear of it in in summer so here's a picture of andrew's work and the design is knitted in pieces and that's the back piece and you might remember that he was keeping track of how many stitches it took him and i think he calculated around 25 000 stitches just in that stocking stitch back piece and the beautiful lace that's lying on the top of the sleeve cap you can just see how beautifully he knitted that it looks so neat and that's really quite challenging lace because i tried it out myself so eventually andrew just got too sick to knit because it was hurting his eyes to look at his knitting but before he stopped he'd completed the the back he did a good two-thirds of the front and he did both of the leafy lace cap sections here on the sleeves and this was a perfect design for him to knit because he really loved relaxing with all of this stocking stitch but he also really enjoyed the challenge of this beautiful lace here and like i said this is really quite challenging lace so the leafy section here starts you start knitting it from the top of the cap going downwards and each row just gets wider and wider and when you're down to about here you've got about 300 stitches on your needles and it's all divided up into these pattern repeats and i think you've got about nine or ten pattern repeats and then on the tenth one it's exactly the same but you just do something slightly different and it's a real drag if you're knitting along and you're thinking oh is this the eighth or the ninth or the tenth repeat and if you can't remember or you're slightly unsure you have to go right back to the beginning of the row count all your stitches and count the repeats to make sure that yes you are on the 10th repeat and here you have to do something slightly different so andrew and i think he told you about this he said i set himself up on the table behind us that's a kitchen table and he devised a method to help him do this and he had his lace chart all blown up in front of him and he had a pile of coins little brownies so every time he'd completed a repeat and he's knitting along he just shoved a coin from one pile to the next and andrew i didn't know that you didn't know this no andrew is such a high-tech kind of a guy right and i used to tease him for devising such an archaic method of keeping track of his knitting because it's the kind of thing that i would do like just yeah it's very practical and kind of like belongs in a previous century nothing to do with technology but it really worked well and that was his he used to love it actually he really enjoyed doing the lace and he did such a beautiful job of it okay so now i have done a modification to this design but before i tell you about it i want to show you an up-close photo on the beautiful teardrop back opening that you can't see so when you've finished knitting all of the stocking stitch you sew up the shoulder seams and then you pick up stitches around the neck opening and also around the teardrop shaped hole at the back and with a much smaller needle i think i was using about a 2.25 millimeter you do a few rows of garter stitch now i've left the button undone so that you can see the buttonhole loop really clearly because i've never done a buttonhole loop in this method before and it was really easy to do so you cast on a bunch of stitches and i think i cast on about 10 or 12 stitches and then immediately on the next row you cast off again and then you use your two tail yarn ends to sew the loop together and down so it looks really neat and pretty so now for the modification that i did i changed the lace edging that goes around the bottom of the sleeve so this leafy lace section here that andrew knitted so beautifully is it starts up at the top of the cap and it's knitted downwards and like i said every row just gets wider and wider and when you finish that section you then knit a lace edging sideways onto the bottom of the sleeve just like you'd knit a lace edging sideways around the edge of a shawl so here's a picture of the original it has a really large edging added to it and while it does look stunning particularly on this model it just wasn't right for me because firstly there's a ton of knitting in that lace edging which i didn't want to do there'd be twice as much knitting in that edging than in the leafy lace section above it and when you block the lace out the sleeves are really long and really wide and the lace goes quite a long way down past your elbow and there's a lot of material in them and i just thought it would look too exaggerated for the kind of top that i want to wear on a day-to-day basis it would look fantastic on a wedding dress but i wanted to wear mine as often as possible so i got out this wonderful book by sharon miller it's called heirloom lace knitting so that i could pick an alternative lace edging and i actually bought this book on our last trip to shetland and we featured a young shetland lace knitter called lauren anderson in our knitters of the world segment back in episode 87 and lauren comes from a long line of expert shetland lace knitters and she's really passionate about learning all the traditional skills and keeping them alive and she's already won lots of prizes with her really beautiful lace so if you're inspired by shetland lace you definitely need to go back and watch lauren's feature which is in episode 87 and it was lauren who recommended this book to me and i actually found the lace edge pattern that lisa richardson used in her original design and this book is really like a bible for designing your own traditional shetland lace shawl it's a really it has a great selection of traditional center patterns and border patterns and edging patterns so you can mix and match most of them together and just come up with your own creation so i was looking for a short edging one that wouldn't add too much length to the sleeve and each pattern in this book is graded from easy to very experienced and in the end i decided on the absolute easiest pattern in the whole book so here's a close-up of the edging that i picked it's called the brand iron edging and sharon miller writes in her book that the pattern is over 100 years old and it's the edging that a mrs a hunter of unst used for a well-known shore pattern that was sold in wool stores all around shetland and anz by the way is the northernmost island in shetland and it's the island that's most famous for shetland lace and sharon goes on to say that it was this shawl pattern that got her first interested in this style of knitting and this brand iron edging is a great edging to put around a simple baby hat what's also pretty cool is that you can read up on the individual histories of the patterns yeah all the stories and the history behind it that makes it a really interesting read so overall i'm i'm happy i'm happy much happier with the length of the sleeves but i i'm not quite sure about the scalloped edging because it's quite pronounced and on the original design that the way the the edging that lisa richardson picked doesn't have such a pronounced scalloping it's more mild and i do think it looks better so ideally i would have found a short lace edging pattern that was also simple but had more of a straighter edge and then i think it would be perfect you weren't sure about it either yeah look i'm not the most stylish person but i kind of thought it looked a little bit like lamp shades i know that wasn't very encouraging but it's nice and light or then you thought it looked like papageena from the magic flute a costume anyway i think it's got something feathery about it yeah that's true all of my knitwear looks better on madeleine so we did go out in it does and this does we did go out into the garden and i took some footage of her wearing it so that you can see the beautiful design and all of its glory so that's coming up now and straight after that we go to vermont to meet tammy from wing in a prayer farm [Music] uh [Music] uh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] mm-hmm [Music] hi i'm tammy white welcome to wing in a prayer farm i didn't always live on a farm i was born in california in los angeles county and i used to play on the streets with my friends in my neighborhood until i was a youth and moved to the berkshires in massachusetts in new england i learned about farming from my grandparents whose retired dairy farm i lived on i was involved in 4-h and i learned about chickens and i learned about horses in horse club i learned about sewing i baked pies with my grandmother and i learned how to can from the garden and there were four seasons i really loved it i moved to vermont in 1987 and bought this property with 20 acres and raised my children in 2001 the children were eager to bring some sheep to the farm and so was i to graze it rather than using fossil fuels to mow the property i had been homeschooling them since 2000 they did all of the research on their own and for about a year we visited different farms in vermont and learned as much as we could until we finally decided to bring shetland sheep to the farm the shetland sheep were a great way to start farming and fiber farm we originally chose them because they were a smaller breed that we could handle for ourselves easily as well as they were a hearty breed so we knew the learning curve would be forgiving for us as new sheep farmers and they were dual purpose in that we could use them for meat or fiber i learned how to trim their hooves i learned how to give them vaccinations i learned about lambing with all of our wonderful shetlands and we learned about turning their wool into yarn now i have more than 10 breeds of sheep i have angora goats and cashmere goats and alpacas in addition to non-fiber animals such as a 300 pound pig named princess peppermint and over 70 different poultry geese turkeys chickens it's ducks and they all have a purpose everybody has a reason for being here but the stars the fiber stars are the sheep the alpacas and the goats so the different animals are a lot to manage people often ask me why do you have so many breeds and why do you have so many different types of fiber animals wouldn't it be easier to have just one type or two types and while that may be true i can't actually imagine why i wouldn't because to me diversity is the key to life and having so many different options for making yarns and for grazing the property and um just the fulfillment that i get from all the different personalities in the animals means that life is all the richer so yes there is more work in some ways but um it's certainly worth it for example the alpacas fiber is so soft and lightweight and adds this wonderful drape to the yarns that we make that um i would truly miss if we didn't have them they're such interesting animals as well they have such unique personalities and peculiar ways that i often say they're like the aliens of the farm uh but they are shorn once a year and so managing their shearing means that i sometimes choose a different way to process that fiber than the animals that get shorn earlier in the year in march and april and then the angora goats they also have a different type of fiber and are more sensitive to the weather so i really have to be careful to plan and time their shearing when the weather is less uh inclement and so that they will be comfortable and then the um sheep have all different types of places in that we have long wolf laces from the tees waters wensleydales cotswolds that grow so long that some males won't take that fiber if it's too long so we might shear them twice a year because of that reason the other type of animal that we have on this farm that i did not bring to the farm so much as a fiber producer but as a novelty we'll say our valet black nose sheet and so the reason why i won't talk about their fiber quality so much as i'll talk about the breed is because i'm doing something very special here on the farm a few years ago i had wanted to have valet black nose sheep i knew that they were from the valet region of switzerland and that we didn't have them in the united states yet that the animals were not approved for import but i dreamed that one day i would have them and so i followed all of the online forums or groups etc that i could to learn more about them and i got on some wait lists and there was an auction that i had signed up for that came one day in 2018 in the winter of 2018 to my email that there was this opportunity to bid on valet black nose sheep semen imported from new zealand it had been approved and so without hesitation i went ahead and i i bid on four straws of semen and next thing you know i'm an owner of valet black nose semen i had to figure out what what am i gonna do with it and so i got involved in the whole breed up program of um having artificial insemination and reproductive specialists come to the farm and uh the first lambs were born here four four lambs in 2019 spring of 2019. and i'm now in um going to be breeding uh having more lambs this year that are you know of higher percentage of valley black nose and every year hopefully breed up until i have 100 valet black nose genetics on the farm and why do this well it was uh something i was passionate about and i had this vision of valet black nose sheep being one day part of the landscape of the sheep farms and dotting pastures in the same way in the united states that they do dot the swiss alps and new zealand and the uk's pastures they're a beautiful animal and i wanted to be a part of bringing them to the united states their fiber is a little bit coarser but it's a long wool and the long staple length make it excellent for hand spinning and this year we will be spinning and weaving our valet black nose fibers so that we will have some home goods to offer in the fall and winter of 2021 in valley black nose fiber now i want to talk about how i put the fibers together for the different yarns that we make i like to look at the fiber in our flock as each one being a separate ingredient for example the fine wool from the coremos is white and it's loaded with crimp it has a very uniform staple length it's a bouncy fiber and it's going to add all that wonderful texture that soft fine lobe micron count and crimp to any yarn and enhance it and then another type of fiber quite different by comparison from the long wool sheep is uh here's an example of some teas water fiber which has a very long staple length and a lot of luster and significant crimp adding a different element to our recipe of yarns we have some mohair here to look at from the angora goats considerably silkier and finer it shimmers and it glows and contributes so much halo and so we take all of these different types of fiber and we make the most beautiful recipes of yarn one of the top yarns that we sell here on the farm is a two-ply dk and it's called thelma and louise and this is a blend of that long wool i showed you the tease water cotswold wensleydale and also mohair and also some fine wool from the cormo sheet and we get this milled at a local mill that does worsted yarns for us all of our meals are about an hour's drive or less and it makes a nice round uh yarn with lots of bounce it has a lot of halo soft but strong and very resilient the shetland sheep of which we have many on the farm all have a beautiful downy undercoat and then some long straight guard hairs we take their wool and bring it to a local woolen mill and have them spin it up into this yarn that we call all the single ladies this is a gray base so we blend the fibers from the shetland sheep together and then i over dye it with natural dyes all the single ladies is the name i gave it because it originally started with all of the shetland used wool and it is a three strand single ply worsted weight yarn another yarn that we use called use our shetland and our colored merino wool width is called hey sugar and it's a nice round aran weight it's three ply the base of it is usually a cocoa color because the merino sheep on the farm are colored merinos it's long wearing but so lightweight and if you have a cardigan in this it will it will be a wonderful long wearing cardigan but at the same time it will be so light as a feather because the shetland fiber is so light and then another yarn that we make that combines again you know nice recipe from the alpacas and the shetlands is a yarn that i call spice girls and this one is a three-ply sport it has a dense but relaxed fabric because of the drape from the alpaca and it's so soft it's great for next to the skin has excellent stitch definition this little tiny cardigan is made with it it really likes cables to add some durability so we do so many different things with all of the different fibers from all of the animals and i think it just adds an element of fun to the farm yards another thing that we do here on the farm is we naturally die for example this is a shawl that um i'm wearing um by bristol ivy and it's called the haven shawl and it's knit up in our thelma and louise and i dyed this shawl with rhubarb leaves and willow and indigo and i just love natural dyeing i started natural dyeing after i had seen a booth at a festival in vermont where they had so many pinks and golds and i learned that they had used natural materials for the dyes and i never looked back since then felt like all of that i am doing on this farm here to try to you know better the earth take good care of the animals and be a good steward of the earth mostly my daughter and i are dying everything from the things that we grow so we have a dye garden in the back and we start the seeds inside and set them out we dig up the roots we collect acorns rhubarb leaves from the rhubarb plants and so on and so forth and i make great kettles of color in my backyard my favorite dyes are coreopsis we grow coreopsis in the garden and start the seeds each spring many times it self-sews and so you have like a volunteer coreopsis all around the farm and we harvest the tiny little flowers which yields so much beautiful color great deep shades of pumpkins and oranges and apricots depending on how much i'm using at a time how many skeins of yarn i'm putting into the kettle at a time i often get asked how do you ensure color fastness or light fastness when you're naturally dying because it has a reputation to be fugitive not being acidic but i am very thorough in scouring the wool ahead of time and making sure it's very clean when it comes back from the mills i need to make sure that it's really well cleaned because there is a certain amount of milk grease that is on the yarn when it comes back and then after that i need to make sure that i mordent it properly which means preparing it to bind the color to it from whatever the natural elements are that i'm using for dyes i also give it plenty of time i do not rush the process so when it's time for the prepared fiber to be in the kettles of color there is no rush they can sit and they can marinate in their colors as long as they need to and at the end i wash it all again so that when people get the yarns from us they are ready to go onto the needles and into a garment or whatnot and they will be color fast sometimes you get a little bit of color off in your hands or whatnot but it it doesn't bleed the colors don't bleed in summary i just want to say that being on this farm with all of the work that's involved has been such a rich part of my life i never imagined no i don't get to travel um very much and i don't get very fancy when i get dressed up and there's you know late hours and continuous hours but i love it all and i feel like everything that we turn out from the farm has that love built into it so that we're not only making the world a better place by being conscientious stewards of the earth here and humanely raising animals but we're taking that and sending it out into the world and some fiber artists will put that yarn on their needles or on their hook or on their loom wherever and they will feel that love and they will feel that energy and it will continue to give thank you fruity knitting for having me as part of your wonderful contribution to all of the world of fiber artists [Music] taking that wool coat off helps i really enjoyed editing that segment because it was just so visually interesting what a beautiful farm she has what a great place for family holiday yeah actually i'm not sure whether she's got accommodation available she might have but she's got a very elaborate website that you can go and check out and as tammy said having such a diverse range of fibre animals may not be the most efficient or business-like way of running a farm but it certainly adds to the charm and interest if you're a visitor and i think it's wonderful that she can do the whole process from sheep to final finished dyed skein just on her farm with just the spinning bit being done i think about i think she said about an hour's drive away yeah all her yarns have really groovy names like what was one of them the spice girls or all the single ladies all the single ladies is because of the use because she mainly has yous oh okay yeah yeah well that's interesting yeah and thelma and louise is another one okay and the colors are really stunning there was a really beautiful purpley blue yarn there and i was really wondering what kind of plant she used to get that so tamiya's offering fruity knitting patrons a 10 discount off any purchase from her etsy shop so that's very exciting tammy has lots of lovely yarn both dyed and undyed but she also has farm-made tallow and goat's milk soap and you can buy tickets for her natural dye indigo virtual workshop which sounds like a lot of fun so thank you tammy very much so back in episode 111 we featured the uk designer flora collingwood norris who's got a wonderful series of downloadable tutorials on visible mending so that means that once you get a tear or a hole in one of your woolen garments instead of trying to do a really perfect neat invisible mend you can darn or weave an elaborate and colorful pattern over it or you could even embroider a picture over it so here's some examples of flora's work and the aim of course is to draw your eye to the mend and make the mend a new feature of the garment and i think flora does this in some of the most beautiful and creative ways that i've ever seen so if you're inspired by that definitely go back and watch her interview in episode 111 so soon after doing that interview with flora i got a whopping big hole in the left elbow of this jumper here so many of you will remember this is a marie wallin design it's called skye and it comes from her north sea collection i love this jumper and i wore it probably the most out of all of my jumpers last winter and that's probably why it did get a hole in the elbow and one of the things that i really enjoy about this this jumper or this design is that even though it's got this very complex twisted stitch pattern that's all over the body and the sleeves of it it's still a simple and elegant design and it looks really balanced and i didn't want to disturb the balance by making a real feature of my mend because even if i picked this salmon color here and did a mend on the elbow either in a different pattern or or just even using that color i think it would make the design look less sort of elegant and more rustic just just make it look more casual which is what i didn't want so despite being incredibly inspired by flora's stunning visible mending tutorials and and also just trying to find an opportunity to use them and try them out in the end i decided to go for an invisible mend which was really challenging on this design but it did work out really well so i want to tell you all about it so here's a picture of the hole you can see it's a pretty big hole so i went down to about four rows below the hole and starting slightly wider than the hole i picked up a row of stitches by slipping the needle through the right leg of each stitch in that row now not all the stitches were knit stitches some were purl stitches and some stitches were also cabled so i had to do that really slowly and carefully but this picture just shows you what it looks like having done that now the next step i just had to improvise because i didn't have the pattern chart with me i was at the cancer clinic with andrew and the pattern chart was at home so i had to figure out how to do this pattern which i hadn't done for a year by looking at the knitting that was already done on my on my jumper another thing is this was all knitted in the round so the sleeve was knitted in the round which meant that i never did the pattern on a wrong side row but with my little mend i had to knit back and forward on my mend so it also meant that i had to figure out what the pattern would be when you're doing it on a wrong side row so you're clever no it sounds really um clever it sounds clever and and and difficult but actually it's much easier than what you might imagine which was a big relief so i knitted a little flap in the same pattern as the section that was missing and at the end of every right side row i found it easy to attach the knitting to an edge stitch which closed up most of the less left side of the flap making it look seamless but i didn't have much success doing that on the other side so i had to leave that side open and as i knitted higher i reduced the number of stitches and when i got to the length of about four rows higher than the hole using a second needle i picked up a row of stitches above the hole and i grafted the stitches from both needles together and i had to do that graft also in pattern and then after that i neatly closed up the side gaps with the two tail ends of yarn now here's a picture of the wrong side after i'd closed up the side gaps i also used the tail ends of the yarn to catch the loose stitches around the hole on the wrong side so that they wouldn't fray down any further and then in this picture here it shows you the finished mend on the right side of the garment and i think it looks wonderful if your eye goes down to the same pattern below you can see that my mend isn't actually neat but it does look really similar and when i had a look at it for it again this morning to show you i couldn't find it i can only feel it on the inside of the garment so there it is there i don't know if you can see that but i think i think i've done a pretty good job i'm really proud of it well done yeah okay so now i want to show you my brand new project which i'm incredibly excited about this here is the yarn kit for a bogus thickening design called the wild apple so i've got a whole lot of yarn or tangled up here here it is here so you've got all of these little bits all these little bits of color they're so beautiful and this is the main body color here and it's called and it's for the wild apple and this kit was very generously gifted to me from pinilla silverback and i've actually fell in love with this design when i first stumbled across a picture of it which was long before i even knew what bose sticking was or even thought to do a feature on boha's digni so here's a picture up close of the wild apple yolk the design is also called the masterpiece because it uses up to four colors in a row compared to the normal two colors per row used in traditional feral but i'm not phased by that because in total i think there's only about four or five such rows but most of the rows do use three colors per row and there's also the typical bohus thickening pearl stitches which you might be able to see in the photo the purl stitches just give extra texture and they also help to blur the edges of the patterning and that makes it look like the colors are bleeding or melting into each other so here's my yoke which i've just started i won't say much about it in this episode i'm going to go into a lot of detail in the next episode but i just wanted to show you how beautiful it's looking or the lovely colors so if you would like to start a boa sticking design yourself i want to remind you that we do have a bow sticking knit along going along going on over at our fruity knitting robery group now last episode i said that we would also do it in the patron community forum unfortunately the patron community forum was something that andrew started organized and monitored completely himself and it's not working at the moment and we need to look into it and figure out what service or service provider we need to pay to get it back up and running that's something that is on the to-do list madeleine is sort of helping me do that there's so much goes on behind the scenes that you won't see just from the video because andrew was working full-time with me and we were working seven days a week beforehand so there's a lot that i can't take on immediately i'm just trying to do what i can and do that well and but it is the patreon community forum is something that's on our to-do list to get back up and running for you anyway there is a lot of discussion happening over in the ravelry group and a lot of projects are being started so even if you don't want to do a boasting design for yourself i think you'd have a lot of fun just going over and watching and following along and watching other people's projects as they develop you'll probably learn a lot yeah oh and i also want to say that panilla is going to extend the patron discount the fruity knitting patron discount on all of her wool and yarns and to the 20th of august and this wonderful book here which is all got the whole story of of boa's sticking in it but it's also got a whole lot of patterns in it unfortunately that's been sold out but um she will be getting in some more copies of this in september and when she does she's going to offer fruity knitting patrons another discount on the book so we will keep this boho sticking knittalong going for a long time so don't worry about if you're sort of late to join in there'll still be plenty of time to finish yeah yep and we also want to remind you to watch right to the end of the episode because there is another easter egg waiting for you there the cute kids are my little cousins simba and leia simba has just turned seven and she's really getting into her knitting her mom is my aunt fiona and mom's younger sister and simba used to go to a valdorf school but since the covet lockdown fiona has continued by homeschooling her in a valdo inspired fashion which includes lots of crafts and gardening music and they don't use any screens i think they don't even have a television in the house so that would mean that simba's only exposure to media is through watching the fruity knitting podcast with her mum which we think is really funny it's hilarious they get they actually get excited to watch footy knitting that's amazing the little one just loves the classical music and just dances all the time so sweet it is very funny i think her favorite part simba's favorite parts is us on the couch particularly when you're on the screen i think she's always asking fiona to fast forward to when madeleine's on the screen which is super cute and i think she also likes the meet the shepherd segments because of all of the animals so simba there's a lot of animals in today's episode so i think you should really enjoy it yeah anyway fiona is now pregnant with twins uh so she has less and less time to show simba all the new knitting techniques simba's currently working on a poncho for herself which you'll see at the end of the episode and she is following a pattern for that but she's also creating heaps of her own projects testing out the techniques she sees mum do on the podcast she's super creative i'm very proud of her um fiona has taught her quite a few things so she fiona taught her how to do the knit and purl stitch ribbing make um make it ones make one yarn overs and how to cast off a garment or whatever and simba taught herself how to cast on by finger knitting the stitches and then sliding them across on the needles that's so inventive yes she's very inventive the other day she watched a video by mum a tutorial on how to knit without a cable needle how to do cables without a cable needle yes i'm sorry um anyway simba did that during rest time and she thought her results were very beautiful yeah and she i think she came up to fiona and she said look mum and fiona said what's that she said it's a cable i did it without a cable needle what a groovy kid i think what she's doing is she she probably doesn't understand everything that i say but she gets she grasps the basic concepts and then during her afternoon rest time she gets her needles out and kind of does her own version which is really cool yeah she also needed a poncho for her dog with a frill around the neck yeah and when fiona asked her how she did that she just said that she made lots of increases on one row by knitting into the ladders between the stitches um yeah so it's always fun and exciting to hear about simba's latest knitting experiments definitely yeah so fiona herself she started binge watching fruit hinting last year during the covert lockdown and ever since she likes to tease mum about all the time mum generously declares on the podcast she is knitting a project for somebody else and then right at the end she changes her mind again and keeps it yeah it started i think with the sculptured frost by linda marvin i was planning to do that for fiona yeah you're evil and she got really excited and then a few episodes later i think oh i think i'll keep it myself it's it's a great temptation when uniting a beautiful garment but then it also happened when you were knitting these crochet animals this is geraldine the duck and cindy the flamingo and mum you guys announced back then on the podcast that they were going to be presents for simba and leia that's true and then when they were finished you liked them so much you decided they should sit on our windowsill back yeah but to be fair here pass them over it was to do it was because dad fell in love with them like he is so not a stuffed toy kind of a guy but he thought they had such distinct personalities and he just fell in love with them so i thought well i've got to keep them they are very sweet they are very sweet so i think poor fiona had to fast forward this section so and you're going to have to do it today as well fiona just so that poor simba and leia didn't see but to be fair andrew did knit simba a really beautiful jumper with a tiger's head on it so i'll put it up on the screen just to remind you i think it was meant to be a lion's head like simba the line but yeah you only found a tiger pattern back yeah didn't you yeah yeah so we just finished watching the hobbit movies together and since then i suspect mum might have dragon sickness like the dwarf kings or an oak and shield there's a scene towards the end of the movie where thorin is standing in the massive halls of the misty mountain of the lonely mountain and the halls are filled with piles and piles of glittering treasure and you see thorin has this mad gleam in his eyes and he refuses to part with a single piece of his treasure and that is because he has dragon sickness which i think mum has but with knitwear you should see her closets they're like filled with these piles of gorgeous knitwear designs that's true and whenever i need a design for you because we wear the same colors yeah it's really hard for me to give it away yes that's true but also when i knit something nice you like to eye it mum had her eye on my mittens the other day i think i am dragon sickness yeah i argue that my hands are larger so the mittens are too large for her there's no point in stealing them yeah they're not gonna fit you okay i'm gonna get into trouble for this i can tell anyway i would like to remind our shetland and mourinho patrons that we have an archive of around 50 audio podcasts that you can download and listen to and each audio podcast is a little bit over one hour long it features a great guest that we've already had on the show but this time our patrons have written in questions for the guests to answer so that means that we cover different information than what we originally did in the in the interview the video interview and there's often quite a lot of extra technical information covered as well so this month we had emma boyles from the grey sheep company as our guest we had a wonderful discussion about conservation practices farming culture and sheep husbandry and next month we'll have two live events one with team of whitmore from fryer fibres on the first of august and then one with coty from nomadness on the 28th of august and shetland patrons can attend the event live and the audio podcast is then available for shetland and marina patrons after i've cleaned it up a bit and and edited it madeleine and i are very grateful for the ongoing financial support of our patrons so thank you so much it is my full-time job and madeleine is now helping me as much as she can alongside her full-time university studies so we do ask you that if you are watching the show to please support our work by becoming a patron it is really our only source of income so it's easy to do that you can follow the link that's on the screen or in the description box below there's a live link you can pick your level of support and it's very easy and flexible so thank you very much so we're going to say goodbye now because coming up is the second interview with panilla silverberg and don't forget to watch the easter egg at the very end it's very sweet and we'll make you smile yes it should give you some joy yeah so thanks for spending time with us [Music] bye [Music] oh [Music] welcome to fruity knitting this is our second interview with pinilla silverback from bohus dickening the boho stickney brand started in the 1930s to provide an income for poor families in boiseland sweden and over the next 30 years the brand became known worldwide for its exquisite high fashion designs in our first interview pinilla told us the story of how boaz stickney developed from its beginning in the 1930s until its end in 1969 but the story does continue because in the 1990s there was a strong revival led by the bowisland museum and since then panilla's been authorized to keep producing the patterns and yarn kits with fiber from her farm of around 200 angora rabbits if you haven't seen the first interview i do highly recommend that you go back and watch that one first for continuity and then in this interview we'll talk about the boha's sticking revival and panilla's work with her angora rabbits panilla it is so good to have you back again to continue the story we're very excited that you're here again thank you very much andrea i'm delighted to be here thank you so we left off in the first interview with emma jacobson closing bohus stickening in 1969 and then if we fast forward to the 1990s bohus stickning had a revival through the textile artist and daya solvai gustafsson and solvai worked very closely with the bowieslyn museum to recreate the patterns in the hand-dyed yarn so that hand knitters could make these designs because prior to that bohus thickening was only available as ready-made garments to buy so can you now tell us about the revival that happened in the 1990s through silver gustafson and some of the challenges that she had yes i will be happy to do so i will start with telling a bit about sulway gustafsson she was as you say a textile artist and she lives in europe in bu husler she worked for many years as a ceo secretary for a big swedish company but she wanted to use her creative skills more so she made an early retirement and started her own company soul silke so she died silk yawn and silk is quite difficult to die actually but she was very skilled and she had the knowledge needed to do it successfully so she made some wonderful designs of her own and she sold yarn and kits and also finished garments then she got in contact with bohusland's museum that was in 1998 she was participating in a workshop which was about to use the museum's collections for inspiration to create new designs and she did some beautiful designs and they were later sold also from the beaujolais museum's shop so when bohusland's museum were planning to do an anniversary celebration for boohoo stickening buustigning in 1999 it would be 60 years since it started and 30 years since it ended so they were thinking about recreating one bohus thickening pattern and if possible even to make some kits for hannitas to be able to knit they have had this request for many years so they asked sulei if perhaps she could be of help but this was not just to go and ahead and do this there were rights to be considered and also in respect for bohu's thickening and the designers who had worked there permissions had to be given so there were contact with emma jacobson's daughter ingrid misterton and they were of course skeptical and a bit worried that if if recreated and not in the same good quality as bohu's dignity was what would it mean to boohoo's thickening so they were protective and skeptical and it was not that easy to to get this permission but well one design ingrid masterton gave her permission to recreate and that was the green medal i have it here for you to see i talked about it also on my first interview and this is of pure woolen yarns it's quite easy one of the easier ones to do it has only three pattern colors and and one natural gray brown and then the light green color is the main as the main color with a one colored back and sleeve and and the pattern fronts so this design is the one that sulways was asked if she could help to recreate and then to do this a meeting was arranged with two of the designers who were working at bohus declining until the very end at 69 so solway met justin olsen and karin ivasan and they were helpful and guided her with information about which yarn she should use and yeah all details she needed and so she started and during that winter and spring she actually recreated 12 items for the green meadow this was annalisa manheim alonso's design and it was beautifully displayed at the anniversary celebration so it was a great success leaders all over the world were thrilled that finally there were kids available for bowie's dignity to knit so of course more questions came for more designs to be recreated this was a problem since ingrid masterton had given her design to just this one garment the the green meadow but of course the next that was in bohu's lands museums and sulways mine to reproduce would be the blue shimmer the blue shimmer was the most sold design throughout the 30 years bohus thickening was active and also in the years after that that's the design that was of the greatest interest so solwai actually borrowed an old original hat of the blue shimmer and and thought that she would give it a try unfortunately bohusland's museum did not have any garments for her to use and this old hat was you know from aging and haven't been used a lot she was not sure that she could rely on these colors so she traveled to many museums try to find the material she needed eventually she got hold on and just half a yoke and and she had the colors the original colors from which you could compare and and dye and make the recipes and then she needed one pullover and one cardigan of the blue shimmer with the light blue main color now would this be accepted of ingrid masterton was was the question so a meeting was set at bohus lands museum in a little hammer was the person there responsible for the for the boho stickings in the shops and she set a meeting with seoul by gustav son and ingrid maesterton and also shastin olsen was present and behind curtains uh waiting were two from the museum called annalina sigistan mcphee and marie johansson they were wearing the blue shimmer pullover and the other in the cardigan and then everybody was holding their breath when they when they stepped forward in front of ingrid masters and justin olsen to see what would be the reaction everybody were worried but it was like you know english just looked at these two blue shimmery creations for a while and then she said it's just like in mother's days ah that's a beautiful story so you can imagine it must have been such a relief both for sulway and ingallil and i imagine also for ingrid and justin woolson yeah so somehow at that point sulway gained the trust and and they understood that she was just as perfectionist and that she she would take care of it and that it would be okay to recreate even the blue shimmer and so they did and then did it just continue on from then after the the trust and the working relationship was established did she just continue to take one pattern at a time and reproduce the colors and and make it available you can put it that quite simple but it was a an enormous work for her but it was just not to do she needed the materials she needed the original colors you needed the original garments so what she did was to take contact with the designers so she the next one she did was karen eva sons design the large lace color and the rose lace color and the yellow lace color three variants of uh of karin's design and she went to karin visit her several times and she and she had to acknowledge her her result before she could start producing any kids so that was the first designs and then she just continued and over time she recreated 170 use and 70 different patterns i have also a little story that she have told me that i would like to share with you yeah that was immediately after they had reproduced the the blue shimmer soul white went to a handcraft exhibition you know a festival where she sold her own yarn and her own designs and then she wasn't quite sure if at that point she was allowed to promote boohoo's thickening but she that was exactly the time where they had started uh to to to sell the kids from the museum but she brought one blue shimmer pull over and just hung it there in in her in her exhibition yeah and then there was this one lady so i guessed 75 was her age and she just did for a long time and and looked at this blue shimmer pull over so long the soul they eventually had to go to her and just ask if she was okay be of any help and then just saw that this lady was actually crying so tears were running down her cheek and she just said that not in her lifetime she thought that she would ever see this design again so it was just like she was trying to hold the moment and then sully understood what what this how it actually affected people and what it meant to them to the ones who remembered it so it was uh it's it's a very touching and it was a great success to to to to make a revival that is such a beautiful story i'm all emotional listening to it because so much you can hear from what you've told us how intense it was for solvai to gain the trust and to be as authentic as possible and how reluctant they the designers were at first to for someone to come in and maybe just lower the quality of the designs and you can understand from from your description the fear that was going on it was great to see that they finally did have trust and yeah that's a beautiful story so pinilla how did you come to take over bohus digni well there was at some point sulway thought that now i've been doing this for a long and and both she and her husband lost eric who had been of so much help and support and and very active in in every step actually he too they they wanted to retire and and and at that time you know they've been selling kids through the internet and the internet was getting going so it was it was not an easy task to just go out and tell all knitters that now there is no continuing to reproducing or making yeah making kids and provide the kids so so well it was it was difficult it was a problem for the museum they thought they had kits in stock that would last a year and this was all sold out in just three weeks so you can imagine and then at the same time there was you know the scandal about how angora rabbits in china were not treated so well uh and in in in the media in sweden you know on the news all over sweden there were showing films about how the chinese breeders were wiping off the wool from the rabbits while they were screaming and everybody was really shocked and it was just horrible to see and that was about the same time when sullivan made her final decision decision that she couldn't continue to to do this work but then you know about these chinese angora rabbits i saw it too and and i had this at that time 100 250 angora rabbits and i just felt so bad i felt sick so a spontaneous reaction for me was to just write down how i felt and also describe how we do in in sweden and in scandinavian and i believe in in all of europe that we do not treat our rabbits like this i cut all my rabbits with a little ham scissor and they are very relaxed and actually enjoys this so i wrote about that and people just needed to hear this so this story of mine were this went viral so it was just spread it over internet many times and the following weekend i designed uh a little hat with pure angora and it was just a white wrap it was not a white hat it was not very pretty it had little red hearts on it was just like sending a message by angora with your heart and and and and i sold the instruction and tried to collect money to do something for the angora rabbits in in china and the the news uh the newspapers wrote about this and the postlands museum saw this article and they contacted me but a few months later i needed to learn to dye yarns myself because the spinning meals requirements the terms for the minimum quantity i needed to spin was was a problem to me so i had to learn how to dye the yarns myself so i phoned sulway and we talked for long over the phone this was around new year from 2013-14 that those days and it was a very important first phone call we realized that we were very alike so i promised her to go and see and uh and that was actually the start of it and to to go back to about the hand dying of yawns she was so helpful and she told me everything i needed and that was just to to to get started so as you said solve i retired around 2014 and handed bo is sticking to you so you've been doing it now for about six years has she continued to mentor you during this time solver have been great simply just great i did exactly as she said i bought all the materials i needed the the dyeing powder and everything and other things she told me to do she's sent by postage samples of the correct colors and through the yeah you know email she sent me the recipes about how to dye the colors so the first ones i did or it was both the new esselian and the forest darkness both on black main color the new ursa lien with just five pattern colors and the forest darkness had six pattern colors so they were quite easy to start with the new azalea with some red red shades and the forest darkness was greens and blue so it was quite a palette to to start with so when i have dyed the colors and i was satisfied then i went to her and we you know the the hours just went too fast and i felt like a daughter when coming to their home and you know i had five children at that time age one to 11 years of oh of age so often i i had them with me so we got very we became very good friends and she and how she mentored me it yeah well i had all the help i needed so i i was a success too i can say and then at the same time when soul wise would try she wanted to retire bohuslan's museum would make a book about soul wise work to honor what she had done to to to the revival and also to summarize all of her work and that book was planned before they found me but anyway it was to be published i had one year [Music] on me to to be able to recreate all colors ready for when the book was published so that was my time frame my goodness you must have been so busy five children angora rabbits and doing this that's that's an incredible accomplishment okay now together you and your husband farm around 250 angora rabbits for their wool so we'd love to hear about the rabbits now what is involved in breeding angora rabbits to harvest their wool yes you're right we have by now 250 angora rabbits on our farm and that's the number of angora rabbits that i aim for and then i talk about adult rabbits who who produces the first class wool that i need in the yawns the the angora rabbits are the core of everything i do so what's the most important for me what is it all about for me is actually the rabbits the rabbits came first they came prior to the the interest of knitting or anything else i'm actually a sea captain and my husband is two and i've been doing nothing else but sailing since i was 18 years old my mother told me to knit when i was a child but the during the years at sea i didn't need much but just to to make a point of that that the rabbits are the the most important the starting of everything and then all the others come with it so so i have to give my rabbits all attention always and then sometimes people have to wait to get an answer on the mail they sent me yesterday or wait a few days to get their ordered kit or something because the rabbits they are so important it has to be the best health and they have to be well treated in order to give the the best wool that's quite natural so and they are actually eight year eight eight months old before i can use the wool for yarn from the younger rabbits it's a different kind of wool that is more well that could be used for felted products and the same actually with the wool from the rabbit's belly which is why i only use the wool from the backs and sides so angora rabbits they are adorable they have their own personality and they are all actually very very calm and easy to handle i cut their wool with a little hand scissor once every three months and i use a hand scissor for three reasons actually because i want it to be nice and quiet and cozy i don't want a machine making noises and also like that i have all wool goes through my fingers so i can sort it and be sure to only use the first class wool that's individual from one rabbit to the other how far die down the sides i can i can go and and also i i ensure that you have no little millimeters of you know double cut if i cut the same fiber twice so i wipe that actually by using a hand scissor even if it's possible to do it with a machine so i prefer to do it that way so it it takes sometimes it takes me about five minutes actually no more than five minutes to cut off the wool from the back and sides and then of course on the belly it takes a little longer i reckon 15 minutes because there are legs and and things you don't want to cut and it's a bit trickier so it will just it will actually lie on its on its back like a little baby when i when i when i can cut the wools on the belly so it's a joyful week to have to take care of my rapids and how much wool can you get from a healthy rabbit well my very best rabbits actually give 200 grams of first class will i only count the first class wool on their backs and sides if you you count the the will from the belly i believe you're up to 300 or so but then that's just my very best my best 10 and of course it's those that i want to breed on what's most important is of course their health and the quality but that they have a good amount to of course is important but health and quality is the the what i breed for actually so 200 grams on my very best and then in average i say 130 grams of wool i have both white rabbits and they've been greeted for for several hundred years so those are the ones who gives the most wool and then we have some colored rabbits too i have many many different actually but i put them into three categories categories the white the yellow and the gray and half of my rabbits are white and the yellow and gray well that's one quarter of each and they don't give as much wool as a white one since you've used short hair rabbits to be able to get the colors on the rabbits but i think they are so adorable and you know they give a life to the garments and to the yarn which you cannot achieve by dyeing it so these natural colored yellows and their grays well i'm no business woman i can tell because then i will have only white rabbits but they they give they give me something that and and it's so joyful too and to work with them so 130 grams per rabbit is the average of i count them all so what are the special qualities of angora wool well angora wool is very special it is the softest wool you can you can get and it is it is very fluffy because the fibers they are they are so fine it's very very fine fibers and they are hollow so they weigh nearly nothing so it's very very light and also it has a very good warm insulating effect i've heard that divers actually wear angora love gloves and socks yeah that's right it's very popular amongst the divers and fishermen and hunters because it is so warm and it's so like and your backpackers it weighs nothing so you can easily pack an anger up all over and and and go climbing or whatever and and it can obtain several times more moisture compared to sheep wool for instance so that you will not feel wet even if it is wet my own children they have been all of them of course having socks and hats and and so and i can play out store in the snow a whole day and it will be of course wet on the outside but it will be as dry and and warm on the inside so it's a it's it's an amazing fiber actually to work with it's also dirt repellent which is very good when you have white children out in the snow and in the woods and it's strong actually you wouldn't think that it is this strong because it's so fine fibers and when you when you talk about tensile strength it's actually stronger than sheep wool so it's an amazing fiber actually and you combine it together with merino wool don't you that's right that's a good point there was absolutely no elasticity in angora there are no fat grease in it either so it's very it is it does not hold together at all it's just flies away it's very light and and when i cut the rabbits it just falls down like snow nothing that holds it together so because there's no elasticity in it it's it's a good thing to to blend with some with some sheep wool lambswool so that's what we do in our yarns used for bohus thickening we have 50 percent of angora and 50 merino wool that is splendid on the spinning mill so that will help keeping your garment in shape and you know the ripping back into yes that's what i remember you telling me before that it's if you do a mistake in your knitting you can actually rip back quite a few times and the quality of of the angora wool will stay the same is that correct that's correct you do not have to be afraid of knitting in angora because it's too fun and and you don't have to be afraid that it's not possible to unravel you can unravel many many times and it is it is still beautiful and and in the glass for long it's it's it ate juice beautiful it's a a material that actually became it it will become more and more pretty over years when the yarn comes from the spinning meal all fibers are this the same going the same direction and then when you knit from it then the fluffiness of the angora the angora content comes forward and even more when you use the angora garment so my children have had shredders that the i actually haven't even washed it because it's i didn't feel it necessary so you don't have to be afraid that that it that it's too an expensive fiber to use because it is uh no problem to use that it will just be as red wine better over the years that's a good description okay so what would you say to knitters who are considering taking on a bohus dickening project what advice have you got for them yes first of all i would like to to say that you don't have to be afraid to to knit it's it's not that difficult and it's not a special technique somehow it is actually just knits and pearls and if you knit pullovers you have rouse with increasings or decreasings so it's not that complicated as you should think and and also you could you could you could try out with just knitting a hat for a start that's uh that's that's actually what i would advise to do if you want a smaller project start with a hat uh you know needles uh 40 centimeters and and you see how the patterns turn out and it's just to feel and and enjoy the seeing the patterns grow and and experience the softness of the of the patterns this is the forest darkness and and you know it's it's it's it that's all about booze thickening i believe both what we do today and and to connect to the story that's behind it that you can just let your the minds flow and you know to the swedish forests and and it will yeah it's like therapy actually yes that's a stunning stunning design okay have you got any other designs that um that you can show at different skill levels yes i do andrea i will just hold them all up at once that will be easier for me here i have four designs i'd like to show you and there are yeah well i don't think any of them are difficult and and everybody will be able to knit them i've never heard of anybody who have given up and you're always welcome to contact me and i'll help you all the way but of course there are some that are a bit more a bit easier to need than others you could for a start choose one of the designs there that have just two colors in work at the same time and then i have for an example the the rain clouds we call it here that's the chardonnay designs and you never need for more than two colors at the same time it has eight pattern colors and you see it's it's the white main color you don't have to be afraid of using a white main color because it's dead repellent and it's very strong and it's no problem to wash it you wash it as you do with any woolen garment and it's uh it's quite easy actually and it and it dies it dries up in just 24 hours it's it's but but you won't need to do it very often yeah i seldom do and and this is another example of one of the easier ones with just two colors in in in all rows it might be one or two rows with three colors at the same time the the green wood this one is called and then you have some here i show you two of the most difficult designs i have been talking about the wild apple earlier on this one has 13 pattern colors so you have very many colors and some rows there are four pattern colors in work at the same row and many rows with three colors at a time so that's a challenge for yeah for those who wants to to have a bit more and yes that's one that i'd like to tackle yes and i will also tell about this one uh that's uh warriors bullet and that's difficult in a different way because here you have you know little tracks the deer tracks uh up here and you will have little balls of yarns to to um to use so so you have to have patience when you do that one because it does the the the yarn does not go yes around like that and just for the viewers who are watching the the models around you what have you got to your right there on the on the model what's that one called this one is called the the the blue edge and this is in a pure wool 100 percent wool annalisa manheim i learned the sign and then we have randy gallopin that is emma york i've sent in just two colors and this one the very early designs and there are no pearl stitches in this one the very early designs there were just plain stuck in it and and then later on they started with with the pearl knits to get an extra texture in the designs and then the one i'm wearing is the blue shimmer the most popular was the one on the light blue main color and this one is a darker main color which was also an original design and this one is in you know when you talk about how difficult they are sometime somewhere in between the easiest and the hardest so some rows with three colors at the same time okay and the one to your left up on the on the mannequin what's that one this one are two different variants of the the flower beds also annalisa meinheimer designs from early 40s and you have it with the whole pattern fronts one colored sleeves and one colored on the back they are knitted from down and upwards and the other one with a straight yoke they're very very beautiful and they had both hats and mittens and gloves and so on well they're totally beautiful garments around you so i'm sure the viewers have just been feasting on them the whole time you've been talking just one last question what do you see is the future of bohus stickney and so in your opinion what's important to keep it alive and well in the future well i think it is important to keep it alive and and to do so it is very important that we keep knitting these beautiful garments and the recreations and i would just like to say also that it is of most important to me that that always to dye the colors as exact as possible and and i will never offer kids that are not exactly as the originals i nearly every day get questions if it's possible to change this color to another color or have this design with a different main color and and and i will not i will be authentic i will be i will honor bose thickening and and wanted to be as they were as authentic as it were so i will continue my work and i will be happy to be able to recreate more designs there was so many it's just a very very little part of all that were from that time that has been recreated but to do so we need materials we need the samples of yarns and the patterns and and garments so so i would like to also once again if you have something in your private collection please don't throw it away this is a heritage from boohoos land and and and it is so huge all over the world because it's more than just in sweden than this has become a heritage you have histories of bose thickening in the united states this was enormous and and there are so many garments in private collections and to to be able to for always remember this we must we must use them we must speak about them we must wear them we must knit them so that's a great important and i hope that i'll be able to continue my work and provide kids for for many many years for needles to to knit and enjoy and so i hope that you will give it a try that you will enjoy all the beautiful patterns and all the also the the history and the story about it then and now and and wear it and be proud and be able to pass this on to new generations for them to wear and see and enjoy so thank you very much andrea for letting me be on this show it's been a great pleasure well it's been a real privilege to have you on the show and it's been fascinating to hear the history of boa stickening to see the completely stunning designs and and the dedication and attention to detail and the authenticity that's gone on through the original designers and then solvai and then yourself it's all been really fascinating to see and it's also been really interesting to hear about the angora rabbits i didn't know much about that and i know the viewers will really appreciate learning more about that as well so it's been fantastic to have you on the show thank you so much pinilla [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] [Music] me [Music] yes [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Fruity Knitting

Views: 69,534

Keywords: Knitting

Id: NvM9aUeyGSw

Length: 94min 28sec (5668 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021