Bente Geil - Ep. 73 - Fruity Knitting

[Music] [Music] welcome to fruity knitting I'm Andrea and I'm Andrew and this is episode 73 and we've got a great program lined up for you today with two very contrasting feature interviews first we're going to Denmark to interview the design of been tagged Isle who's very well known in Scandinavia for her designs but also for her really beautiful yarn range gask and benta has actually done a bachelor's degree in handcraft which sounds like heaven and is totally enviable but she's so she's bringing a lot of knowledge to her designs and you'll see in the interview that they're very clever designs and they actually come in the full range of 12 sizes which is fantastic and our second interview is with Nancy L Beck who is a professor in the animal science department at Washington State University and Nancy is extremely passionate about sheep and wool production and preserving the rare breeds it's a super interesting interview because Nancy has a very deep understanding of the relationship between humans and sheep both from an animal scientists perspective but also on a really deep personal level and one of her greatest joys is to teach young people how to work with sheep and how to understand them which is super cool yeah so the subject of this interview is obviously not really core knitting but it is really interesting and Nancy is totally likable so we're sure you're gonna enjoy that we're also going to take you to a stunning at 13th century Welsh castle with amazing views we'll be announcing the winners of our fruity cable and lace cow and we're also gonna give you an update on our current projects but we're gonna start with bring and brag yes so obviously we're celebrating the completion of Andrea's hiking jacket which she is wearing now and this is a jacket that Andrea designed for herself and I knit it up it's made in these Jemison and Smith Aran weight wool Shetland wool obviously in this beautiful bold blue the blue is carefully selected to let Andrea be discovered on the top of Mount Snowdon in a snowfall snowstorm in case you get lost exactly she's wanting to get picked up by the helicopter not I'm sure she is we go to Snowden every year or we go to North Wales for our annual vacation over winter and Mount Snowdon is is right there it's the highest mountain in England and Wales yeah and we've been to the top of Snowden to the summit about six times I think and yeah we love the the spectacular scenery there so that's why it's called the Snowden hiking Jack let's see what Snowden hiking jacket and this is my Snowden hiking jacket which I knitted again based on Andrea's design around two years ago so I'm really thrilled to have the two of them both got zippers yes in the last episode about two weeks ago you saw that I had completed the body of the jacket and Andrea had actually stitched it together and put in the zip and you also put in this stunning if I may yes a little bit of ribbon here along the side the ribbon is really cool because it's got I mean it's a beautiful blue as well and I like the contrast but it's also got really lovely seagulls on it and that's totally appropriate because at the summit of Mount snow and there are always see girls I guess we're not that far away from the coast no you can see it part of the adventure there is that we've got our dog Jack with us and Jack would like to catch the seagulls which is really scary because Mount Snowdon is pretty pointy at the top and if he ran away then there's every chance that he would run over the edge of the mountain down the cliff yeah so we hang on to him tight and kind of have a heart attack as a tries to run away people say that poodles are really intelligent but Jack keeps it very well concealed yes very silly dog yeah so in the last couple of weeks I've finished off the sleeve so the two sleeves and the exciting bit was has apprentice to master knitter Andrea I was inducted into the art of back stitching and I think I did pretty well you did really well I didn't find it too difficult there's two obvious challenges with most of the things that I do one is figuring out where to put the needle exactly and being confident about that and the other one is of course tension yeah so at first you weren't pulling the stitch tight enough yeah so what's the tension the other thing that I noticed andrea has this particular technique I don't know if it's an entry especial or an industry standard but after after a couple of stitches I have to take the seam and give it a good tug and my understanding is that that's to make sure that it's not too tight but it doesn't end up puckering that you have it over over build it yeah yeah but you're doing super well I dunno if the result is really great and I love the jacket overall yeah yeah and I really like the squiggly little cable lines down here yeah that's a wiggle cable technically wiggle cable but it still keeps it sporty looking it looks very sporty and that's just kind of elegant yes yeah yeah cool and I think you did the same super well and it's great to have an apprentice who's so good at stopping stitch and backstitch I'm a master of stocking stitch and bass very useful we're onto under construction with me and I'm working on two projects at the moment which feels pretty odd for me outrageous yes the first one I'm going to talk about is aberdeen by martin story and we're actually running a martin story knit alone right now so you can enter any of Martin's designs whether it be an accessory a garment or a home decor project and we interviewed him in the last episode so you can go back and have a look at that interview for inspiration if you'd like so if you haven't joined in already please feel very welcome to do so it should be a good Karl he's got a ton of designs so I'm doing Aberdeen and it comes from this book here which is unfortunately no longer in print it's the Scottish Scottish heritage knits here's a picture of my design and I totally fell in love with it not just because of the argyle patterning which I really love but because of the amazing color combination which I really fell in love with so I want to keep exactly that color combination but he's designed it for the yarn Rowan fine tweet which is no longer available and I've substituted it with the Rowan filter tweed and miraculously I've achieved the same gauge which is amazing it doesn't means that I don't have to change any numbers which is very helpful so I've tried to pick the colours as close as possible to what he had in the fine tweed and last episode I showed you my swatch here it is here and I talked about the dilemma I was having in trying to pick the right colors for the contrasting band and in the end and thanks for all of your input by the way there was lots of different answers and suggestions in the end I went for the dark red and I did that because I thought it's going to be enough of a contrast and it also I think that heavier look is is more gonna make it more balanced overall I thought the orange in the end was a little bit too light and some people what I was actually really after was a very deep burnt red like an orangey red and if they just don't have that in the filtered tweed color range and some people were suggesting other substitute yarn Browns that did have that color but the problem is the filter tweed and I can order for now that filter twee isn't a pure wool it's mainly wool but it also has viscose and our Packer in it and viscose actually stretches with the natural body heat when you wear it and our packer also stretches so I wanted the band to do exactly what the rest of the body was going to do so that's what I've gone for and I'm pretty happy with that I think it'll be fine now Martin has written this designed to be knitted in pieces or a separate front and back and to be done in intarsia now there is a case for it to be done in intarsia because the actual diamond motives are fairly large and the widest part of a diamond is 7 stitches so you could definitely do it in intarsia i've decided to do it in the round as you can see and I'm stranding it behind so yeah if you I was wondering why you um while I was written in the flat I didn't know it was meant to be done in intarsia but if you switch to doing this stranded you're carrying your floats across them the diamonds here aren't you which means you're going to use up more wall have you got enough wool that is a good point that is a good point you're not just a pretty face so this is going to be exciting okay well actually I will quickly phone up Ulrika and tell her to well ask her to please hold another ball of each color but I think I'll probably be fine because what tends to happen if you've got four or five colors in a garment then often you've got yarn left over yep right I might be fine but that's a really good point yes I will use that more young okay now you've got me off my train of thought that I think okay so I'm doing mine in the round now the most important thing here like I said the diamond motive is actually quite big so it's really important that the full you have a full diamond motive directly in the center of the chest and directly at the center of the back and then have the other diamond motives mirrored equally on either side on the front and on the back now what that's going to mean is that on some sizes the diamond motives won't match up at the side seams but the size is obviously the fit is more important and that I won't really see what's going on underneath the swinging arm but it will definitely see what's happening sent a chest and sent it back so what I've done my diamonds aren't going to match properly at the side seams and here if you you can help me now yeah just hold that a second so what I've done is I've done a collar a fake theme a column of purl stitches going up here and that just stops the pattern crashing violently into each other and the side seams don't want that we don't want that no so I'm quite happy with it it's going to be a little cropped top probably sitting to about there and it's got set in slave's I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to stake them and continue knitting in the round or if I'll separate and just knit the foot the top up of front and upper back flat the problem is this yarn is not a perfect sticking yarn it's not percent wool and woolen spun so I'm a and if I stick I may end up finishing the sticks with my sewing machine that is actually less bulky than doing a crochet or some other way so what I will do is I'll play around on my swatch I'll sew it up and cut it up and and see how it behaves so a swatch is really handy for many many things it provides you with a fabric that you can really hack and hack around on and see how it works without wrecking your real project yeah so that's project number one my next project is sculpted frost by Linda Marvin and I'm using a DK weight yarn called tinder by the hilah's Borg woollen mill in Norway and in my opinion it's closer to a sports weight yarn or even a fingering weight yarn but there we go it's a beautiful yarn it's got sort of a little halo on it they say it's a DK yeah yeah it's it's recognized as a DK weight and here is my project I finished the back it's looking good and you can see that it's got this beautiful flowery lace panel right down the front of it so I am actually knitting to a completely different gauge than the pattern and I'm not using the recommended yarn so I have to work out that all of the maths and the stitch counts myself and and here's a picture of the original design so you can have a look at it and you can see that it's actually quite long I'm not going to do mine quite as long as that mine's just going to be come down to sort of mid hip and but okay so I might need your hands now so if we have a look will hold it up quite close and you can see so it's it's the main body of the pepper is is a big lacy flowery panel and then you've got two little thin stocking stitch panels in each side and like I predicted my armhole shaping just happened here in the stocking stitch panels which is it's kind of cool because it's much harder to do shaping inside a lace panel and if you actually hold hold it at the top and hold it up high you might be able to see that it's got this really lovely a line shaping to it which is it just makes it very sort of drapey and flowy it'll be very pretty when it's finished so there we go back is finished and here is the Left Front which I've already started I've got that much so the design of it is going to have garter stitch shawl collar in fact the guarded stitch will start down right at the bottom of it just have a smaller panel and then it'll increase in to be a shawl collar and then you'll also have two small pleats or tux that'll run sort of parallel up the front and then round behind the collar at the back and that's all done right at the end so the next stage that I'm up to is doing the shaping the neck shaping on the front panel and it's going to be a very deep V and like I said I have to redo all the maths myself because my stitch count and my row count is completely different from the recommended gauge so what I had to do was at least roughly block my lace because it's impossible to accurately measure you know lace that hasn't been blocked and I can tell from the schematic that the the V shape starts around ten centimeters below the beginning of the shaping for the armhole so I had to just block it up completely so I can really measure and I think I'm ready to start the the deep V mm-hmm so there we go that's an update of this project I think it's going to be very pretty mid-season garment yep yeah okay coming up now is our interview with Ben tag aisle we actually recorded this interview last year in the heat of summer but there are a few reasons we had to put off showing it yeah if you haven't met Ben tag our before you're gonna love meeting her now she is hugely likable down-to-earth and friendly and her designs are extremely clever she has several designs which are made to be worn in several different ways which is really interesting as Andrea mentioned she covers the full range of 12 sizes which is great and the patterns are meticulously written so enjoy benter and we will be back [Music] welcome to fruity knitting we're going to Denmark for this interview and you're going to meet been tagged I'll bender is well-known in Denmark as a designer and as a yarn producer with her brand go ask her patterns are very popular in Scandinavia and increasingly so in Europe and this is because they combine great craftsmanship with a typically simple scandinavian scale that's fun and quirky vente has a masterful knowledge of fitting the female body and has a special focus on the larger lady her pattern sizing goes from around a 30 inch bust to a 55 inch bust and that's a total of 12 sizes and viewers have been asking to see more designs for larger ladies and I think it's cool to be able to feature another Scandinavian knitter especially one from Denmark so it's great to have bento with us today Ben - thank you so much for giving us your time on the podcast thank you and I'm very pleased to be here ok so Ben - let's start with you telling us something about the Danish hair kneading culture for example who were the major influences of hair knitting in Denmark say over the last 50 years and maybe you could just say what their key contributions were and if and how they may have influenced your designing as many not know we have an old lady she's dead already but then she is called also loony ensign and she have made a huge contribution to make knitting profession in Denmark she said why are we meeting at home and no one is talking about it we have to knit and call us sell knitter so she made them she made some knitting drawings and told people this is how you knit and see changed at the special school in Denmark where you were teach handcraft and she she talked a lot about knitting and made knitting known at art schools and at art museums so this seemed a very famous and seat east and west there she met my nae Sega and E Sega is one of the main knitting designers in Denmark - and she's still living in the northern North Jutland well the Sun is always shining and she is he made a lot of designs then and teammates a lot of designs now and she has a daughter that takes the knitting with her so she is also amazing designer and then we have Vivian hooks book see it's about 70 she made a instruction knitting book and then she have made the book about terminally thing and she have just made a book about old Danish nightshirts she have looked around in museums where they she found old shirts and he made the patterns new and made a whole book of it where she tells the story there are knitting techniques in the book so that is a very good thing to do to to bring the the tradition further to the new generation and then we have an another lady called Hannah Falkenburg and she is very good of pointing out what is the Danish knitting tradition it's plain not that many colors and it's like the Danish furniture designs you can look at it and see that it's things or that is Scandinavian so which one of these ladies had a bigger influence on you I think without knowing it it was also known Ian's nation I read about her and think oh that is why we do that and that is why I think this is how I do it so actually quite nice to know where I got my tradition from and the Vivian is very good in doing it to making knitting a joy because he is good in the explaining this is how I do it and I call her my knitting mom so she's the one who really wrote the textbook the Dania textbook on one hand knitting yeah yeah okay I've also noticed that a lot of Scandinavian knitters love to work with really fine yarn so why is that actually I discussed it with Vivian and see because she made the night shirts and she said it's not because we made the night shirts it's because then it was also necessary for us to make thin garments that we could have under our jackets so we work in layers and we have always needed a at needle size three I think three millimeters yeah last night I'd ask some knitters why why are knitting on the those sticks with three millimeters and I have it always on that it's a it's the best thing to do and the knitters generally don't mind a project taking longer because it's on such fine yarns I think and I think others are thinking like me but when you are knitting is not the project you have to have that special garment done it's more than knitting in itself the knitting with the the special pattern or that shape or something it's a it's more about the process than they're actually finishing it then mark we we buy wool we would like to work with wood because we have it in a long time it's it's not something we just wear and then throw away we have it for a long time so when we need something we wanted to make fun to knit and then we wanted to be beautiful afterwards but it's more the process to do it so been - how did you become a knitwear designer what was your crime your training or how did you learn your craft I have had all my my my children and son one day I said to my husband I want to be something else I want to do handcraft and I want to go to that schools particular school where you can get the finest bachelor degree actually I got a bachelor degree in there in how to do knitting and sewing and embroidery and thieving and I got I went there for three years and it was a most fun time in my life on a knitting machine I learned - how to shape things without take it off and then you have to sew it together you can hear you can knit and you can either now in another round so that was very good for me okay so you learned or your seamless designing actually on the knitting machine yeah it was fun to learn how to do it and I was teach on a knitting machine by another called Laura Kia who was a designer something she was not a actually knitting designer but she loved the knitting machine to shape her art okay so it sounds fascinating to be able to do a full Bachelor degree on hand on hand craft no just really quickly what are a couple of the other things that you that you will talk during this degree or or even tell us what was your for your final examinations what did you have to produce at the school we will teach how to teach other how to do it so I'm am I'm a teacher in handcraft so I have to make something in my that was handcrafted but also tells something about you your mind how you think when you are doing something your process yeah I decided I want to make something in contrast that I wanted to make a dress that was made out of old sweaters like at that time there was a movement movement called do redo and do something about your witty old things and I was very fascinated about that so I bought a lot of old sweaters and had some old sweaters and head Simoes sweaters from my ancestors it was very fun to do a dress that was not a sweater but actually made out of sweaters with the long tail behind itself Serpentor on your on your website you describe your designs as being a typical and humorous and classic and Danish how do you bring all of that together so just say something about your aesthetic and you're designing strengths atypical it's why I do a typical is that I was fascinated about this not sewing together when you're finished it'd have to be one piece it was not to be front in the back into sleeves but something else and when I was wanted to start in another place in the garment like for instance on the shoulder in the middle it will be a typical because you're not used to do it like that I want to make Raglan in another shape then usually you do ragnar and and therefore I also have many sizes because you cannot always re math the thing it's going what's going on in the garment you have to do just like what it says because you cannot figure out which way you are going it next it's not difficult to go but some of my analysis is actually fun and they learn something when they're doing it I also say humorous and that is because I'd like to give my my garments my my designs funny names it's like your children it gets a name and okay I give them funny names because then you remember what it was the the Danish the the plane design I do don't do designs with a lot of colors flowers for example for example I do garments with plain color or stripes and we like the plain thing in Denmark I like to knit with ribbing and in small patterns okay so basically the designs are always discreet yeah in a way yeah yeah yeah and you must have learned a lot of technical knowledge through your degree so is that would you consider that a big strength in your designing absolutely I used to say when I'm teaching if you know something you can always build on the top of the knowing what you know so I know a lot about knitting and techniques and therefore I'm doing a little extra I when I design I want to oh how can I do that I try to find out how to some a designing problem because I'm not knitting always from the up and down or down up so I have to serve some techniques take technical problems and then because I know what I know I can use it to put together and I used to say to people try and think what are you actually knitting and how could you solve that problem don't do what you used to try to think because you're actually you know it you have done it but you are not able to do it use it right here maybe you could so it sounds like you love to problem-solve and also perhaps you like to help other people break their boundaries is that right when you're teaching yeah so Ben till we want to have a look at some of your yarns increasingly designers of bringing out their own yarn label so first of all just tell us why was it important for you to do this and then maybe just pick a few of your yarns and say what the blends are and and what kinds of projects are good for I started 11 years ago and when I went to my bank to borrow some money for the for the studio and for pretty big bang on the the man said oh I don't think that with the internet and buying on Deans and it is a very good idea I don't think it's it will stay and that was a that was what my son said then so I I thought I wanted to have a web shop and I wanted to have my Ani Yan and my designs in the stores because there was what we did then today it's the picture have changed and you can do designing without having your yarn because you have rubber we Ravelry intend Marseille probably it's because it's a it doesn't do right in our mouth I think so just laughs I know I know we didn't have that then so it's it is coming it came and maybe today I will consider not having my own yarn but I'm actually glad to have my own yarn because they give my me a certain comfort to I know the yarn I know how to I know what it will do when I'm I did do a specific pattern but the Jana Starwood was the guys tune and that is the most common yarn we have in Denmark is suitable for neither size three and it keep that light thin garment you you actually want a cardigan or scarf or something it's a beautiful Plains it's a little mixed with other shades in it but it's it's actually just one shade but it looks like a little melange I like that very much and that's pure wool if there's pure wall and I say hand wash because not all washing machines can can wash it but in Denmark we have washing machines that could wash boar I know and not everyone had that and then I have the wool plant with cotton in it it's a 45 percent of cotton in it and then is its wool the rest and those two can be may they could do for the same person this one is light like wool but you can feel that if it's cotton like so it gives a very soft garment and that is very suitable for children and for men you know like well it's scratching they they say oh this is just cutting this it's nice so buy this and then I have another again that I like very much it's it's actually known as the soft Oregon yarn and it have knobs in it we like it very much because it looks like it's a little bit from old times yeah it's just one thread or one ply one ply but it doesn't okay it doesn't twist on the bias you man yeah that is very good so I used that for men too and I done specific men cardigan with zipper and they are very fond of it it's called flooding Homer it's a floating is nice and high Murr it's it's a it's a guy that is spending a lot of money but it's it's it sounds like it's a very nice guy but he is a oh I can buy it that and I can buy a bed and yes any money okay so that's where your humorous names is yeah you cannot translate all the names into English okay I actually wanted to ask you another quick question about yarn waves because typically in the states in the UK and Australia at yarn weights are described with names like fingering or sports weight or DK or Aaron together with an accompanying gauged maybe like 24 stitches to 10 centimeters and that's really useful if you want to substitute yarns and sometimes I have trouble if I'm looking at Scandinavian yarns to see what kind of pattern I could use them with especially if I'm wanting to pick a pattern that's not Scandinavian so and because some Scandinavian yarns don't have the the gauge they've got something more like the m/g is being used so what is the most common way of describing an understanding yarn weights in Denmark we don't use fingering or light fingering we I think it's so we say it's suitable knitting or needle size three millimeters or three and a half or four millimeters and we took a lot of meters in a hundred grams actually and is it more common to buying kits in Scandinavia it's more common to buying kids you buy a pattern together with your yarn and that is how we have done it always but now when the the internet and web shops is coming in it's grown that you just buy the pattern and we have some books in Denmark that is known as the book that you can need children's clothes on neither side weenie okay and they said they say you can dip with this and this indeed yeah so we are getting more European or US way yeah there's a lot of really beautiful Scandinavian yarns and I just wanted to ask you as well because a lot of local yarn stores around the world are really struggling to compete with online shops and your yarns are sold both online and in local yarn stores so what would be your advice to a local yarn store owner on how to stay relevant and successful I think they should think that they are customers customer likeable yeah they have to do events that customers will come to and they have to know their customers it's just not one that comes in by yarn you have to be friend best friend within so they will come again and last night I went to a trip with a boat that was yarn store Kiba that have arranged it for all her customers and it's hard work today because you have the internet to compete with you but you have to do something else you you cannot get on the webshop and that is the way events and that is also why a lot of yarn stores in Denmark is arranging the worldwide need in public Day because that is the way to get their customers in and we have a we have a events that is called knit and drink and was barkeeper coming and he's making drinks for them yeah and also I suppose even having designs that people can try on and feel would be a good thing you do that don't you then monk it's common that you need a specific garment a pattern and the people can actually try it on so they can see oh it's not a medium it's an arch I have to her tune it and that gives some comfort to the customers that they have actually seen it knitted well painter let's have a look at some of your design because I'm sure the viewers are really keen to have a look at them actually this is a very old thing but it's I wanted to show you an atypical thing it's um it will not only go and pass it can be single but but you can need to and then you can wear the one like this and you can knit wear the other one like this and if their market is called amening and that is the same as sleeping a little sleep and you have like a sweater but it's actually quite warm in here because you have double layer you can wear it also you can also wear it like this like a scar and it's actually constructed it just you need a long ribbing for about this and then you drop stitches and when you drop stitches it will get long because the drop stitches would make the other stitches longer and then you pick up stitches in the end then you knit around and you get the sleeve so you have stitches and then you pick up stitches and then you knit around and then you bind off and then you have this link so it's actually not that difficult to make now I will show you this best my husband is a vicar and I go to church and when I'm in church I think about knitting and then I can read his speech when I come home he says so that is okay I need in the church too but this particular day I was thinking about this vest I wanted to knit it have drop stitches here and you can put together like this now I'm just around and then it have a beautiful bag with the triangle and the triangle is done because you can wear it in a different way so I will just turn it around then you have the triangle here and in the front you have it like this so it's a it's a long waist and a short waist and you can wear it in two different ways and if you want to make it longer like like this you have to do something extra rows and then bind off then you get it longer but if you want to have it longer the other way you just nip this longer then it will all get longer I can see how you really like to play with different constructions hmm when I'm designing I'm designing like oh I like to knit that shape or I like to use that technique and then I need something and then I put it on my my doll and then I say oh I have to increase or decrease or something and then I knit again and then I write the pattern and then I knit the thing from the pattern and then maybe I'm adjusting something but usually I'm not writing at first I'm designing with my and that is taking a long time but I have to know each stitch I'm making because I want to make sure that is everything is done right when I write the pattern in this comment I wanted to make a thing that could goes around and then I saw oh there's a seam here then when you turn it around the seam will be shown at the front so that is not good so I have to think what to do what to do then I'm actually made like a cover seam it's it's the seam is hidden in here that is knitting techniques that is technique while I'm because I know that I can do it I just have to solve the problem you've got all these techniques in your toolbox yeah and you're constantly pulling on them to solve your new construction problems that come up yeah the the sometimes it's difficult to explain because people are not used to do like that so if they say ah you cannot do it yes you can yeah I would I will make a video show you how to or you can call me I'm always on the telephone when you cordon this is a typical Dana scarf I think because we like to knit in knits and pearls and not that many colors so this is this is a knit and perms pattern and the scarf is called square root in English but in Danish is called creek gun and it's a one pattern that is repeated just one square and then two Square and three square square and four square and so repeatedly and then in the back it's reversed I think it's called the back here then you find off stitches so that is very nice holiday knit because it's the same thing you need to take and again and again I like this scarf a lot and many many many people have knitted yeah it's a very beautiful color well been to thank you so much for spending time with us and showing us your designs it's been really fun to talk to you and get a feeling of debt of the Danish knitwear and hand knitting mm-hmm culture so we really appreciate it thank you thank you for having me [Music] okay so we'll say goodbye to the audience bye bye [Music] welcome back we hope you really enjoyed benter we have a yarn store that's about a two minute bike ride from our house and the owner Ulrika who we interviewed way back in episode three love spent his yarns and highly recommends them she carries them in her stores and she also loves to knit bent his patterns and she loves them because of the Danish aesthetic but also because of the really quirky way that the garments are constructed and you really don't need to be an advanced knitter to enjoy knitting ventus patterns because there is a lot of plain knitting in them but you'll just enjoy the different constructions and the way they fit benta is offering our patrons a generous 20 percent discount offer everything in her online store she has a multitude of patterns for women men and children and the patterns can be bought separately or as a kit together with the recommended jon discount also applies just for her yarn if you'd like to try it out on another project and you'll find everything on her online store or you can buy her patterns at Ravelry patrons will get the discount of both places and as always the details are available on the patreon site we're happy to announce that we'll be coming to the Edinburgh yarn festival again this year andrea has been working very hard behind the scenes to organize a lot of small interviews yes so if you're not able to attend the event in person you can at least look forward to getting a taste of it in the special episode afterwards yeah there is no podcaster lounge at the event this year but they are organizing for some podcasters that have one slot of 45 minutes to have the chance to do a meet-and-greet session with their viewers and that's going to be in the marque we've been given a slot on the Saturday from 1:45 until 2:30 yep yep so we'll be there and we would really love to meet any of you who are watching and know us and would like to come and say hello we're certainly very open to that and that's the time that's specially set aside for that if you're not at the event on the saturday but you are there on thursday or friday then we are going to be somewhere around there from 1 o'clock until 2 o'clock somewhere around the market around the marque yeah we have to keep out of the way from the the other sessions because some other podcasts will have their sessions then meet-and-greet session there but will be somewhere around the entrance there I think for the Marquis so again we're really welcome you to come and say hello we'd love to meet you that's the time we've put aside on both of those days if you want to come out and say hello so that's one to two on Thursday and Friday and 145 145 145 30 on the Saturday so they're cool to meet you yeah so now it's up to talking about or announcing the winners of our cables and lace car and just to recap this car you had to enter a very large project either a garment or a shawl or a rug that had at least 50% of the surface area covered in cables or lace or both now the reason for this is that if you are doing a very large project that has a new to you technique or a difficult stitch pattern and you complete the whole project doing that by the end of it you're knitting will really jump to a new level and you'll never go back again just simply because of the sheer scale of the project and that's what we were trying to we're trying to provide this opportunity for people to really get their teeth stuck into cables or lace and any person who has studied a musical instrument to a very high level or done sports to a very high level will really know this intimately that if you're learning something physically you actually have to do or you have to repeat that movement thousands and thousands of times for it to go into your subconscious and then become an automatic movement and have flow and ease to it so the idea of what we wanted to provide an opportunity to do a large project and for you to tackle a repetitive stitch thing and for over the time for you to find it easy and then feel you're needing to jump to a new level so really hope that it happened for quite a few of the you and you got that result so I forgot to actually shut the lock the thread at the end at the end of February so some lucky people got their their garments in after that but that's totally fine all of the designs that were put in the finished objects thread are just stunning a heap of work has gone into them and you all need to be tremendously congratulated because it's a lot of effort and they look great well done and we'd like to give you a repair or a present but we can't we have two presents though and they're fairly good present surprises it surprises however you want to think about it and this time I actually picked one of the winners so one of them is random number generated and one of them I've picked and I picked number 46 who is Matt from California because he took Norah gonn sky gir design and adapted it to being man's cardigan which I thought was completely black brilliant you can see here a picture of the original design together here with Matt's version and Matt took out all of the waste shaping decreases and the bust increases and that gave him a completely straight sided silhouette and the button band in the original design has a very lovely picot edging which was too lazy for him so instead he just used a stretchy bind-off and this is actually a really challenging net and I think it's totally wonderful that he had the vision to recreate it to be a man's cardigan and it looks great so well done Matt Matt we would like to send you nor Agins knitted cable source book now there is a fairly big chance that you will already have it since your project was an advanced nor agon knit so if you do already have it we would like to give you instead a $30 gift voucher for the wooly thistles online store so just please let me know which prize you would prefer by personally messaging me on ravelry we want to give him the option of two prizes because it's really important to us that we give a prize that the the winner actually needs or wants yeah yes that's pretty important but the second prize goes to a random number generated winner but it also happens to be a man and that is entry number 49 biking Bob and Bob knitted daydreams in lace which is a coat by Brook Nikko and it certainly fits the cowl requirements because it has an intricate lace pattern all over it this would have been a tremendous amount of work because Bob used the needle size of us one comet one one and a half or two point five millimeters and he knitted it in a two ply cotton and linen blend it looks fantastic but it was would have been a heap of work so well done Bob and we'd like to gift you the Japanese stitch Bible which has been translated into english by gail room and gail room we interviewed her back in episode 25 if you want to go back and listen to that and this is a fantastic book it's full of intricate and beautiful lace and twisted stitch patterns so you'll really love it there is a chance of course that you may already have this book and if that is the case then again our default prize is a $30 gift voucher at the woolly thistles online store and Claire does have a range of yarns and kits and books and notions so you'll definitely find something there that you need or that you like [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] there was so much stunning scenery in that hike I really hope you enjoyed it poor Andrew got very sick at the end of that because there was a really cold chilly wind and he did have his fingerless mitts on operating the drone but it didn't save you so now we're up to the least favorite segment in the podcast and that is the patron speech so I'll try to make it fast but back three years ago when we started fruiting eating we knew then that we wanted to keep the show available for free we didn't think back then and we still don't that the show would survive if we made it a pay-per-view service however fruit in eating has to be a business because of the amount of work that's involved I've been working over my capacity now for quite some time I don't want to burn out I really need Andrew to join me as soon as possible in a full-time capacity and that means that we are really dependent on enough of our viewers to choose to pay a small amount on a monthly basis to keep the show going we want to encourage you to think of an episode of routine knitting to be similar to an edition of a magazine coming out on a monthly basis and to be willing to pay a small amount per month on an ongoing basis the free option is there so that new viewers can discover the podcast and for those who really are on a tight financial budget but that's not the majority of our viewers so if you are a regular viewer we really do need your support as a patron so that we can have a fair income it can be sustainable and we can work at a sustainable rate into the future and I want to thank all of our patrons because it's because of you that the show has been available thank you yep so it's time now for our second interview and that's with Nancy or Beck we're sure you're going to love that so that's coming up we'll be back in three weeks time because we are going to be at the end Breann festival so we'll see you then thanks for being with us today bye [Music] [Music] welcome to fruity knitting Nancy old Beck is our guest today Nancy has a PhD in animal nutrition and for most of her career she's been teaching university students all about nutrition wool and the hands-on skills of raising sheep she's extremely knowledgeable and passionate about Sheep and Wool including all the different sheep breeds and the importance of keeping genetic diversity and one of her particular interests has been to help establish industries that would support the rare breeds so this interview is going to be extremely interesting to all of us who want to increase our appreciation of this amazing fiber wall which we really love to work with but it'll be a very special treat for those of you who have either have sheep or dream of having sheep one day so Nancy thank you so much for joining us on fruity knitting and sharing your expertise with us no worries I'm so glad to be here and Thank You Andrea good so just as a little bit of background can you tell us how your love affair with sheep developed and also just give us a quick summary of your expertise and and current activities Thanks and yes it's a story my love and my passion was sheep and how it came to be I grew up in Iowa's oldest of eight and I was the pig farmers daughters what I always used to say and we had every animal but sheep and my father would just would not let us have sheep and my mother read us the story called Rumpelstiltskin and ever since I heard that story of Rumpelstiltskin I just had maybe it's reincarnation maybe something a seed was planted that I needed to have sheep and this sense of urgency I wanted a loom and could never find a loom as a child in Iowa when I attended university at Iowa State University I acquired my first degree in animal science and I studied I took every sheep class that they had I volunteered for every opportunity working with sheep I moved on to do my Master's there in animal nutrition and still working with sheep and helping with some of the sheep production orient patience when I traveled to West to the University of nebraska-lincoln in in Nebraska I found even more that passion for sheep exploded I became a writer for the Nebraska sheep producers I would leave early early in the morning like 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning to go to the research Senate Center for my work and they would be lambing and I would go early so I could help with the Lambs and the building in Nebraska was phenomenal at that time and I can remember delivering a lamb and the guard came through and he said what are you doing here I said I have my sheep my hand up a sheep's bum delivering a lamb he says I need to see your ID I said if you would like it's in my back pocket but I'm busy right now and moved on when I left the University of nebraska-lincoln I started my career as a college professor at Colorado State University in January of 90 and I found heaven in the classroom I love my students and started teaching animal nutrition in many different venues and along the way I became the consulting nutritionist at the Denver Zoo working with the exotic animals because of that I went on sabbatical to Australia I actually took also at another time 19 19 year olds to Australia on an Ag tour and 19 19 year olds are very challenging but we visited many sheep properties so again that sheep resonance just began building even more in me in 2002 I took a group of students to New Zealand as a faculty advisor at Lincoln University and during my free time when I wasn't in the classroom I traveled New Zealand North and South Island but particularly the South Island and my passion for sheep was blown up it I I'm a I'm not cheap but I'm frugal and I went through a junk shop by drift store and found a spinning wheel and I was in love with the spinning wheel it was broken but I was in love with this spinning wheel so I happen to be 45 kilometers from Burton Ashford plant and so I took my broken little spinning wheel down to ash Burton and it's actually this wheel right here and I took it they repaired it for me they taught me to use it they taught me to spin and I would sit in my flat and practice spinning watch in old American movies yes it's bizarre when I left New Zealand to come back to the United States I had not only the spinning wheel I had a rigid head a loom and an hf floor loom and I both I have both of those and still use both of those today so my passion started to come alive as I returned to the States I sold my house in Loveland Colorado I bought 40 some acres right on the northern Colorado Wyoming border and my sheep farm and a room sheep company came alive and with that bringing the students from the University from my classroom and teaching them the hands-on skills that I was taught and my mother and my father's needs I was born with the privilege of learning from animals at a very very small age my first counting classes were throwing ears of corn czar counting flakes of hay feeding the animals and to give that expertise to the student for me and for my husband has become a left hung time calling because if I don't impart the knowledge that's in my head right now that so much is going to be lost yeah who will feed the animals when my popular when my generation is gone yeah well I do actually want to get onto that topic a little bit later with you working with your students but just now currently you have four different sheep breeds that you farm so could you just give us a very quick description of each of those breeds just particularly about their fleeces how do their fleeces differ and what are they best suited for and even how they're best son a spun I will start with the four but I want to give a preface because of the rare wool breeds and I started with a rare root bull breeds working with a mentor and I originally started wanting only the caracal and the Lincoln because I wanted rug yarns but when I started working with my mentor she said that if I was going to succeed that I needed to have a wide variety of fleeces and I started finding other breeds and one of them was the fine will breed called the California variegated mutation of CBM rama del CBM and they are a fine will breed beautiful they look like little Tigers little walks they are the only true us breed their a composite breed and from that fine wool we have the garment fibers that are soft next to the skin and with some merino influence and improving my micron count so that they micron count would become smaller we grew my sheep grew some absolutely amazing fibers we share them once a year trying to accomplish a 4 inch staple so that my hand spinners that's what my hand spinners like and we are very very successful doing that but I have to say that growing the final sheep are very challenging because anytime there is a dietary break and as a nutrition I understand diet but you can see the immediate impact on the animals fleece maybe a break maybe a color change and so as I manage them I always share them right before lambing because if I don't share them before lambing the stress of Labor and any of you have had a child understand the stress of Labor would cause a break in the fiber and so we would cheer right before lambing to help alleviate that one stress so I have the fine wools the other that I'll talk about are the Wensley Dale's and Wensley Dale's are the Cadillac of fiber within the Sheep world the lustrous curly wrinkles incredibly picturesque loved for tail spinning these animals are almost royal the white of the breed have they call them the blue cap and they're very poised very sophisticated but the wool is pure joy to spin the tail spinners in including it in many of the artistic yarns I I can't find any other that an artist would like to include within their rules and it spins up beautifully the third that I will talk about are the Lincoln's and the Lincoln's are probably of all of my sheep are the heart they're very bossy they push their way around what they want and you will find that their personality perhaps reflects what the fleece looks like okay this is an example of the bold broad strong crimp of a Lincoln fiber and like their personalities they have strong personalities the fiber is very strong it is heavy and lanlan but for even outer garments for rugs this is probably the strongest fiber and one of the original breeds that I started to work with the other thing with the Lincoln's is the lamb fleeces are iridescent and I didn't - all of my land places are sold but this is the second cut from one of my young young Rams it still has that metallic luster I will put my Lincoln land leases against a Wensleydale fleece the micron is still fairly low soft and it makes amazing fiber and how can you resist such iridescent metallic colors that come particularly from these dark animals yeah the fourth breed that I will focus on are the chemicals and the chemicals are a true unique breed they're thought to be the first domesticated sheep their hair breed they are a fat-tailed breed come from the Fertile Crescent Turkey Iran middle China use becca stan kyrgyzstan all of the stands and you will find that this breed is a desert animal and because of that they have the fat tail that where they deposit fat like a camel does but their fiber and many of them are double coated was used to make felted very amazing felting qualities was used to make the yurts that sheltered these peoples these nomadic peoples for generation after generation and the rugs and the fibers still coming our ger Stan you Becca Stan are pretty are amazing are absolutely amazing and we're working with this breed too as we move into the rug yarns particularly with the felted rugs we work with the saddle blanket market because we we have weavers that weave the saddle blankets and they put a saddle blanket on an individual animal and with the heat and the motion of the animal the moisture of the animal the friction as the animal moves is just a natural fealty and the saddle blanket becomes a one animal blanket that the fiber for rugs is is amazing and you've just got a little bit of Caracol hair there can you just hold that up so we can have a quick look indeed this is a caracal fiber it is I think that I just shared this last weekend it is indicative of the undercoat and the undercoat along with the guard hairs and with heat and friction this becomes felt it is why we can never blanket our caracals because we you just sheer off one little blanket that is the shape of the sheep yeah so the felting is very natural particularly with this downy undercoat and the guard hairs I do know that amongst our viewers we have some small-scale sheep farmers who are breeding for wool quality but we've also got a lot of viewers who are just very passionate and endlessly curious about wool so I thought it would be really interesting for them to hear about a couple of your most interesting discoveries concerning nutrition and wool production so could you maybe just share a few of those with us oh thank you for asking that as as a nutritionist and as a professor I could give several hours lectures on those questions alone but probably first and most or most and my students would laugh if they hear this is water just a simple thing that if you are raising animals in a temperate climate where it freezes please please provide them a water source so that they don't have to eat ice eat snow of which they will but that just that heated water particularly should go into lemon when the bodies are stressed if they can have that heated water not so that is tempeh is just below freezing so that it is liquid and not frozen is probably first and foremost one of the important things with an animal production the second thing I'd like to talk about is when I first started and I'm the animal scientist you would think that I would know these things but sometimes we have to learn by doing going back to the hands-on experience and is I was so enamored with the police's that my animals were growing I would keep those animals and focusing just on fleece and what happened is over several couple years is my animals very very quickly got very from taller very short because as you select for one trait you lose everything else and I have beautiful fleeces but my conformation my mothering started to go and so I had to step back and say yes I'm focusing on the fleeces but I need to look at the whole animal I need to look at the body's conformation I need to look the mothering ability I need to look at their birthing qualities as they give birth and that has brought me not only good fleeces but strong strong animals okay so you just mean that you don't only breed for one trait it might be your main thing but you keep in mind the others as well exactly and you will find examples throughout our animal community if you intentionally select for one trait you will have problems so you need to focus on the whole animal for the animals health and well-being the third thing that I would like to focus on is copper and another thing as a nutritionist I have been taught since I took my first nutrition class copper and sheep equals death and what I found with my colored natural colored animals and particularly with my long wools my long wills the Wensleydale and the Lincoln's that grow they can grow up to 10 to 15 inches a year I share them like every eight months they have a higher requirement for copper you will not find that in the scientific literature but what you will see if they are not supplemented higher levels of copper you will get what we call a chromium trachea it is just abandon on the wool a loss of color if you go to the science tyrosine and non-essential amino acid is converted to melanin so it makes sense you need copper for that step to occur so my long wools and my colored animals need copper again you won't find that in the scientific literature the third thing is that the nutritionists we teach to feed for physiological status physiological status is the animal growing is it early pregnant it is at late pregnant but by understanding and ultrasounding your use so that you know who's pregnant when are they carrying singles are multiples and you manage your animals based on the number of Lambs and based on where they are during their pregnancy you can actually increase secondary follicles the animals primary follicle follicles are what they're born with they're going to have genetically you can't mess that up secondary follicles are impacted by environment and nutrition is probably the most important part of that environment and if we provide the nutrients seventy to a hundred days of pregnancy within that window and then maintained until they'll am at a hundred and fifty days they have sufficient nutrients a well-balanced diet you will increase the number of secondary follicles have a more dense fleece to sell to your hand spinners so maintaining the animals nutritional needs in utero impacts the fleece on future generations I find that so interesting so in other words just from my lay understanding the first primary follicles you can't change that's kind of a given and the genetic genetic yeah but the secondary ones you can do you can really change depending on when the animal in uterus is fed like the baby is fed at what trimester or whatever so and that that will totally change the thickness of a fleece if the density the more the density of the okay if you over feed too early the animal is gonna get fat and if the animal gets fat you're going to have birthing issues your the animal will probably develop pregnancy toxemia and abort those fetuses at an early age because the blood can't get through the fat so it is very very important to feed the animals to maintain a thinner medium body condition until that 70 to 90 day window and then then you start feeding to increase those secondary follicles wow that that's so interesting and you've also got you do have a mentoring service don't you so sheep farmers can come and have some calls with you and and get some advice if their nature which is fantastic I do help those who are wanting to work with she provide that mentoring that consulting service but it comes from predominantly from those individuals that I sell sheep to walk them through those hands-on experiences that they wouldn't be able to learn out of a book to answer the question I have help delivered lambs in the middle of the night well someone is literally delivering the lamb and I'm laying in my bed on the phone it's just sometimes you need someone to hold your hand to walk you through that process until you get on your feet yeah you're a you're a sheep Midwife okay so I actually just want to refresh the viewers on your qualifications because you've done a lot of academic and scientific yes study and that's all behind your farming practices so you've done a degree in animal science which you told us and also the PhD in animal trician but you've also worked at the Denver Zoo and you've taught at the Colorado State University and now you teach at the Washington State University and one of the things you you get your students to do is to come out to your farm to get a whole lot of hands-on experience now it is obvious that you can't become a really good sheep farmer just through a whole lot of academic and scientific knowledge but could you give us a concrete example of an experience that you would like your students to have when they come out to you on the farm probably the most important when I have them come out and they're wanting to work with animals is to know what is normal because if you know normal behavior and when your animals are calm if something's wrong you can pick it up immediately and so you watch the animals working you watch them go to the bunk you watch them eating you watch them watching you you watch them chewing your cud and so if something is off you develop a sixth sense on what what what what's going on so I need to take care of I need to take care of the sheep yeah and you said very just very briefly you were talking before about that you've worked a lot with middle-aged women who have you found have had a really good connection particularly perhaps at difficult times in their lives or if they've really made a good emotional connection with the Sheep I think it's because some of us have a calling why I don't know why I have had the passion and love of sheep even before I had sheep and I am finding that the majority of my clients tend to be middle aged women and as we go through our lives and many of the changes that challenge us as women we will find that there are black times and I have there's been times in my life when things have not gone well and I have gone and I have sat with my sheep and my sheep there's a love and a trust between my animals and I they know me and they will come and touch me with her know and I know that there are several times in my life when indeed it has been the animals that have saved me and I think that many women they're seeking something they're seeking to nurture and be nurtured there's a synergistic relationship between and they know us sheep had been known to recognize 150 faces and people that don't I was walking at the national Western Stock Show and I was walking through all these pens of sheep to go up to the top level and all of a sudden I heard this man I know that bad and I turned around and there is a big dark gray Lincoln Ram looking straight at me and I said hello River and I walked over and it was a ram that I had sold a year and a half earlier to a young woman and he knew me he wanted to say I know you yeah there's and there's just this connection between men and women but mostly women in my experience yeah wow that's quite moving story just then well it's been really really fascinating to hear your particular expertise in that side of it of wool and fiber I just want to end off the interview now with a little bit going back in history perhaps maybe you've got a few words because humans have been living with sheep and other domesticated animals for thousands of years can you just say something on how you think that the this symbiotic relationship first developed and if there's time maybe just address a typical vegan concern that is a good question the way what I teach in the classroom is the connection between animals and people humans is the ancient contract and if we go back in time when we went from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic time from the hunter-gatherer to the agrarian societies we had and this is called the mid-and theory the midden are the garbage heaps the first thing that you do when you get up in the morning is you go and do your duty you urinate and you defecate and in these old societies we probably had a place to go do that those were called the mittens and you can I have my students close their eyes and envision you go in and do your duty and there's maybe a little wild dog watching you and the little wild dog is wanting to eat your morning business and every morning you come out you talk to that little dog you notice that it's there you're not threatened it's small and every morning you start talking more and then maybe you bring a bit of food for the dog and eventually that dog is maybe right there on your spot waiting for you and maybe it follows you home and this is how domestication occurred dog moved into our house dog protected us this is part of the ancient contract this is the love the we take care of animal we provide your needs I the animal gives back love and trust and protection we see that even within the Guardian animals on my flock the connection between the sheep and the Guardian animals and between the humans and the animals there is a connection that ancient contract that can't be denied and what I see happening now is the claim of we are those of us who raise sheep are cruel to my animals there is nothing further from the truth if I have a stressed animal that has been abused that not only destroys my psyche I break that ancient contract the and you will not find any good shepherdess that doesn't have a deep emotional attachment to the animal and when there is a trust I'll tell you one more story I was in the barn and one of my little yous was ready to give birth it was her first lamb and she was hurting and she came up she I came into the barn she came to me mama and she ran up against me and ma'am man she's in deep deep labor and I go Moody it's gonna be okay mama and she lays down and gives birth to her lamb and she starts getting up to the lamb and there's this nurturing deep connection between that you and I and if that's abuse I don't know yeah I'm such a silk I get tears in my eyes but yeah yeah I think that's lovely I think I think it's very very interesting and I really so appreciate you taking the time to come and share your knowledge with us on fruit and eating it's been a real treasure thank you for asking I'm honored thank you great okay so we'll say goodbye to the audience now bye-bye [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you you

Channel: Fruity Knitting

Views: 50,549

Keywords: Knitting, Bente Geil

Id: yC6mAtF7_NE

Length: 93min 52sec (5632 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 12 2019