Cat Kelly Crafts Ep. 4 // Knitting Podcast // A longer chat...

[Music] hello hi are we all oh i'm quite excited to be back it's like it's been a long time since i've talked to my phone in my dining room my name is kat and i am knitter from northern ireland and this is where i talk about all my knitting so i hope you're here for this and i hope if you've come along that you've managed to carve out a little space of time for yourself maybe you've got a nice wee cup of tea or a nice cool drink at the moment maybe you've got your weed project and you're going to sit down for a little moment of relaxation with me talking in your ear i think i'm thinking about that because i haven't had much of that sort of a long time myself lately it's the school holidays and yeah things are just crazy in a nice way i'm busy in a no routine to worry about just spending lots of time together kind of way so it's been lovely i'm trying to resist the urge to apologize for how long it's been since i last uh uploaded a podcast one because i did say my last podcast i probably wouldn't manage to do one over the summer and yet here we are polish my halo and two because we've been doing the kind of things that you want to be doing in the summer holiday so instead of recording a podcast the kids say can we go to the beach mom when we go to the beach for the day and in case you didn't hear about it the uk and ireland have been experiencing a heat wave imagine um it's been absolutely fabulous i love that kind of weather so we've loved every minute of it and i've been able to keep the house relatively cool for the evenings for anybody who's not in the uk in ireland the reason why we talk about heatwaves so much is because one we don't get them in our in northern ireland we broke three temperature records within a week the highest temperature ever recorded in northern ireland no i think the highest temperature was like 31.4 degrees celsius which for some people is maybe not that hot if you're from somewhere more exotic than northern ireland but for us that is warm we have no air conditioning in our houses we're very lucky if an office has air conditioning my car doesn't even have air conditioning we're just not equipped for it it's like when the snow comes in winter we don't know what to do with ourselves we can't sleep we don't know how to keep ourselves cool during the day yeah a lot of people complain about it but i loved it and we really did make the most of it we um went and stayed for a couple of nights in a hotel on the north coast of ireland luckily the hotel rooms had air conditioning so that meant the kids and us also slept and then we spent the days at the beach fully sun creamed up doing our best to enjoy the weather when it's here because it's not gonna last already gray and there's thunder going on i don't know if you heard that but also tractors thundering past so there's real thunder and there's a lot of agricultural work going on lots of combining feels being shipped up and down the road so if you hear rumbling in the background it's not my tummy it's whatever's going on outside i've also got three kids in the house so there will be crashes bangs wallops interruptions edits of all sorts through this podcast i also haven't written anything down so i've got things set in front of me that hopefully will guide what i say and stop me going off on a crazy tangent so anyway i did say that my name is cat did i it's my netting podcast if not my name's cat i'm from northern ireland and i'm going to talk about knitting so we'll start with finished projects i actually have quite a few haven't done a huge amount of knitting in the last while i guess because it's warm and you know you don't want to be knitting big heavy jumpers and shawls while it's warm but i did manage to finish off a few objects before the heat hit so the first one i'm wearing this is i think i'll maybe put in footage afterwards but this is if you can see the little drop stitches along there this is the outline tank by jessie may and i've been wearing it a lot it's hot weather means this has got a lot of wear i have had a few issues with it i think maybe i showed it in a previous podcast where i'd knitted about i don't know but that might like four or five inches of it and i ripped it all back because the ribbing at the bottom and then the means stuck in it we're like at a crazy angle to each other which they still are the ripping back didn't help i thought maybe because i'd forgotten to twist the ribs a few times and the little bottom rib that that had had some impact on it but it hadn't um i think it was just the yarn i was using which was i've got the ball bound here salmon hooked which is 60 recycled cotton on 40 linen and i suppose because i was having issues with this my ears are picked up any time i've heard somebody on instagram or on youtube talking about linen or plaid fiber yarns and i think it's partly just how they'll behave um that when you're knitting in the round you're technically knitting in a spiral which makes sense i just never thought about it before and so plant fibers being less bouncy and elastic than wool will tend to sloop which is definitely what my top has done um i also think i didn't help matters by choosing a yarn that is actually a dk weight i don't know why i did that i have a feeling i bought it because it was the only linen type yarn on lovecraft's and i ordered it and i think perhaps if it had been a four ply just that lighter weight of yarn might have made a looser fabric that would have allowed the weight of the the fabric the yarn itself to pull it down a little but it's it's in a real slope but that doesn't even matter because i've worn it loads and i really really like this top and i'm pretty sure i've been knitting another one because it was so easy to knit dropping the stitches was really good fun again i think that would have been even more fun if i'd had like a four ply fingering weight yarn because the dk kind of held onto the stitches and you didn't get a really satisfying drop ladder of stitches and that i think i might have managed with the four ply so i've learned from that i didn't particularly enjoy knitting with a cotton linen blend it was quite hard on my hands but i think after a while i got used to it i'm definitely really pleased with the results i'll try and put in like a little video or something of me wearing it because if i sit up and try and show you know i'm going to knock things flying so that was finished a good while ago when it's really only been getting the wear the last few weeks i suppose when it's been worn my next finished object i was actually laughing at myself nothingness because it was june it was starting to get warm and here i was knitting with a single ply woolly wool i actually cast it off i've got it all folded up here i haven't done all the ends and i actually casted it off the week of um midsummer the summer solstice but i actually wore it that week as well so so much for laughing at myself in northern ireland you always need a wheelie jumper this is the sugarplum jumper um by fable knitwear so i'll try and hold it up so you can see it because i'm not going to try this one on not on this one i'm sorry i'm not going to uh but i'm quite pleased with how that turned out i love how these big balloon sleeves look they're fantastic and i wore it to um my middle child is leaving primary school so a couple of the moms had organized a barbecue for all the kids to go to is like a you know they're not able to do their end-of-year usual things that they do so this was a chance for them to get together and for the parents to get together for one last time before they moved schools so it was outside it was barbecue in the evening and it was freezing and i was very very glad of that very warm jumper and the yarn i used for that was lana grossa felt true and the colorway 73 and i'm kind of slightly worried now because you know i knew when i bought this that it was called felt true but i when i've got the jumper actually knitted up i'm slightly concerned that i it will just turn to felt when i first wash it so it has not been washed and blocked it's just been worn i'll take the plunge at some point and give it a go hopefully it all felt completely i'm also not sure about the we call these polo necks but i know it's kind of turtleneck maybe is the name for it but i saw um must have been on ravelry quite quite a few of people's finished sugar plums they've just done like a uh narrow ribbed band for their collar i just don't wear these kind of um polo neck tops very often but i think what i'll do is wear a few times and decide and if i don't like it i will rip back and give myself you know something that looks a bit more like that because i love the shape of it it's a crop jumper that looks fabulous with my mom jeans if you've watched my previous podcast you'll know that mom jeans and tops are my go-to i love those arms look at those that's actually what i wanted to say at the beginning but i want to say thank you so much to everybody who has subscribed my middle child um is like my social media manager so she keeps saying mom you got 400 and whatever subscribers now and frankly i'd rather not know i'm very very grateful to every single one of you who subscribed but it makes me feel a little bit weird i'd rather think that i'm just talking to six people on my phone if you don't mind but um at the same time it's quite nice to have like i guess it's validation isn't it so that somebody will listen to you and then and enjoy listening to you and even if you're not their favorite podcast to listen to they're gonna want to not miss when you put up um a video so thank you so much and also all the comments on my last video are so lovely to read through them all so i asked everybody and why they'd started knitting in the first place and how i think how they've been taught or who taught them and then what they valued most about knitting nine oh the comments were amazing like so many people who learned you know like a child learned in primary school or they were taught by their mom or their grandmother but then there were the slightly less expected ones like a neighbor had taught them or their mother-in-law or their dad had taught them that they'd been laid up ill and somebody had thought to buy them some yarn and a couple of needles and they just figured it out themselves anybody who learned how to knit before youtube on their own using books hats off to you i'm not sure i could do it there's something about youtube and being able to like watch what somebody's doing and then try and replicate that with your own hands but oh my goodness imagine how many ribbons like there would have been if i'd learned to knit from a book and have been taught by my mum when i was young then able to say what have i done wrong here is that isn't it it's when you've done something wrong having somebody be able to go this is what you've done and this is how you correct that figuring out that way and yet in terms of what people were saying they valued about knitting noi definitely came through very strongly the kind of the mental health aspect of that how and how it was just a solace i suppose for so many people and it really struck me uh i've been sort of mulling over for the last few weeks how important it is for people to be able to create something and i kind of feel like that's got a wee bit lost or just isn't valued even when i say the word create i'm thinking of creativity and to me that means like somebody who's fabulous at painting or drawing it's something very artistic and actually when you're knitting or crafting you tend to be making something that has some element of functionality even if it's very vague and i feel like that's what's important it's the creating something that has a use and has a use for you or somebody you know specifically there's a real satisfaction in that for me and that's what i feel is so important to me in knitting because even if i'm making the 200 suck and i don't need another pair of socks that technically has a function as opposed to drawing a beautiful painting that's very aesthetic and beautiful yeah there's definitely i feel like there's a real value in making something that has a function no matter how tenuous that function might be and i suppose i'm thinking in my head and that's probably why we've been such a successful species on this planet is because we can gain a satisfaction from making something like a tool that has a use but we also have a satisfaction making things that look beautiful as well anyway that's a complete philosophical tangent that's where all those comments sort of took me to thinking about why do we find it so beneficial to your mental health um i feel and maybe this has been talked about maybe there are papers describing this and i've just not come across them but i feel like it's that functionality and beauty and making something with your own two hands it's that combination for me let me know what you think anyway on with the finished finished objects i have another jessie may which i put on a hanger so that i can show you what it looks like i've also definitely got a video already of me wearing this so i will try and fit that in if i can remember how to edit videos it feels like it was a very long time ago so this is from jessie me designs jessie may and this is the breeze racer back i love the back of that isn't it gorgeous looks so nice on and some people have done much much longer and it has a real drop to it which i quite like as well although i have to say this is the perfect length on me for what i wanted so this has quite a story i will try maybe and put a few pictures in as well so because i was using gideon yarns their rockpool colorway which i'd i mean i just i love this colorway let me see if i can show you what i love most about it is these little pops of green that you can see every night again it's not coming out see there's a little green one in there and sometimes you just look down and spot another one when you're wearing it i mean the overall colors these kind of blues and yellows and then this paler background but then these little flecks of green through it are beautiful anyway because i wanted to make the most out of this yarn i kind of thought i want to knit using i had two 50 grams gains and i thought i just want to use it all i don't want to waste a single drop of this yarn i want to use it all in the end that would have been too long but that's where i started and i thought right i'm not experienced enough to have any idea how how much you are in this top area will need i'll not be able to judge that i'll end up playing yarn chicken and panicking or in my head wasting a pile of yarn because i won't have used it so i thought right i'm going to do a new thing for me i'm going to do a provisional cast on and i used i can hear my daughter using alexa in the next room apologies if you can do she's baking i hope it's going well um so i used judy's i want to say judy's magic cast on provision magic provisional castle it was a rock sound nets tutorial i will put all the links below as always um and i followed it so you you cast on using two circular needles and it was very slow going but i was able to do it i kept stopping and pausing the tutorial and did it in one setting because there's no way i would have known what i was doing if it came back to it but it basically left you that you had your life stitches on one needle at the bottom and then you carry on knitting with the next needle needle sitting on top with the idea being that you could then knit nearly backwards downwards so i would have started say here knitted all the way up to the top and then i would have picked up the lower circular needle and just knitted down and finished when i knew it was running out of yarn but then i don't know whether i confused myself or whether this actually would have been the case but i thought well if i get to the rib and i'm knitting that way then my ribs gonna be upside down which i think would be right wouldn't it so instead of all the little v's sitting like that they'd have been sitting like that which frankly when i look at it now it would not have mattered one bit but anyway i thought right well i'll add on a new another new thing as well i will start i will start from my provisional cast on i'll work the whole way up finish the top and then i will start at the very beginning of the pattern and work my way to the provisional castle and i will graft and that was what i ended up doing i ended up grafting it using kitchener stitch so that was quite a lot of kitchener when you see how wide this is um probably a good thing for every time i kitchen or a sock toe i'm gonna be like ah this is easy there's only a few kitchener stitches and you know what i'm pretty i'm pretty pleased with the tension i got i don't think it's very visible i can see where i've um used duplicate stitch in some parts to weave in the ends and there's definitely a bit where the where the rounds met that went a wee bitter eye and it sits underneath one arm so it's not too visible but apart from that i was pretty pleased with what i did i also had i wouldn't say it was an issue but i um because i had two 50 gram skeins i was helical netting for the first time as well lots of new firsts in this one it's taught me a lot um so i was helical knitting but i and you can see there's no pulling at all in the finished top it's all nicely spread out all the colors back in front i feel like it worked out really well but initially despite the helical knitting i was getting some pulling and it was on the first sort of two or three inches of me knitting and i could see that it was happening and i wasn't at all bothered with it with this colorway it actually looked really nice but then as i knitted all up and the pulling stopped it kind of looked like i'd been knitting with one skein realized it was pulling and then switched to helical knitting which as a beginner you don't want to look like a beginner i maybe would have been okay with it you know if i was a few years into my knitting and be like i can freeze this off but i was like oh yeah i'm not sure about that and then when i started at the bottom and worked up it was just this band of pulling like two inch band around it so it worked out okay in the end anyway because i realized that i had more yarn than i wanted for the length of this top i wanted it to be a crop top again to wear with my high-waisted shorts and jeans and things like that you know there's no tummy on show i don't do tommy on show but i like the cropped look um and i realized that i'd probably if i kept that that whole band with the pulling walls it was going to be too long so i decided then to keep on knitting with the yarn i had from the bottom up and then i ripped out my entire professional castle i put a lifeline in above the pulling ripped it all back and then i grafted onto the lifeline so quite a story to get there but i'm really pleased with the top now it has been a little bit too warm the last um couple of weeks anyway to wear will even when it's not covering a huge amount of your body it is still quite warm and snuggly unlike this one that keeps you cool so um it has got slightly less wear in the last couple of weeks but i can see it being worn a lot um another thing that they the helicopter actually caused me problems with probably this is an experience was um up the edges where you're slipping a stitch i always find it hard to get the tension let's see if i can see where it went away but funny i think it's maybe here i find it quite hard to get the tension just right where you were slipping a stitch but because i was heading on nothing i was bringing it in every oh no this was i wasn't helicoptering at this point i was knitting flat so i was doing knitting in the flat and bringing in the different skin every two rows and sorting out the tension took me a wee while i think i got there eventually i could see um a little bit puckering before i blocked it and it seems to have seems to have hidden i sort of feel like i can see it when i'm wearing it but i can't see it now to show you oh there yeah i think you could just about make out there's a little bit of puckering where i've just pulled too tight on the slip stitches at the edge so i guess that's just something to keep in mind i've seen a lot of these knitted in variegated hand-dyed yarns and if you're alternating your skeins yeah just just be careful of the edges if you're a newbie like me so that was another finished object i have two pairs of socks one pair i'm not going to show you because they are destined to be a gift and it's come to my attention that some of the recipients of my gifts may be watching my podcast again that's nothing i'm just not going to think about because it might make me go weird but um i had my first test knit these things that made me feel like a real knitter and it was for kelly menzies of rory and kate's and i think this pattern will be out very soon and it's a pattern that she has designed for complete beginner sock knitters so you might be a really experienced knitter but you've never been into socks or you've just always avoided them for whatever reason um or you're a complete beginner at knitting and you just want to try socks for the first time so it's in a dk yarn which means that they net up nice and fast and honestly it is such a lovely pattern she even lays out like the different sections of sock you know what they're called and a diagram showing you what they're all called which i thought was really useful why it never occurred to me to figure that out in my head i don't know but having it there in the pattern was fabulous um and the pattern is called ballad of the tender foot which i just think is lovely that sounds really romantic so i knit these i'll show you them first i don't have sock blockers so you'll have to excuse me stretching them out there's definitely two of them so they are really lovely knitted top down rib socks and they've got a lovely little design just enough to keep you interested when you're a beginner sock knitter and trying to figure out what the heck is going on in a sock it's nice to have just a little bit of interest doesn't it um to keep you going so i knitted these using adria phil regina regina it's a merino super wash and that's 100 mourinho so i'm going to imagine that these maybe won't wear as well as um a sock yarn with a bit of nylon it but i'm going to use that as an opportunity to try reinforcing the stitches somehow i haven't really looked into doing that yet because i've had no opportunity to wear them but i'm going to imagine that for me they'll probably wear on the back of the heel i wear fluffy socks like this a lot with wellies and willies tend to really rub there and then the flat the ball of my foot is where i would wear socks away but i'm going to wear them a little bit not let them get too frayed see where they're being worn and then i will have a look into reinforcing them in some way and yeah duplicate stitches with something else or yeah i'm not sure what i'll do but i'll figure something out or i'll just save them to be nice winter socks to wear around the house and keep my feet warm so really enjoyed that look out for that pattern i will share on instagram if you're not following me on instagram it's cat kelly crafts and i'll share when kelly releases the pattern because honestly if you've never knitted socks i feel like that would be a really good pattern to start off with i'm not a massively experienced sock knitter this was my second pair although i was knitting a second pair when i started these um and yeah i just yeah it was a really good pattern really easy to read i've not used any of kelly's other patterns but i'm definitely going to have a look through her pattern page and ravelry and see what i fancy and she's lovely that does help so yes there's that pair of socks another pair of socks that i can't show i think i might i'll put them up on instagram as well i think i'm safe to put gifts on instagram but they were the halter skelter socks by shutter monkey and they were lovely soft pattern to use because it was just a little pearl that moved position so it created a healthier skelter as you knitted of course i read the pattern to start off with and thought oh isn't that lovely there's sock one and their sock too so the helter skelters go the different way and then when it came to knitting sock two i was so keen to get on with it that i just copied sock one again so i've actually got two identical socks or identical twins rather than sisters my gauge i also obviously got quite relaxed as i was knitting the second one because my gauge got looser and there's at least a centimeter extra on the foot of the second sock so um the recipient of this gift is going to be told you can just wear them as well socks over your ordinary socks to keep you extra warm in winter so those are all my finished objects and i do have a few on my needles at the moment um one of which i absolutely love but i haven't touched for a while because it's a shawl and it's been too warm this is um the hansel hap the half um shawl by goodryn johnson again i'll i'll link everything and i am using i'll give you a little flash up first so that's that's where i've got to i've got to the lace pattern you start with your garter which was just lovely fun mindless knitting to do and just i'm really loving the lace work oh it's coming out really nice there actually so the yarn i'm using for this is gemstone and smith and i think it's light gray yeah light gray and it's the geminis jameson and smith two-fly jumper weight so i took quite a long time choosing the main color yarn for this because the colored yarn is my very precious um woolly mammoth mini skein set this was in her campfire colorway and i knew that i wanted to use this for this particular pattern pretty much as soon as i saw it it actually reminded me of emma from woolly mouth fiber companies her own hansel hat that she had not did using i think entirely jameson and smith um and i don't wear those kind of bright colors ordinarily so i knew i wanted to sort of tone it down but also help them pop by using a gray and i think i was just being a wee bit precious about what yarn would go well with woolly mama's yarns it had to be good enough to go with it um i have to say when the jameson and smith arrived i finally decided on it and when i arrived in the bowl i was distinctly unimpressed is that really bad because i know how well loved this yarn is but i i don't maybe it's the ball maybe i'm used to you know the fancier yarns being in a skein maybe it's just maybe in a beginner not being able to recognize fully what the yarn does so i was a little bit skeptical when i started on this but honestly see as soon as i've done the first little triangle of this shawl it just came into its own it's such it must be like unimpressive in a bowl and then as soon as you start knitting it just it felt so beautiful it had a lovely sort of drape to it probably because of the looser gauge that you're knitting here but honestly i had a little triangle like that size and i was like yep this is gonna be fine it's gonna go beautifully with my woolly mammoth yarn i have no worries and yeah i've been really enjoying that so this is um a show that i'm knitting as part of a knit along can't forget to mention that it's the across the pond shawl cal and you can follow that hashtag on instagram and i think maybe have a ravelry group too though i've yet to venture into that and it is ruth from ruth loves to knit and fernanda from little monkeys and me thank you very much fernando for mentioning me your podcast i have a feeling a few of you may have fight me from her um two absolutely lovely women i really enjoy watching their podcasts and bruce voice you know feels like listening to somebody from around here and the fernando's just so sweet they're lovely highly recommend their podcasts um so yes i'm doing this as part of their knit along i think so far i've only popped up a few photos on instagram but there's some gorgeous shows going on there um i probably would have left this until later in the summer but that then it alone pushed me to start it i actually got really frustrated that i was at the last so soon and it seemed to be going so fast do you ever get that when you're doing a knitting project you're like no please don't end i don't want you to end yet so the really hot summer weather has done me good because i have set this down and not really touched it see i'm admiring it myself as i'm showing you because it's coming out really nicely there i can't wait to see it all blocked and finished but no i can't wait because i don't want it to end i think i'm starting to realize that i love lace i'm enjoying lace knitting that's definitely a realization i'm coming to speaking of which another thing i have on my needles and there's really nothing to show this is using um some leftover yarn from irish artisan yarn it's the cleaf colorway and i'm knitting a teeny little bit it's visible using my mom's circular needles with the crazy cabling um so this is again actually i think i'm showing you the wrong side oh actually i can't remember which side is the right side on the wrong side and this is again it's kelly menzies of veron cades it's her stitch on sunday blanket i think this is week seven she has names for every one of the squares i can't remember what the name for that one is um so i'm you know learning lots of lace it's basically a square of lace every sunday that you can knit i think there's going to be 40 42 of them 40 would maybe make more sense and when you finish them you'll be able to sew them all together or you can sew them as you go kelly shows you how to do that um and you'll have a blanket so these are some of the ones i've done already must be on week seven one two three four five six yes i'm on week seven um i actually bought a cone of yarn thinking that it would make a really nice gray base color a little bit like the show i've just shown you i wanted like a gray color that would allow my leftover yarns to sort of pop in their little squares so i ordered a cone but i find that it's not going to work for that particular use so it's a i'll keep the band on it yarn to cone by woolly knit um and it was partly my fault in that and i don't think i realized when i looked at the colorway online that it actually it's like a dark gray strand i don't think that's going to come out on this it's like a dark grace and worked with a light gray strand that's never going to focus nope it's not if i do that um anyway the strip gray that i'm getting from that doesn't really show up the lace very well which i'll show you i can't remember whether that's the right side of the wrong side so that's one of the squares see again with this shadow coming in from the window that's actually looking quite nice but i was finding it really hard to read the lace and see i've kind of set myself a challenge for these squares where as i get up the square i'm trying to be able to read what stitches i did and you know remember as well and not have to look at the written pattern by the time i get to the top but i just feel like that doesn't show up quite the same as even this is some willie mammoth yarn in a variegated color it just shows up a bit better and yeah i find it quite hard yarn to work with now it is suitable for machine knitting as well as hat napping and again maybe that's just me not fully understanding that it would be slightly different and i also think it's got a very low twist which doesn't help i think the higher twist gives you a rounder more bouncier sort of yarn that shows the stitch definitions better so that cone of wool is not going to be used for my stitching sunday blanket i've got two squares of it i won't be using anymore but i did buy some more i think when i was getting the yarn for kelly's sock pattern to test knit i bought some just four ply um solid color yarns that are working much better to let me see what's going on now they're hilarious these little squares in mine because you can see these haven't been blocked yet but you can see like how i don't know i'm like going awful on here and messing up the whole pattern and then by the time i get to the top maybe the top two repeats are good which i think is actually quite cool and i'm going to enjoy looking back on that in a few years time ago oh bless i really thought i was a knitter then what did i do but it's nice to see the progress and it's going to make a lovely blanket so yeah i'm using random colors kelly has put up some gorgeous photos on her instagram page she shared like other people are doing it and they're on these gorgeous toned colors and they do make me a wee bit jealous because mine's going to be a multi-colored hodgepodge but it's a learning curve and it's going to be a blanket that i think i'm probably going to love more than the really pretty pretty ones that perhaps i'll make in the future so i can also show you something that i am planning to use this for it is gorgeous like this is a lovely yarn and the fact that i have a cone again makes me feel like a knitter i have a cone of woo i've done a test knit i'm definitely in it for now aren't i aren't i so um i did a little swatch holding that yarn double um and you can maybe tell what it is it's the ranunculus lacework pattern i mean i just i don't know i mean what kind of a swatch is that i just i think i just wanted to knit that lacework again and yeah i think this is going to be perfect for a lovely winter ranunculus i've got my woolly mammoth short sleeved wide-necked summer one so i'm going to go for the narrower neckline long-sleeved one using my cone of wool he'll double for winter i don't know when i'll cast that one but that's that's on the cards at some point and yes the only other project i have on my needles again is a gift i will try and put some photos up on instagram of that one so if you're dead king to see what secret projects i'm working on you can um find me on instagram and have a look can't promise i'll be putting it up today someday i'll put them up so yes that's everything that i have on the needles at the moment and i'm quite enjoying watching the olympics while knitting anybody else doing that that's quite good fun um sitting in a darkened living room the sun comes into our living room in the afternoon so we've been pulling the curtains and just sitting there's something about watching the olympics and sitting on your butt doing nothing while watching the pinnacle of athleticism work their butts off on screen that always makes me giggle it tickles me every time the olympics roll around and i do also have some other things to show you though so my mom gave me a little pouch that had all the equipment you needed to learn tatting so tatting is a form of lace learn tatting with lace it lasset lace-it publications and it had the little shuttle already wind and you work with two yarns and i just thought i would show you this i know it's not nothing but it's crafts because like how cute is that let's see if it will focus by my face and this is it's quite fun to learn using like a paper instructions as opposed to youtube because that's that's what i'm following you see they're like diagrams i'm very creative and there are some examples of actual beautiful tatting lace so i've not done very much of it but i've been really quite enjoying that and it's funny i really noticed how like the muscles on my fingers were being used differently such a different motion because you're kind of pushing this through and then you're using your fingers to loosen and tighten the other yarn to get your little loops that was quite good fun there's loads of youtube videos of tatting if you are interested in watching some of the pros do it and there are some people can do it super speedy i'm so slow and have to refer back to that constantly and i'm sort of struggling to think of what i would ever use tapping lace for to be honest like edging you can see people make quite nice earrings i was thinking those 90s chokers are sort of coming back in aren't they i know um i could probably find people small people who would be quite happy to have one of those and again i think that's playing back to that whole chat about functionality that i quite like whatever i'm making to have a use and a function so i'm doing this and thinking what would i ever use this for it doesn't it's just decorative doilies would need to come back in fashion little doily coaster so you could make loads of those with tatting um i also just wanted to quickly mention in case anybody else had not realized this maybe you're all way ahead of me but um i ordered books from the library and there is such a wealth of knitting books that i actually got completely filmmaked and only ordered two this one came pretty quickly because nobody had it out and i'm on a waiting list for the other one which i think is about shetland wool or something and i keep meaning to go back on and order more books so i don't know what your local region would be like but certainly in northern ireland the amount of knitting books that are available that you can reserve and they will make their way to your local library and then you you can use the app and you will get a little update telling you that it's ready for you to go and collect and you just walk in and lift them and i think possibly because of covert or maybe not maybe this is normal i had like three months or something to read this and leave it back and i need to leave it back soon actually um this was quite a nice book it's not really the book that i wanted to talk about it's the fact that you can you can order these books from the library so i'm definitely going to go in and order some more i thought this one would be a bit more sort of like a discussion about the process of lace and you know because it's called slow knitting a journey from sheep to skein to stitch and i think i kind of wanted it to be a little bit more wordy a little bit more novelly um it's also us-based and what it basically does is take you takes different yarn producers and gives you like a little story about that particular yarn producer and then there's a pattern using that yarn producer's wool i think had this been based in the uk or ireland i would find this really really interesting because i would have been able to have some sort of frame of reference to it it was a lovely read and none of the patterns really stood out to me and because it was all u.s i just didn't have that kind of frame of reference for the places they were talking about so it didn't grab me as much as i thought it might have done it was a little bit different to what i thought it was going to be but i can't wait to sit down properly have a real look through what's available and order myself some more yarn books knitting books i mean there's stitch bibles there's everything i think it was just too overwhelming you know it must have been nearly three months ago that i looked online and saw what i could order but in case you didn't know get onto your local library and see what you can get because my god between youtube and instagram inspiration and my library providing me with every knitting book under the song i am going to need five lifetimes to get through everything i want to do and that's what i'm going to finish on because a lovely lady called i think it was jacqueline left a comment on my last podcast video um saying that she was working on a pattern and when i looked up this pattern i fell in love like that that's the first time i've ever looked at a pattern and gone yes i want that so jacqueline just mentioned that she was working on the astrid jumper i can't remember the name of the designer i will put it along here or down below and as i was doing with everybody's comments i you know how do we search for whatever pattern people had talked about and i had a look for that astrid jumper and oh my goodness before i even saw the shape of the jumper i was like yep i want to make that and then when i looked into it more closely i was like okay the jumper probably wouldn't be the kind of jumper i would wear but i still want it i'm now going because i think it's streets ahead of where i am it's basically this beautiful jumper collar work from here right down to the bottom and then these fabulous wide cabled arms i'll see if i can find a weak picture and put it in i feel kind of bad about doing that are you supposed to do that oh i don't know i'll have a look if i decide not to go and look it up um yeah i just fell in love with a pattern so that's now my goal it's like i've got to learn color work i've got to do more cabling all so that i can make myself this jumper is this how it works this is what you end up doing and nothing i don't know so speaking of colour work i had in my head thought that i wanted to do some color work and i ordered um the shetland wool week 2020 magazines that they called annual they call it manual so i'd already been thinking about color work because i knew i wanted to try that um and i think initially i thought oh i make the um oh what's it called yeah here it is the kitties cap and that wilma malcolm son designed and i think maybe i think maybe shannon will wake do like a free pattern each year i feel like that was like the the pattern that sort of highlighted all week for that year but i don't wear hats very often it's a bit hard for hats when you big bouncy hair and so i was thinking maybe a pair of mittens like fingerless mittens so i haven't made any decisions about this but i'm thinking maybe looking through the the woolwick annual the merkin dags so dags dags are fingerless gloves once worn by men processing fish on the beaches they were knitted with a short rib at top and bottom and half a thumb i like the sound of that i don't think i like wearing knitted gloves i don't think my knitting's going to be very comfortable around my fingers so possibly that or the bosy gloves which are knitted gloves but i really like the pattern of them and i'm wondering would i be able to knit them and sort of stop the thumb and the fingers so they're they're fingerless mittens but you know they have fingers to them and then that gives me a little bit of practical collar work that means that the astrid might be within my grasp maybe someday i think i think it's good to have a kind of out of your reach out of your grasp project to push you on i think that's maybe going to be mine it's definitely the first time i've looked at a picture of a pattern and gone i need that i need that i think i'm more of a process knitter where i enjoy the knitting process and the final product is like yeah great i'll wear that that's the first time i've gone i just want that i don't care whether i wear it or not i just want it i want to own it i want to have it yeah i highly recommend looking up the astrid jumper if i did not put a picture in please do it's gorgeous well that's all of my knitting chat or is it yes it is well kind of because i also wanted to mention the inspiring yarns guys uh the family of inspiring yarns because i got to meet up in person with fellow knitters for the first time um i'm trying to remember when it was must be a few weeks ago now but we all met up um at this retreat that's on a farm nearby so we were mainly outdoors but there was a big room that we could use as well and it was my first time in real life with other knitters and it was just lovely so i went on my own um and i think quite a few people came with someone or they already knew people who were there there may have been somebody one or two others who were on their own like me but it was so it was just lovely everybody was so welcoming i was kind of shy to start knitting at first i was like oh what's wrong with me i don't want to knit in front of real knitters in case they judge me because they just try to hold my needles i mean imagine um but everybody was so nice and they are holding another one in august and i'm definitely going to pick myself into that one as well and they also do like meet-ups uh is it once a week maybe it is once a week but i've just not been able to make it to them because of the kids being at school so maybe i'll try and do one of those it's during the week um before the end of the summer holidays i don't know um but yeah it was lovely it was really nice to meet people that i'd been speaking to in the zoom in person as well so thank you very much inspiring yarns for organizing that they're also doing like a weekend long retreat in autumn and spring i think don't know whether i'm quite ready to um leave my kids for two nights for knitting yet the mom guilt would kick in i don't know why i mean it's not like you're not allowed to but um yeah very much looking forward to our next day meet up and it was really really good just another another bonus to this fabulous past time that i've discovered so really enjoyed that i also actually the night before the inspiring yarns meet up during the day i went to my first in-person volley class for a year and a half and i kind of knew i was feeling a wee bit fluttery about it on the drive up and when i walked into the studio i cried i started like not properly solving but wailing up with emotion it was it was just so wonderful to see those people in person again and to dance in a room with a teacher and fellow dancers to music again again i'm going to use the word validating again because i think we've all survived through lockdowns and kept things ticking over and i feel like the zoom ballet classes kept that ticking over for me but i was nearly going well you know maybe that's all i need maybe i don't need to drive to belfast once a week to go to an actual in real life bali class oh no i do i really really do um yeah that was that was just wonderful so been really enjoying this lovely weather that we can get together we've had loads of time with family and together with family rather than you know seeing one or two and then seeing another my eldest actually turned 13 a couple of weekends ago and on his birthday he saw every single one of his immediate family members which you know i don't think we've done since pre-covert anyway because my brother and his girlfriend were over from england and they've now moved to france so i'm hoping that in the next few years we're able to start thinking about traveling again and going to visit them because i quite like a way trip to france that'll be nice get some more of that weather that we've experienced here in northern ireland so yes i hope that if you're in the uk and ireland that you've been able to make the most of that good weather and just meet up with people and do that really important social bonding and feel like you can do it safely as well um that's definitely been what's been so relaxing and lovely about it that you're not worrying about getting together um and if you're elsewhere in the world i hope that you either have had a moment of that if you know that's over again because i know in australia they're back into lockdown yeah and you know for some of you you'll be in winter and you won't be able to get outside the same way so just know that in the winter months i'll be showing you the rain outside the window again sun and heat will just be a distant memory for those of us in northern ireland yeah so i think that's all i need to talk about today i feel like i've got a lot of my chest there it's all been waiting for me to just sit down and podcast so thank you so much for joining me you're always welcome here and thank you again to anybody who has subscribed um do come and find my instagram phd um and yeah hopefully it'll not be so long until i chat again but again not making any promises because you know summer months they're just going to be crazy that's just how it should be isn't it um more regular podcasting will probably resume come september i'm gonna have to get a bit professional but i was thinking that as i tried to set up today here i am sitting on a cushion in my dining room i'm gonna have to yeah i'm gonna have to have a look at that get very professional about my podcasting what do you think okay we'll listen everybody please take care and i hope to speak to you all again soon bye [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Cat Kelly Crafts

Views: 1,988

Rating: 4.9682541 out of 5

Keywords: knitting, ireland, northernireland, crafts, yarn

Id: jPNfkIl6dkQ

Length: 57min 53sec (3473 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021