Flossi Podcast: Episode 1

[Music] [Music] hello everyone and welcome to episode one of flossie podcast um it's lovely to have you here uh it's a little bit scary i'm not gonna lie i've um i've wanted to do a podcast for ages now oh hello um but it's one of those things that i keep saying i'm gonna do and then i don't do it um because it's scary and um and i'll be honest it's so far out of my comfort zone that you're probably thinking well why are you doing it in the first place but um i don't know it's just something that i keep coming back to um i love connecting with people and connecting to other makers and i find that really hard to do not in person um social media is kind of a strange thing it's so good in a lot of ways but um i don't know i have an instagram account and i do get to speak with people over there but um i don't know i'm just not always the best at when it comes to me talking about myself and you know writing the captions and all the rest of it i don't know i think a lot of people struggle with um instagram in a few ways and and honestly i just really like making things and i like sharing my makes so i thought this would be a great way to do it i guess we'll see um i guess i should start by introducing myself um my name is claire i'm originally from the uk um a little town called wigan to be exact it's right between liverpool and manchester and yeah and i moved to nova scotia in canada um to be with my husband and this little pup right here who's just decided to snuggle in on my lap which is lovely um but yeah a little cutie there so that's tilly and um you'll be seeing her a lot um on the podcast because she likes to pc and um and yeah this is this is me um i'm a maker i'm a knitter um i'm also a knitwear designer and i like to sew i like to bake um i double a little bit of natural dyeing and basically i like crafting and i like to show people what i'm doing and i like to see what other people are doing so feel free to share with me too and um and yeah and that's basically what this podcast will be about it'll be me showing you what i'm up to and hopefully having a bit of fun along the way and there'll be a lot of tilly i'm not gonna lie she pops up all the time so yeah welcome um knitwear design isn't my full-time job um i do design knitwear under my label flossy i also have a day job which is a marketing social media manager at making stories which is a publishing company based in berlin um i'm super lucky because it's such a fun job i get to work with my lovely boss and friend hannah lisa halfer camp and it's literally just the two of us running the day-to-day things and and it keeps me very busy um but it's a lot of fun so um so there's no complaints here and and yeah and then my other time i design knitwear and i like to make things and i spend a lot of time walking with tilly and sitting exactly like this with tilly um because she's very demanding when she wants a lap so um so i'm not going to rabbit on a ton about me um just because that's not the interesting stuff i'm gonna dive into what's on my needles at the moment and i'm gonna start with not some of my designs um i'm gonna start with what's on my needles from other people oh but i should probably tell you first what i'm wearing um so this is one of my designs this is the first jumper that i ever designed and i released it two years ago i think now um uh this is called corville um and i got to work with the awesome tracevillian yarn um we were based in wales curtin's a fantastic yarn developer diet all of it he makes the most beautiful yarns um and yeah you should be able to see more of this normally tilly wasn't on me but um this is bottom up it's knit in two pieces um and it's just got this really simple cable pattern all over it and it's drop shoulder um and then you pick stitches up in the round and the sleeves in the round and um it's pretty straightforward it was my first knitting pattern i wanted to keep it as simple as possible um and i actually really love it it's one of my favorite knits and i wear it all the time um i find for me it's the things i reach for every time uh kind of that kind of boxy silhouette um simple designs i'm all about um the knitting experience as much as wearing the thing afterwards i'm i'm definitely a project knitter and um i love those kind of relaxing knits so that tends to be what i gravitate to when i design and when i knit other people's patterns as well um don't get me wrong i absolutely love an intricate knit um i love trying different techniques and but i'll be honest they're the ones that i normally end up giving away just because they don't get worn as much which again is completely fine as long as someone's getting the wear out to them but yeah for me i kind of i like a simple knit and um you'll find me wearing a lot of vanilla sweaters and stockinette or reverse stuffing it or something like that and so yeah so that's what i'm wearing at the moment and i've realized that this first podcast has got a very different color theme going with it i didn't i didn't plan that at all it's just the things i grabbed for at the moment um but yeah the first thing that's on my needles i can show you is this sweater um which i'm calling my surprise sweater because i actually knit the yolk for this earlier in the year and completely forgot about it um i was tied up i'd actually moved my work room to downstairs in the basement and i kind of unearthed this project bag and i was like what's in there then um i completely forgot i knit this so when i got it out of the project bag it was up to here so practically the entire yoke was done and this is the fern and feather pattern um from little of wool um if you've ever knit one of jennifer's patterns before this is the first time i'm knitting it um but the very um what's the word for them i guess potato chippy you ever hear when people say that and it's kind of like you just need to do eat one more and it's the same with this it's like one more row and especially when you're doing that yolk um it's a very comforting knit and i love i remember now absolutely loving knitting the yolk and ever since i've carried on it's just flying off the needles and it's a very wintry looking knit i think and it's going to be perfect for canadian winter which is why i really want to get it done um the yarn is hamilton number one by bc gun and it's a worsted weight yarn so and i knit it on four mil to get gauge so yeah it's um it's a little dense it's gonna be really nice it's gonna be so cozy um so i'm super excited to get that done so everything goes well and i do a second podcast i guess we'll see hopefully i'll be a lot further on than this next time i see you um so yeah i just realized i keep looking right about because i can see myself i'm going to look in the lens because that makes more sense um so yeah that is my phone and feather by nic love wool and i can't wait to get more done i'm going to do the waist shaping with it um because i have a tendency to really like um like a boxy fit and i tend to do tinted crop sweaters quite a lot so wear a lot of high-waisted jeans and skirts and things like that and i like my jumpers to just sit kind of right on that waist um but with this one i'm going to do the waist shaping and i'm going to keep knitting a longer version because i can kind of foresee me wearing this to go walking with tilly and when it gets really cold in the house so i think it's going to need to come back up a little bit so so yeah that's the plan for my phone and feather and i can't wait so yeah the next thing that's on my needles is something i cast on last night which is um well i guess to show you this i'm going to show you an older knit first which is the sama mittens um so these are the summer mittens i test knit for any sang um if you don't know denise she's one of i think the best designers around at the moment um she just makes the most beautiful designs and they've always got like they're not overly complicated but they always have like a really nice like just the way she's done like the contrasting bubbles bubbles bubbles um it's just lovely as soon as i saw them she put out a test net call i think it was earlier earlier in the year or it was at the end of last year i know there was snow on the ground when i did them um as soon as i saw them on our instagram i was like i have to knit them because it's just so nice and and i had the best time but i purposely knit a size up to what i would normally knit um and that's because i mean the really warm mittens don't get me wrong but the fingering weight with like a floofy lace weight to go with them and that's how you get those contrasting bubbles um but for canadian winters uh they can get a little chilly um like they're not quite thick enough as they are for me to wear them out and say minus 12 minus 15 if it was to get to that um so i personally knit them a size up because i'm gonna knit a lining for them which i meant to do last year and i just never got around to it so last night i cast on this um which is just a little lining to go in it um i'll be completely honest with you i think it's a little bit big um i knit i knit the mittens on 3.75 and i'm knitting this with i'm gonna i think this is like a heavy lace weight yarn um i knit on 3.5 and i think i need to go down to three mil um yeah i think i'm definitely gonna do that just because it's feeling a little bit too loose um but that's okay i'm gonna rip back and do that tonight but my plan is once i've got the linings done i'm going to play around with a little bit natural dyeing with it um i've got a whole bag of hollyhocks in the freezer from summer um i do the really dark almost black looking hollyhocks that i grew and um probably you can get some lovely colors from them i've never used them before so this is the first year i had enough that i could actually naturally die with them which is why they're all working in my freezer right now um so i think i'm gonna try dyeing the linings with hollyhocks so fingers crossed it's gonna be okay um i've heard you can get some really lovely blues and violets from them and depending on what modern use so if anyone's watching this and they've died with holly docks before and they know what to do please do let me know i'm doing some research into it before i start um but yeah any help would be greatly accepted um so yeah i'm really excited for that project as well because these mittens are already one of my favorite makes ever and i think adding like that little pop of color especially if i've dyed it myself with the holodocs would just be the icing on the cake so i'm really excited about that so that's what i've got on my needles at the moment in personal projects in terms of design work i don't actually have anything on the needles at the moment and that's because i've just finished a project for making stories i designed four things for them for a kid's collection that we've got coming up um that's gonna be published in the new year uh and i think that's gonna be really nice i'm looking forward to that coming out um again to talk about my comfort zone i'm not i've never designed for kids before so that was kind of interesting and weirdly challenging and you'd think designing and knitting for little people would be easier but it definitely was not um but that's okay it's always good to have a challenge but as we speak the samples are winging the way to berlin um which i'm really happy about because i'm starting to get a little bit nervous about them getting them from the photo shoot um but talking of samples i did get two samples back recently in the post from some publications that got published in last year um the first one is this one which are my skog mittens so these were originally in making magazine number eight forest um and i'm really glad to have them back um this is one of those projects where i saw the submission call open up and um um i saw the submission call open up and i'm definitely one of those designers where i can't force it at all i can't be like i don't know it sounds weird but inspiration just has to strike when it strikes not in like a pretentious like weird way but just in i'm just not that person who can just sit down and grasp an awesome idea straight away but when i designed um i got the idea for my skull mittens really quickly i kind of swatched up a few designs um played around with a few ideas and kind of hit on something i really liked quite quickly which is unusual for me i normally i'm like the swatch queen i have to go through like i'd say about 10 different swatches before i land on for one idea until i land on something that i'm really happy with um but i got there weirdly quickly with these ones and um and again it's it's kind of that case of keeping it simple i'm terrible at over complicating things i i come up with an idea and just constantly worry if i really like it it's probably because it's really simple and then i just panicked that then people are like that's too simple so then i kind of throw the kitchen sink at it and um end up with something i'm not that keen on so i kind of have to go full circle again to come back to the simple idea and run with that um but yeah my brain sometimes but that being said these ones um i got there pretty quickly with them and i was really happy when the submission got accepted and i got to work with black yarns um which are fantastic company in the uk and this is the blackest one dk weight and it's the softest it's the softest yarn um it's merino but um it's kind of toothy still i'm not a big fan of like overly soft yarns just because i'm quite hard on them i go walking with this one and i'm not the gentlest person ever um so i like yarn that's gonna stand up to quite a bit of rough housing i guess i don't know what i'm saying anyway i don't like an opal esophagen this is really soft but at the same time it's got a lot of memory and and it's really hard wearing so yeah it's a lovely yarn if you haven't tried it before that's blocky yarns i'm going to put a link to everything below so you can check them out um but i just put this in my ravelry store and on my website as an individual pattern for you to buy um if you want to you can also still get um this was magazine so you can still get this edition of making magazine as well from making um god it's such a nice magazine i forgot how many lovely there's so many cute look at that mousse i love that mousse the second i saw it i was like i've never had any desire to knit a moose before until i saw that pattern um so there are the mittens in making and yeah so you can still get this but you can also get these as an individual pattern as well and um the links are below if you are interested um at some point uh this is wednesday that i'm filming this and i'm going to try and put it live on friday um so if you're watching this on friday just to know i'm still going to be running a little promotion on these over the weekend um so until sunday what would that make it the 29th yes till sunday the 29th these are going to be 20 off for the individual pattern um that's both in ravelry and in my own web store um they are now voluntary her she bolts um but yes so the links are below if you want to check them out um i'll also put the link to the magazine if you wanted to check that magazine out their new editions are as well which is also beautiful so so yeah those are my skog mittens and i also got back in the post um my sample of oh shoot i'm not going to be able to say this i want to say hype cemetery hip some hips are symmetry i didn't name this one um as you could probably tell so this was from pompom magazine and this is the winter edition from last year also and i might as well tell you now i am horrible at pronouncing words i don't know what it is um but yeah they named this one and it's a great name this is the um terrain edition um um and i did two samples for them for this because it's one of those designs that say um it's a big stash buster um and when they sent over this is quince and cold chickadee that i designed this in um which once you've got all the colors in it you can basically make three hats pretty much um because if you just swap around the colors uh i love designs that do that where you can kind of wash out quite a few in one go [Music] and again kind of similar to skog this is one of those patterns that i kind of came to fairly swiftly and um just because i like simple designs i did the usual thing again of um you know coming up with a really simple idea thinking that's too simple and i think that's why i ended up being more than just two colors because i was like it needs a bit more although i've seen versions that just use two colors and they look lovely too i really like those as well um but i did like this kind of like extra little stripe in the middle um so i did two samples for them to try just so they had the choice at the end of the day of what they wanted to put in and they end up photographing both of them which was super nice um and they were really lovely to work with as well so we're making a magazine um but back and forth with both um because i was kind of like i did this one first and i'll be honest i'm not as keen on the color placement on this one as i am on this and i remember emailing them and was like i'm kind of not mad on how i've done the colours so that's why i end up doing a second one i just send them a ton of photos of both um and yeah they end up both liking both of them so they put off the mints that was fun um so yeah this is hip symmetry i'm pretty sure that's how you say it um and i'm gonna be listing this as a single pattern um next week so if i'm watching this on friday um yeah probably sometime next week i'll be popping that in my revelry store and on um in my webshop so i'll also be putting a little discount on that as well for a couple of days um so yeah so check those out if you're interested um if you are interested in staying up to date with anything like that um and the best way to do that is to sign up to my newsletter sorry for the face it's like that weird um self publicizing thing is always strange to me but um yeah if you do want to stay up to date with anything i'm trying to be better at writing my newsletter if you were watching this and you're subscribed to my newsletter you're probably thinking claire stop telling people sign not break you're terrible at writing it um and they will be right um but i promise i'm gonna get better at it um during the podcast is kind of step forward in trying to not just rely on posting on instagram mainly because people don't really see it anymore i guess the algorithm and everything but whatever um but yeah i'm going to make more of an effort to get my newsletter so if you're interested in seeing anything like that or hearing about pat munches or what till he's up to you because let's face it who doesn't want to hear about that um yeah sign up for my newsletter um i've put that below as well um if you want to check it out but but yeah so that's everything that's kind of on my needles and off my needles and um i've got some yarn coming in the post this week which is going to be new to me yeah and i'm really excited about sharing it with you um so hopefully by the time fingers crossed i do another podcast see how this one goes um i have some more things to share with you and i'm gonna try and get another one filmed before christmas so we're gonna go and get our treat tomorrow um so it should be looking pretty festive next time i film um and then hopefully i'll also have some kinks worked out like looking straight at the camera not over the top because i'm getting really distracted by myself um so yeah i hope you enjoyed this first episode of the podcast um it's been really nice to sit down and just chat and if you have any questions at all please comment below and if you want to subscribe to the channel by all means do um i won't be offended if you don't because i basically have this one video um so feel free to take your time on that but it'd be lovely if you did you want to um and it's been really nice having you here uh you can find me over on instagram and in my newsletter and hopefully i'll see you here next time have a great week and i'll speak to you soon thanks for joining me folks bye [Music] is [Music] see the blazing you'll be foreign [Music]

Channel: Flossi

Views: 25,238

Keywords: knitting, designing, sewing, dog

Id: jF0pBpXoIoU

Length: 27min 51sec (1671 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020