This month we’re focussing on all things woolly for Wovember!
And I’m using a slightly different format – more chat from me about recent event in the Irish Crafting scene. I’d really appreciate if you’d comment in the shownotes to let me know what you think.
The main items discussed this episode are:
the winner of our giveaway from Episode 7. Thanks to everyone who entered a review on iTunes or Stitcher and to those who took the trouble to give me feedback – positive and negative – it all makes me better, right?
This episode has been in the works since back in May when Claire and I went down to the Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival. We stopped off in Cork City to have lunch with Evin O’Keefe, the person behind Irish publishing company, Anchor and Bee.
We met Evin at her favourite restaurant Fenn’s Quay, which has been awarded “Best Restaurant in Cork” in the Munster Regional Final of the Irish Restaurant Awards in 2015.
We chat with Evin about two craft books she’s recently published and her future plans for Anchor and Bee.
The following day we met Sara Brietenfeldt at the Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival. You heard most of this interview in Episode 6 but I held on to some that was more relevant for the book “These Islands” which she worked on with Evin.
More recently, I met with Suzanne and Cathy. Suzanne worked with Evin on the books and Suzanne and Cathy share a blog “Fibre Friends“.
Fingerless mitts designed by Suzanne McEndoo for “These Islands” book.
Our craft beer focus for Episode 7 is Mountain Man Brewing. I met Phil and Sue Cullen to chat about their beers and especially what they were offering punters at the Irish Craft Beer Festival. While we didn’t mention it in our chat, it was through Sue that I first met Evin.
Mountain Man Phil with the selection of varieties available at the 2015 Irish Craft Beer Festival
And we’ve got a giveaway this episode! We’ll be giving away Evin’s books “Bake, Knit, Sew” and “These Islands” as well as a bag from Smudge Yarns and a skein of Smudge Yarns’ Superwash BFL Sock called “Skibereen” colourway.
Give-away prizes are: one copy of each book: “Bake, Knit, Sew” and “These Islands”; one skein of BFL sock from Smudge Yarns; one Smudge Yarns bag
To be in with a chance to win this all you have to do is:
Leave a review for Blasta Podcast on either iTunes or Stitcher.
Leave a comment in the show-notes to say where you have left your reivew.
Do this before the end of September.
I’ll announce in Episode 9 who the winner is of this prize.
As promised this is the second part of our visit to the Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival in May. In the first part, we met the organiser, Niamh Cooper, and some of the workshop teachers.
Another aspect of the Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival was the Market Hall which took place in Kilcrohane Community Hall.
The Market Hall
So, this episode brings you the chats we had with some of the vendors:
Kathleen McCarthy who was selling hand-knits
Fiona Waters of Green Elephant Hand Dyed Yarns with her husband Ciaran.
Sara Breitenfeldt of Smudge Yarns
Caroline and Johnny Niland of Life In The Long Grass
I apologise in advance for the quality of the audio in our first interview with Kathleen. We chatted with her in The Old Creamery after the meet & greet but there was a lot of background noise and I’ve played with it a lot but it’s still quite difficult to hear. Just let it wash over you and pretend you’re eavesdropping!
Also, Happy Congratulations to Sara on her recent engagement to Justin!
To wrap up the episode I chatted with Greg who is a professional beer taster and who has recently started brewing his own craft beer.
Below are some visuals and links of what was discussed the interviews.
Kathleen McCarthy
Hand-knits for sale by Kathleen McCarthy
The Yarn Festival in Skipton mentioned is Yarndale
For episode 5, Clarabel and Dearbhla travelled down to the Sheep’s Head Peninsula in Co. Cork for the Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival, which took place on the weekend of 16th and 17th of May.
We arrived on Friday afternoon to a peninsula shrouded in mist and only managed to find some yarn-bombing.
Yarn-bombing in the mist
By Saturday morning the mist had lifted and revealed the stunning landscape.
Stunning views in sunshine!
The Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival kicked off with meet-and-greet at The Old Creamery in Kilcrohane.
Up early at The Old Creamery ready for the meet-and-greet
They met the festival’s main organiser, Niamh Cooper, and chatted with her about the background to the Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival and life on the Sheep’s Head peninsula.
The main focus of the Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival was the workshops in various locations peppered around the peninsula.
The range of workshops advertised
Dearbhla and Clarabel also chatted with two of the workshop teachers:
Marilyn Wallis-Eade about scrumble crochet and her alapaca and
Jemima of Spinning Sheep about spinning in Ireland and Irish Sheep Breeds with spinning-worthy fleeces
Marilyn Wallis-Eade
Jemima of Spinning Sheep
They also learned that, as a spin-off from the festival, a new body has been formed called Sheep’s Head Yarns. Based at The Black Gate throughout July and August, Sheep’s Head Yarns will:
To wrap-up the episode Dearbhla met with her knit-night buddy, Treasa, and chatted about some of the features on the Sheep’s Head peninsula dating from World War II:
To celebrate her Knitty success, Elanor has set up a KAL. The cast-on date was May 1st but you have until July 20th to be in with a chance to win a number of prizes, including one for best riff. You can sign-up on Elanor’s Ravelry group. Let us know if you’re taking part.
Our pattern release is coming – sorry for the delay. In the meantime, here is a close-up from the t-shirt pattern Dearbhla is pairing with this episode.
The “Sleeve of mad construction”
While chatting to Elanor, Dearbhla mentions a wonderful Irish-language poem that describes Inspiration as a butterfly that will be crushed if you try to grasp it but will rest on your hand if you sit and wait for it. Unfortunately we can’t find the poem. We have trawled the web trying to find it, even calling on a few Irish teachers to ask them if they knew it. Dearbhla is beginning to doubt it even exists! Can you help us find the poem?
Revenge Ruby Porter
To wrap-up the episode we sat down over a pint of Revenge Ruby Porter from Kelly’s Mountain Brew, to talk about what’s happening in our community. The Republic of Ireland is voting on Friday, 22nd May, for a constitutional change to allow same sex couples equality to marry. While Dearbhla and Clara both support a Yes! vote, we mainly want to encourage everyone to get out and vote on this important referendum. Go to The Referendum Commission’s website to get the facts and an unbiased view.
Theme Music is “Trouble With a Capital T” by Horslips and is used with kind permission of Horslips’ management.
For Episode 3, Claire and Dearbhla took the show to Edinburgh Yarn Festival and met up with lots of crafters that have a connection to the Irish Crafting scene such as:
Heather – an American woman living in Belfast in Northern Ireland . Find her on Instagram, Twitter and Ravelry. During our chat we mention the Instagram hashtag #spin15in15 and Deborah Robson’s Craftsy class “Know Your Wool“. Since chatting with us, Heather has launched The Drafting Zone. All spinners should check it out.
Heidi of Ready Set Stitch, a New Yorker who lived in Dublin for a few years but is now finding her feet with a new crafting community in Milton Keynes. Find her on Instagram, Twitter and Ravelry.
Antje of The Yarn Cake who grew up in Donegal with German roots. Antje tells us the back-story for The Yarn Cake, which has a connection back to Lisa of This Is Knit. Find The Yarn Cake on Instagram, Twitter and Ravelry.
Back in Ireland, Dearbhla met up with Kirsty/SafetyFox to wrap up the episode over a pint of Cloughmore Granite Lager. Kirsty is an English woman who joined Swords Knit-night shortly after she arrived in Ireland from Qatar in 2012. Quintessential crafter-without-border that she is, Kirsty has since left Ireland to find new crafting groups in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Kirsty blogs at expatcats.wordpress.com and you can find her on Instagram, Twitter and Ravelry.
Rush Horticultural Society Annual Show. The Kenlake Cup (erroneously reffered to as “Kenure” Cup by Dearbhla) is awarded to the person with the highest aggregate points in the “Home Industries” categories.
This episode, Dearbhla met with Yvonne of Dublin Dye Company. Even though Yvonne was in the middle of getting stock ready to sell at Edinburgh Yarn Festival – her first major show – she generously took time out to be interviewed for BLASTA.
Some links and visuals for what was mentioned in this episode:
In the dye shed, Yvonne mentions that Dearbhla previously bought Shetland Roving from Dublin Dye Company’s Etsy shop:
Shetland Roving from Dublin Dye Company, colourway “Cloudy Day”
Theme Music is “Trouble With a Capital T” by Horslips and is used with kind permission of Horslips’ management.
Note: The initial introduction between Claire and Dearbhla was done using a Skype plug-in which created a split-channel track with questionable audio quality. You may need to readjust your volume levels but the segment is only a few minutes long. Our apologies for this and thanks for your patience while we scale this learning cliff!
This is not an episode! This is Claire and Dearbhla having a chat about the pattern for Episode 1.
As mentioned in Episode 1, we plan on releasing a pattern with each episode. Each pattern will be free until the next pattern is released. At the end of the year we will publish an ebook collection of all the patterns released during the year.
The pattern being release with Episode 1 is called “Muireann” and we hope you enjoy the pattern and enjoy the chat.
VATMOSS
We held off on issuing this pattern in the hope that the repercussions of the VATMOSS mess would have been resolved. As you’ll hear us discussing, we sought advice from a Chartered Accountant. Since recording we have received the following response regarding VATMOSS:
Hi Claire,
There is no requirement to register as you are well below the VAT threshold of €37,500 of turnover per year.
If you need anything else just let me know.
Kind regards
_____________________________
FCA | Principal
The following is an extract from Dearbhla’s blog about the pattern being attached with this episode:
Introducing Muireann
Introducing Muireann
Muireann is a top-down girls’ cardigan with ribbed bodice and feather-and-fan lace swing that started with the buttons! My daughter fell in love with beautiful ceramic buttons in the shape of dolphins. Blue-variegated yarn was quickly purchased and a sea-themed jacket was promised. The girls’ name Muireann (pronounced Mwih-RhaN) is derived from the Irish words for “muir” which means ‘sea’; and “fionn” meaning ‘white’ or ‘fair’. True to its name, the combination of the color-changes and the shaping of this jacket re-create a “fair sea” for the dolphins. The colour-changes of the yarn on the bodice are like the play of sunlight on a deep, blue sea. When the structured ribbing reaches the empire line the change of gauge to ridged feather stitch allows the fabric to flare. The ridged feather stitch pattern is textured enough to allow the variegations of the yarn to shine. As a bonus, the waves formed by the stitch pattern are like the waves breaking on our local beach.
“The ridged feather stitch pattern is … like the waves breaking on our local beach. “
Muireann is graded for all sizes from 2 years old to 16 and is worked from the top-down using Barbara Walker’s method for simultaneously set-in sleeves as follows:
After a provisional cast-on, the back is worked until it is one-sixth of the armhole circumference.
Then each front is worked from the cast-on stitches to the same length as the back.
Stitches are picked up for the sleeves and the fronts, back and sleeve-caps are worked simultaneously, with paired increases forming the sleeves.
Just before the sleeves are divided away from the body, stitches are added to the body and the sleeves for the underarm shaping.
It started with the buttons!
Thank you to all of my awesome test-knitters especially Maritere and Myjoha who posted great pictures on their Ravelry Project pages. You can download Muireann from my Ravelry store. ETA: [For those of you who just want to put it in your queue or library, for now, (hint! hint!) here’s the link to the pattern page on Ravelry.]
I’ve laid out the pages with the photographs grouped so that the pattern falls over the central four pages – to minimise printing. I hope you enjoy spending time with Muireann!
I’m here to help you figure out the best way for you to listen to us.
Option 1 – right here on wordpress
There is a music player on each blog entry that will allow you to listen to the podcast from the blog post.
Click play and away you go. (That’s only a picture above)
Option 2 – iTunes
Head over to the iTunes app, on your phone (iphone only) or laptop (all laptops), search for blasta or blasta podcast.
You’ll see a list of all the episodes, pick one and away you go. Don’t forget to subscribe so new episodes appear in your feed.
Option 3 – Podcast app
There are hundreds of podcast apps which you’ll find in your phones app store. For Android this is the play store. I’ve heard good thing about Pod Kicker, but there really are hundreds to choose from.
These are similar to iTunes, you just need to add the RSS Feed.
Stitcher is an android version of iTunes which many people have recommended.
Option 4 – download .wav file
“old skool” download the .wav file from the blog entry and choose how you listen yourself.
If you still can’t listen shout @blastapodcast or @Clarabel (wanna be techie?) or email us (link at the top of this webpage) and we’ll try figure something out for you.
I’ll be updating this post as I refine my skills for supporting all the different options.
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