Tag Archives: Smudge Yarns

Episode

Episode 7: “These Islands”

Hello and welcome to Episode 7!

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“.

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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.

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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

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:

  1. Leave a review for Blasta Podcast on either iTunes or Stitcher.
  2. Leave a comment in the show-notes to say where you have left your reivew.
  3. Do this before the end of September.

I’ll announce in Episode 9 who the winner is of this prize.

Links to items also mentioned in this episode:

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Toothpick and marshmallow models of the five Platonic Solids

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blasta/2015-08-30-ep7.mp3

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Episode

Episode 6: Sheep’s Head Yarn Festival – Part 2

Welcome to Episode 6!

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.

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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

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Hand-knits for sale by Kathleen McCarthy

Green Elephant Hand Dyed Yarns

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Fiona Waters of Green Elephant Hand Dyed Yarns with her husband, Ciaran

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The beautiful colours at Green Elephant Hand Dyed Yarns’ stand

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“Twinkle Twinkle” yarn dyed by Green Elephant Hand Dyed Yarn and “marked” by Clarabel!

  • Colourway “Child’s Play” described by Ciaran as reminding him of a Jackson Pollock painting
convergence

Convergence by Jackson Pollock via http://www.jackson-pollock.org/

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The “gorgeous Burgundy” in laceweight and the “Farraige” colourway both purchased by Dearbhla

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The Pink Panther with sparkles!

Smudge Yarns

 

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