Close Knit

In Episode 44, I spoke to Isadora Alvarez of Back Beat Rags. Lately I’ve been particularly intrigued by production - how a person gets into clothing and textile production and design, what this process looks like and the many complexities within it. I’ve been admiring Isadora’s laid back style and commitment to natural fibers for some time, then I read an interview piece with her and was struck by her voice - the way she told her story with integrity and tons of honesty and a sense of humor. Bringing her on the podcast, I was excited to dig into the ‘why’ behind her commitment to natural fibers and to understand more about her local production. She walks us through what production looks like for Back Beat so thoroughly and with so much thoughtful detail. I think this episode is really exciting for anyone who wants to more deeply understand how many steps are involved in textile production and how much thought and intention goes into this process for Isadora.

She’s has always had a super scrappy, DIY approach to her business. Hearing all about her journey from the Philippines to the US to study and eventually start Back Beat Rags is deeply interesting and inspiring.

A huge thank you to this episode’s sponsor - Craneway Craft Fair. I first learned about Craneway Craft Fair when I moved to the Bay and was searching out craft fairs to attend (as you do). This year is the 48th annual Craneway (formerly known as the KPFA Crafts Fair), and it’s happening on December 22 & 23rd. This last week especially I’ve been reflecting on how important handmade and locally made is to me - especially in light of the wildness of consumer culture in america & Craneway feels like the total antithesis to all of that. From 10am-5pm on Dec 22 & 23, so just in the nick of time if you have any last minute holiday gifts in mind, you can find artisan made goods in the Craneway Pavillion in Richmond, CA. The best part is, Craneway directly supports Berkeley’s KPFA 94.1 public radio. KPFA was the first community supported radio station in the USA. They currently air public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming & they’ll be broadcasting live from Craneway on the fair days! It feels pretty awesome to be shouting out an organization that’s supporting not only local makers but also progressive public radio. You can find Craneway on instagram at @cranewaycraftfair and online at cranewaycraftfair.com See you on the 22nd!

This week I spoke to Aaron Sanders Head. Aaron’s work stood out to me this year when I first noticed his sashiko-informed stitching and really stunning imagery. Aaron walks me through his career from post-college to now, and how fiber art has kind of (excuse the pun) woven it’s way into his life - throughout his career in arts administration. In his work with a local art gallery, he began booking workshops to accompany exhibitions & soon realized he was booking the types of classes he was interested in - quilting, embroidery, sashiko, natural dyeing. It was from here that he really began an active and daily practice.

Aaron was remarkably candid with me - we talk about finances, the difficulty and importance of sourcing materials thoughtfully, and the privilege in being able to “slow down”, and how the term ‘self-care’ has been sometimes misused. I appreciated Aaron’s grounded perspective on so many topics and it was really refreshing to hear them articulated in this way!

This chat really takes you on the journey with Aaron, I feel. So listen on to hear how Aaron went from studying photography in Boston, to touring Texas with his partner, teaching indigo dye workshops and making it work.

In Episode 42 of the Close Knit Podcast, I spoke to Jess Mahaney of Muumuu. Jess is someone whose designs stood out to me immediately when I saw them online this year. Jess was a little surprised when I asked her to come the podcast- her background and engagement with fiber is different to a lot of folks who’ve previously been on the podcast. What I love about Jess is the breadth of things that she brings to the table- a gumption & scrappiness that is inspiring, a willingness to get to work and a deep interest in design, clothing and getting dressed.

Muumuu as a concept for Jess has been around for a long time - she never envisioned being a designer at this time in her life, about 7 years into raising a child- but as its struck her, she’s followed it and it feels like its “in the flow”, as she describes it.

She talks about the parts of herself that she felt went missing when she became a full time caretaker of her baby & how dressing herself was part of this. She sings the praises of linen, how it looks relaxed always and we talk about the ways that women, especially women designers, are changing the narrative around dressing and who we dress “for” and how.

She tells us about her fear of not having the right language for describing what she wants, not thinking of herself truly as a “designer”. We discuss what it means to follow your impulses, to make more things in the world and the ethical quandaries that come up with that. Jess tells us what her ultimate vision for Muumuu looks like (spoiler - it’s not just about clothing - clothing is really just the vehicle), and what’s on tap for her for the next couple of months.

I’m so excited to see where these next months and years take Jess and her business, and I’m excited for you to meet Jess this week, too.

photo by Erika Townsley

The Close Knit podcast aims to hold space for conversation about the ways we use fiber to process world and life events

This week I spoke to Anny Crane. Anny is a process artist, working mainly in embroidery. Anna’s process struck me visually because she embroiders onto paper, usually that she’s made - so there’s a lot to take in, textures, colors, embellishments. I loved getting to talk to Anny about how she got started with the sort of art she creates, something she found as her grandmother was passing & how her process has changed and stayed the same.We discuss her move to Michigan, her current job situation & how sometimes settling into success can feel intimidating. Be sure to stay tuned to the end - we really get into some big feelings around social media and how our use of it has changed over time. 

A huge thank you to this episode’s sponsor - Making Things. Last episode, I got to introduce you to Making Things, so for this episode, I wanted to tell you more about their soon-to-launch platform. Making Things is like Netflix- but better, because it’s for knitting & crochet - it’s unlimited access to all your favorite patterns in one place. All the pattern have been tech edited and tested so you know that you’re getting the best quality resources.  Not only that, but there’s a whole digital toolbox to bring these interactive patterns to life - counters, row highlighters, chart grids, editable notes & live pattern support - all designed by and for the knitting and crochet community. You can follow Making Things’ journey as they go live on instagram at @themakingthingsapp and online at makingthingsapp.com 

liz's knitted self portrait - her first intarsia (!!)

The Close Knit Podcast is supported by the following people (& more!) through Patreon. If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to sneak peeks + additional content for patrons-only, please check out patreon! 

Alicia Alison Tal Lauren Chase Melanie Ellen Sandy leah James Natalie Chantale Justice Sarah Cath Casey Morgan Natasha Emily Hanna Lisa Carolina Rachel Aleksandra Charlotte Brittany Lyle Alex Alison Ashley Caroline Claire Elizabeth Heather Rachael Shelly shivani Katie Jaclyn

• TAC: Textile Arts Center

• Molly Haynes - weaver

• Abigail Doan - Lost In Fiber

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts & now Stitcher

• Follow along on Instagram

• Get access to exclusive content, sneak peeks and more on patreon

Awesome! I'm glad you've found your way to this podcast. Please feel free to subscribe, leave a review on iTunes (this makes all the difference to reaching more people!) and share with your loved ones. Thanks for tuning in.

Until next time! 

xx

ani

The Close Knit podcast aims to hold space for conversation about the ways we use fiber to process world and life events

This week I spoke to Liz Spencer, The Dogwood Dyer. Liz really walks me through her educational experience relating to fiber art and how it led her to where she is today - from the London College of Fashion to working as a seamstress. Liz had what she refers to as a “backwards approach” to natural dyeing, beginning with gardening natural dye plants before ever dyeing with them. She has experienced many forms of fiber and many ways of relating to the medium, but she feels like natural dyeing is the one that’s really stuck and is one she continues to practice and learn more about every day. Liz explains how she’s made her practice work, from a small apartment in Brooklyn to a family home in Riverside - alongside raising children and teaching in academic institutions. What I really appreciate about talking to Liz is her honesty and sincerity - it’s so clear how much Liz loves and is fascinated by natural dyeing, and I loved how she really tells us about how she’s made it work for her and how she and her family plan to make it work in the future. She’s certainly a person whose work inspires me endlessly, so I’m excited to share with all of you what she had to say! 

A huge thank you to this episode’s sponsor, Making Things. When I first noticed Making Things on instagram, I was intrigued and curious. It looked like a new way of engaging with patterns that I didn’t totally get at first, but after talking with the founder, Megan, who started and ran Wool Days  - a yarn company whose yarn and ethos I great admire - all the bits and pieces came together for me. Making Things is the digital home for your knitting & crochet. They’ve created a full set of digital tools for interactive patterns - counters, row highlighters, chart grids, editable notes & live pattern support - designed by and for our community. It’s been developed alongside 500 knitters, crocheters & designers, which means that everyone’s desires and needs are being accounted for with Making Things. Launching soon, Making Things is going to be such an improvement on the old way of working with patterns - I know I’m excited to try it first hand (as I am a bit of a queen of notes scrawled on random bits of paper and constantly losing my place in my knitting) You can follow Making Things’ journey as they go live on instagram at @themakingthingsapp and online at makingthingsapp.com 

liz's knitted self portrait - her first intarsia (!!)

The Close Knit Podcast is supported by the following people (& more!) through Patreon. If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to sneak peeks + additional content for patrons-only, please check out patreon! 

Alicia Alison Tal Lauren Chase Melanie Ellen Sandy leah James Natalie Chantale Justice Sarah Cath Casey Morgan Natasha Emily Hanna Lisa Carolina Rachel Aleksandra Charlotte Brittany Lyle Alex Alison Ashley Caroline Claire Elizabeth Heather Rachael Shelly shivani Katie Jaclyn

• Worked for Fiber Artist in Portland: Tamera Bremer

• Marie-Sophie Lockhart Embroidery

• Seaspell Fiber: Britt Bolls - hyper local indigo vat 

• Indigo Pigment Extraction facebook group (sounds amazing!) 

• not on instagram, Catharin Ellis, but blogs here  

• Svn Space : hemp education

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts & now Stitcher

• Follow along on Instagram

• Get access to exclusive content, sneak peeks and more on patreon

Awesome! I'm glad you've found your way to this podcast. Please feel free to subscribe, leave a review on iTunes (this makes all the difference to reaching more people!) and share with your loved ones. Thanks for tuning in.

Until next time! 

xx

ani

The Close Knit podcast aims to hold space for conversation about the ways we use fiber to process world and life events

This week I spoke to Mike Reynolds of Everyday Girl Dad. Mike first came across my radar with his feminism-forward parenting and life thoughts and then I noticed that he was cross stitching. After engaging with each other’s content for a while, we finally sat down to talk, and we covered all the ground you might expect from a person like Mike - a father who parents daughters, is outspoken about feminism, masculinity and mental health. We discuss how we got into cross stitch and the way he uses it in his own life, and how he got started with designing his own patterns when folks he wanted to cross stitch weren’t being represented in popular cross stitch. We talk about the importance of being willing to listen to other people’s lived experiences, and how this has been a central part of his learning of feminism. Mike acknowledges the way in which his privilege allows him to have sometimes difficult conversations with other men and masculine folks, and how important this is to him.

I think a lot about gender and the way that it’s been steeped into every corner of our lives, so it was really gratifying to talk to someone whose lived experience if different to my own, and so wonderful hearing from a man about gentle masculinity and how this can look in real life. 

The Close Knit Podcast is supported by the following people (& more!) through Patreon. If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to sneak peeks + additional content for patrons-only, please check out patreon! 

Debra  Pam  Ranae  Elise  Laura  Amanda  Jaclyn  Emily  Jess  Anna  Tal  Jen  Carolina  Alison Morgan  Chantale  Cath  Casey  James  Sandra  Justice  Brittany  Hanna  Sarah Alicia  Rachel  Natasha  Josie  Lyle A  Lauren Natalie  Charlotte  Leah

• fembroidery - pieces and messaging around the pieces

• cara handmade

• fat owl fibers : star trek and harry potter pieces 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts & now Stitcher
• Follow along on Instagram
• Get access to exclusive content, sneak peeks and more on patreon

Awesome! I'm glad you've found your way to this podcast. Please feel free to subscribe, leave a review on iTunes (this makes all the difference to reaching more people!) and share with your loved ones. Thanks for tuning in.

Until next time! 

xx

ani

The Close Knit podcast aims to hold space for conversation about the ways we use fiber to process world and life events

A huge thank you to this episodes' sponsor, Sugar Candy Mountain. Sugar Candy Mountain is a sustainable women's clothing line, made in LA from natural fibers. I love the attention to detail that they take with their clothing to ensure it has the longest lifetime possible - from sourcing high quality linens to using french seams and strong finishes in all their garments. They've totally eliminated plastic from their packaging, which is a huge win the fashion industry. I'm especially obsessed with their linen jumpsuits and cotton gauze, oversized breezy tops for summer-loving. Check them out online at sugarcandymtn.com and on instagram @sugar_candy_moutnain. Thanks again to Sugar Candy Mountain for sponsoring this episode of the Close Knit Podcast! 

In episode 38, I spoke to an old friend of mine - Lauren McDonald of Working Cloth. We recorded this chat in my closet while Lauren was knitting a baby hat, for no baby in particular - which probably tells you a lot about how it is that we became such good friends. We talk about how Lauren went from being the kid at the playground making friendship bracelets to studying in human ecology (formerly known as home ec), to working in fashion in london for 3ish years, to starting Working Cloth. Lauren and I met one month after she started Working Cloth, when she was living in Australia, making sense of her place. Lauren taught a sashiko workshop in Hobart & and we discuss her study of sashiko, the history of textiles & she casually drops her thesis into conversation - "the corporotization of craft in the early 20th century with a focus on depression era quilts", which of course leads into a whole other conversation about fashion, gender, and a favorite topic of mine - the politics of pockets. 

What I love most about this conversation, apart from everything, is the way in which Lauren articulates her place in all of this - how universal craft is, and how we can all have place in learning and teaching it. How we can contextualize culture in the global use of patchwork and the running stitch. Truly, you just have to listen because Lauren does a much better job of explaining this than I do. We talk about so much more than all this, but I'm running out of podcast intro music, so listen on for the whole chat! 

The Close Knit Podcast is supported by the following people (& more!) through Patreon. If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to sneak peeks + additional content for patrons-only, please check out patreon! 

Debra  Pam  Ranae  Elise  Laura  Amanda  Jaclyn  Emily  Jess  Anna  Tal  Jen  Carolina  Alison Morgan  Chantale  Cath  Casey  James  Sandra  Justice  Brittany  Hanna  Sarah Alicia  Rachel  Natasha  Josie  Lyle A  Lauren Natalie  Charlotte  Leah

• Universality of narratives, IE the 7 basic plots

• The Politics of Pockets

• Ada Fruit for conductive electronics

• Western Canada : Fern's School of Craft in Edmonton

• Pop Up at Hold General in Victoria (wares, tools, workshop)

• Piecework Collective: Quilt Show in NY where the quilts are impressive

• Katherine May - Indigo Dyeing with a jeans factory making quilts from denim scraps

• got a baby who needs a hat? lauren might be offering it to you 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts & now Stitcher
• Follow along on Instagram
• Get access to exclusive content, sneak peeks and more on patreon

Awesome! I'm glad you've found your way to this podcast. Please feel free to subscribe, leave a review on iTunes (this makes all the difference to reaching more people!) and share with your loved ones. Thanks for tuning in.

Until next time! 

xx

ani

The Close Knit podcast aims to hold space for conversation about the ways we use fiber to process world and life events

In episode 37, I spoke to another very dynamic duo, Jess Schreibstein and Claire Moskal, who together created a knitting pattern company called Mild Woman. Jess and Claire have been on my radar for years now, with their modern and minimal knitting aesthetics, their very adorable friendship that involves knitting the same things and collaborating on incredible projects. They explain how their friendship came to be, and how they collaborated on Mild Woman. Jess and Claire get into the specifics of how they ran this project and talk about how important it is to value and properly compensate people (even your friends, ESPECIALLY your friends) for their creative output. Claire and Jess talk about their first knitting projects and their first sweaters and how they encourage each other with their creative practices. There are pictures of each of their first sweaters in the show notes for you to see, which I gotta say, are remarkably less embarrassing than my own first projects, which I think speaks to their aesthetics and their creative abilities. 

Claire's First Sweater:                                                            Jess's first sweater: Michele Wang's Bedford

The Close Knit Podcast is supported by the following people (& more!) through Patreon. If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to sneak peeks + additional content for patrons-only, please check out patreon! 

Amanda Faulkner        Jaclyn Rogerson     Charlotte Helen     Natasha Celm     AC Carter      Alison See  Lyle Mills          Jess Daniels    Sarah Belcher   Cath Derksema        Anna Martinez       Jen Deery      Candice Hiles      Lauren Champs      Alicia Levine     Sandra Blue    Morgan Capestrain      Justice McNeil       Natalie Sweeney    Emily Tan   James Davis     Brittany Hoffman     Rachel Beckman    leah  pinault

pic by @nate.gregorio

People/ Things we mentioned in the podcast:

• Fiberspace - Claire's former LYS in Alexandria Virginia
• Stitch Sew Shop - another great shop in Alexandria
• Elizabeth Suzann - A brand all of us love aesthetically and business model-wise
• Wiksten - Jenny Gordy: the way her brand runs, again, aesthetics and timing. 
• Netflix Documentary - Wild Wild Country

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts & now Stitcher
• Follow along on Instagram
• Get access to exclusive content, sneak peeks and more on patreon

Awesome! I'm glad you've found your way to this podcast. Please feel free to subscribe, leave a review on iTunes (this makes all the difference to reaching more people!) and share with your loved ones. Thanks for tuning in.

Until next time! 

xx

ani

This week I spoke to a couple of people who inspire me so much. aaaaand spoiler also inspire each other because they’re MARRIED. These people are - Lily Schlosser of Eli and Barry and James Davis of Engaged Weaving. You won’t believe it, but I didn’t know that the two of them had anything to do with each other, I was separately following each of them, and just about died when I found out how they were related. In this open and vulnerable chat, James and Lily talk about how important fibre arts and the fibre arts community have been for them in processing their life events and supporting their mental health. James opens up about how his weaving practice has been a vehicle for processing and healing from grief and loss and Lily discusses her journey with anxiety and how supportive her practice of clothes making has been and how sharing her struggles with anxiety openly has given her a new and fuller way of connecting with her audience. There’s so much in this chat - so many ways that Lily and James show up to vulnerability wholeheartedly, and I am incredibly grateful that they were willing to share in this way. 
shownotes for this episode are available at closeknit.com.au/podcast/episode36

The Close Knit Podcast is supported by the following people (& more!) through Patreon. If you'd like to support the podcast and get access to sneak peeks + additional content for patrons-only, please check out patreon! 

Amanda Faulkner        Jaclyn Rogerson     Charlotte Helen     Natasha Celm     AC Carter      Alison See  Lyle Mills          Jess Daniels    Sarah Belcher   Cath Derksema        Anna Martinez       Jen Deery      Candice Hiles      Lauren Champs      Alicia Levine     Sandra Blue    Morgan Capestrain      Justice McNeil       Natalie Sweeney    Emily Tan   James Davis     Brittany Hoffman     Rachel Beckman    leah  pinault