Close Knit

The Close Knit podcast showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

In Episode 18 of the Close Knit Podcast, I spoke to Georgie Nicolson of Tikki Knits, a knitwear designer and lover of local Australian wool. Georgie takes me through her journey of sourcing wool, a serendipitous stop at the birthplace of Polworth sheep - Tarndie farm, and what types of fibre she particularly enjoys working with. We discuss her work with SEAM - (Sustainable Environmental Art Movement) on WARM - a large scale collaborative community knitting project making a statement about climate change, and what a unique and interesting challenge it was to create a textile representation of a painted landscape. Georgie and I talk about her transition into knitwear design and how her children influence her design aesthetics. 

A huge thanks to this week's episode sponsor - Wool Gathering. Wool Gathering is an incredibly special event happening Thursday 4th May-Sunday 7th May 2017 in Victoria, Australia - held at the historic and scenic Tarndwarncoort (birthplace of the breed Polworth). At Wool Gathering, participants will have the chance to take classes in wool based crafts like knitting, crochet, spinning, tapestry weaving, Saori weaving, needle felting, wool embroidery, and yarn dyeing. For more information, check out Wool Gathering's website here - tickets for this event go on sale on the 12th Nov 2016 .

Georgie schools me on some of the history behind the Australian wool scence. We discuss the CSIRO wool mill that closed down in around the 80s (? we weren't sure of the exact timing) that used to spin wool for lots of local producers, but was defunded. Georgie also informs me that Nundle is the only commercial mill creating wool yarn that's completely sourced and made in Australia.

We go on to talk about her involvement in WARM - a large scale collaborative community knitting project making a statement about climate change. Georgie had the incredible task of translating a painting into a functional artwork made of knitted objects. Incredibly, and beautifully - everything in the project is a useful object, everything has a life beyond the project. 

Georgie really got back into craft with the birth of her first child, and though she's been designing for a while, she's only recently felt comfortable calling herself a "designer". She does a lot of designing for her children, and as they grow, her patterns also change. 

"don't be afraid to just do what you want to do, and take your own approach, don't be afraid to make mistakes... Don't be afraid to be yourself... There is so much honesty and integrity that comes through when you are yourself" 

• White Gum Wool : documenting her shepherding on instagram now - Georgie highly recommends a follow

• Tarndie : birthplace of polworth, amazing farm, location of Wool Gathering 2017! 

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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

a few patterns I've been meaning to release - one of these days! 

Hey friends and listeners of the Close Knit Podcast.

Firstly, thank you so much for listening, reviewing, and just generally being kind about the podcast. It's been an exciting and challenging journey - learning how to make a podcast from scratch - and I can't thank all of you enough for hanging in there with me, even when episodes are too quiet, or they're running late, or links don't work.

I switched over to a weekly schedule a few months ago, and that's really starting to take its toll on me. Because I do every element of creating the podcast, it's a biggie in terms of time and commitment, and it's in addition to the full time day jobs I have. 

I announced a few weeks ago that the Close Knit Podcast is seeking sponsorship, and I am very keen to continue pursuing this as a way to enable me to spend more time on the podcast. If you're interested in speaking about sponsorship - drop me a line at hello [at] closeknit.com.au - or use my contact form.

For the month of October, I'll continue to interview new guests and edit episodes, flesh out the sponsorship model, and keep finding ways to spread the fibre arts love. 

Thanks again for the continual support -I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such talented, kind, and supportive folks in the fibre community.

If you haven't listened to all the 17 episodes already, you can do so from here - and while you're there, if you haven'y already reviewed the podcast, please feel free to do that, too! :) 

xx

Ani 

The Close Knit podcast showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

In Episode 17 of the Close Knit Podcast, I speak to Emily Michetti of Your Daily Dose of Fiber. Emily is an alpaca lover, who discovered spinning at a young age. She's since delved deeper into the field of spinning and is working toward building her dream business creating locally grown and spun yarns. We talk about her trip to Peru as a 9-year-old and how that started her down this path, and how she has grown from there. Emily is passionate about soft and luxurious fibres as she has sensitive skin, and plans to keep her fibre sourcing local and her yarns American made. 

As a 9 year old, her mother took her to Peru on a mission visit. She remembers visiting Puno, a really beautiful part of Peru as well as Lake Titicaca. Looking back on it, she tell of the textiles that she encountered but didn't really take notice of as a child. Instead, she fell in love with the alpacas because she found them really adorable. 

A couple years later, she decided she needed a job and was pretty adiment that it have something to do with alpacas. She set about researching and ended up finding an alpaca farm in Texas to work on, a couple hour's drive from her home. The woman who ran the farm taught her to knit with angora goat yarn and DPNs - this was her first introduction to knitting. 

Later in her youth, she bought a drop spindle on Amazon without really knowing what it was. She rediscovered it a few years later and started teaching herself how to spin via Youtube videos. 

Fast forward to the last couple of years - she moved to oregon to marry her husband, and was having trouble finding a job. She picked her knitting back up and ended up knitting a bunch of scarves and rekindling her love of knitting. Shortly after, she was given her first wheel - it was handmade and very unusual but really beautiful. She got into spinning and eventually  bought a new wheel, giving away first wheel to a little girl she knew who was getting into fibre. 

"practice. keep doing it. If you really love it, you'll always keep coming back to it. trying and knit a whole thing, instead of two inches of a thing" 

• Amy of Aurelian Spun Woven - spinner, weaver, and she has been super helpful for Emily 
• the stranded sheep
• Good Stitch Fibers ( formerly abbygoodknits)  - spinner and dyer 
• Cavs46 - Lauren  -  spinner, weaver and natural dyer  (that Ani has a huge girl crush on) 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts

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 showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

In episode 16, I spoke to Sarah Belcher of Blue Highway Handdyes. Sarah lives in Texas, where she creates naturally dyed yarns from locally raised animals. We talk about her journey into dyeing, and how she couldn’t imagine acid dyes in her home around her family so she looked for an alternative and found natural dyes. She then went on to create her own yarn bases for her natural dyes fromTexas -raised merino and mohair. 

Sarah is a a self-described "yarn sniffer"  - which of course we bonded over instantly. She wanted to make her own wool and realised that there was a ton of merino and mohair in Texas and most of it was being sent abroad in bales. That led her to create her Tex Ranch yarn base - from Texas, and spun in Penn. 

When I asked her about how she went from the idea to make a local yarn to actually doing the thing, she told me that she  first just googled american mills, she knew about green mountain spinnery from when she lived in vermont, and mountain meadow mills, and coincidentally there is someone very close by making a small mill. Those guys would take a smaller minimum of fibre so that meant she could get small amounts processed more easily. She was able to figure it out by asking and the fibre community has been so open to sharing knowledge.

We also discussed many of the larger mills are often not aware that there is a huge market for farm to needle and lament the mass textile market that all of the wool goes overseas automatically. 

Sarah is a process knitter - she just knits to knit for the sake of it. it quiets her mind,  and she knits a little bit every night to wind down. It's like meditation. 

"comparison is the thief of joy. look long enough to get inspired, but not so long to feel less about your own efforts." 

• sugarhouse workshop - vermont based amazing quilter, natural dyer
• folk fibres - texas based amazing quilter natural dyer 
• botanical colors: natural dye expert cathy
• 44 clovers - natural dyer
• sasah duerr  - natural dyer 
• dogwood dyer - natural dyer 
• fibershed - resource for making clothes locally - highly recommend checking them out! 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts

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 showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

Kylie Norton is an embroidery artist from the south island of New Zealand, who presently lives in Melbourne. She makes large scale embroidery with wool yarns, one piece takes her 4 to 5 months to make. Kylie goes through an incredibly time intensive process of cutting up the yarn and re-raveling it together to get the colours she wants.  Taught by her mum to cross stitch with kits as a kid, she experimented with colour blending and learnt how to re-ravel yarns to get a more full colour palette to work with. 

Kylie found her way into large scale fibre art rather recently, after earning her masters in Art History and wondering how to apply some of what she'd learnt there to her art practice. She searched for a while and couldn't find anything like what she imagined, so she just figured she'd try it herself. A friend of hers with excellent taste wanted to buy it, so she decided to continue pursuing these large scale embroidery pieces. 

We speak about how she uses her art history background in her fibre art - specifically indigenous culture and women and menstruation. Her work is about how different cultures celebrate (or do not celebrate) women's cycles and she's continuing to explore themes around this intersectional space Growing up in New Zealand, indigenous culture was celebrated and taught in school, and she found that it was very much a part of her life. We compare and contrast Australia, the US, and Canada and how these communities have emphasised or de-emphasised Indigenous culture and knowledge.

Kylie has loved how the fibre arts community has been inclusive and open to her and we chat about her inspiration in the community. 

"don't ever doubt your own skill...[and] don't let anyone belitte you...if it's a serious art form for you, then let it be. Give it a go and see what happens - the worst is it doesn't work out, which is not a big deal" 

• Louise Jones - draws illustrations and stitches onto paper and stitches directly onto high fashion magazines 
• Suzanna Scott  - fibre artist creating vaginas and vulvas out of fabric. 
• Danielle Clough - embroidery artist using interesting objects to stitch onto 
• Australian Tapestry Workshop - massive group collaborative weaving projects 
• Craft Victoria - excellent resource for VIC based crafts people. 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts

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 showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

photo cred: Kate Claridge

In Episode Fourteen  of the Close Knit Podcast, I speak to Jacinta of Plump and Co. Jacinta is a knitter who developed Plump and Co, a company that sells beautifully giant, felted yarn made in New Zealand. Growing up in New Zealand and studying textiles there, Jacinta became enamored with all of the incredible fibre around her and the community she lived in, so she sought to make a product that really celebrated her community. We talk about her love of all things tactile, how she began her business, and the roller coaster that running your own small business can be. 

photo cred Rachel Dobbs

Jacinta tells me about how she made the move from the corporate world to making felted yarn - and how after university she was always being drawn back to textiles, even when her work life took her elsewhere. We discuss how the majority of folks in her graduating textiles class didn't end up in textile jobs, but many have gone on to start their own amazing projects like a favourite of Jacinta's -  The Neighbourhood Studio. 

And my personal favourite part of this conversation, when Jacinta opens up about the realities of running a small business, and how it has not all been easy. She tells us about her journey from working on a project at uni to realising she wanted to make felted wool on a larger scale but also keeping it local to NZ. She wanted to share it with her community, to be able to get all different generations of knitters involved. She explains how she went from working a corporate job doing plump and co on the side to working on Plump and Co full time with the financial help of her husband. Now, she's hired a friend to help her with her business and she talks about how important that has been in her journey. 

"stop talking about it, and go do it. " 

• Nikki Gabriel - jacinta's biggest inspiration, hugely talented knitwear designer 
• Forever Farmhouse - lovely friend of Jacinta, talented knitter, lovely lady 
• Little Loom - lovely and kind weaver friend Julie from NSW 
• Wool Days - incredible new Australian merino yarn with a beautiful aesthetic and message 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts

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

The Close Knit podcast showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

In this Episode of the Close Knit Podcast, I chat to Rhi Owens of The Next Step. Rhi is a versatile crafter who knits, sews, crochets, and more. She's a prolific knitwear designer of clothes for women and children. We talk about Rhi's love of natural fibres and dyes, and how her family lineage of crafters has influence how and why she crafts. As a sewist, Rhi uses the process to create garments that truly fit her, and we discuss how empowering that relationship can be. I cannot recommend Rhi's blog highly enough for resources for sustainable and ethical fibres, as well as some really inspiring blog interviews. 

Rhi tells us about how empowering she finds making her own clothes - having the ability to make shapes that are for your own body and fit you perfectly - and what impact it's had on her own relationship to her body. 

She is really excited about the slow fashion movement and minimalism in craft and how it is gaining momentum. This interest led Rhi to start The Next Step - a directory of fibres and fabrics that are ethically and sustainably made, with price points listed to make it easy for folk to find the fibres that suit their needs.

Her grandmother is an artist and crafter throughout her life, and she taught her daughters who taught their children (rhi included). All of her aunites are creative and work with fibre in some way, she always made her own stuff. Her mother always said to her, "you can make that yourself" and that's become something of a family mantra. 

3 generations of crafters :) 

Rhi mainly sews and knits - though she sews not for the love of the process, but the love of the finished product, and for knitting its both the process and the final outcome. She buys op shopped sheets to make dresses for herself and her daughter. 

"Buy quality, because when you've got a supply that is really special to you... you really want to do a good job with that so you will put in the extra effort and Google the tutorials that you need, and make sure that you do a really good job with it.... The other this is to surround yourself with as many people who make as possible, whether that's online or in real life, that will be really inspiring, and will get you through those tough beginner times" 

"and with knitting using natural fibres because they hide a multitude of sins" 

• Knit FM Podcast - Pam Allen and Hannah Fetig's Podcast in which they discuss tons of cool stuff related to knitting, but we referenced the episode about linen fibres. 
• Andy Sutherland - Agatha Cardigan - Rhi's first knitting project (!!) 
• Danielle - lunarknits - taught Ani about the magic of blocking 
• fav blog - the craft sessions, Felicia has excellent practical advice for making quality but also making lots of kids' clothes. Rhi loves the stash less project and her simple sewing posts. Definitely read her post on slow fashion. 
• Seamwork Podcast - craft as healing, and making clothes that fit your body
• Pomcast from the makers of PomPom Mag
• Natural Dyers: Gregoria Fibers and Fern Fiber
• LollyMolly Sweets - Rhi's aunite who dyes and handspins 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts

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

The Close Knit podcast showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

In Episode Twelve of the Close Knit Podcast, I speak to Nadine Hulme of Adagio Mills. Nadine and her husband Andrew started their alpaca mill after moving to a semi-rural region of New South Wales, bringing alpacas onto their property, and attempting to get their fleece processed (to no avail). Nadine recounts how difficult it was to find someone semi-local to process their fibre, and how that led them to the conclusion that they'd just have to process the fibre themselves - thus Adagio Mills was born. 

We chat about her experience running a kickstarter campaign to fund the scouring facilities for the mill, as well as their experience writing the business plan and seeking funding from more traditional sources. 

 They've had to learn quickly to improve their products, and take on feedback from their early customers. Both Nadine and her husband Andrew have backgrounds as engineers and have found these skills remarkably transferrable. 

"Believe in the dream, and work out hoe you're gonna get there. Write that business plan... talk to as many people as you can... know what you want to try to achieve...and work out what advice you should listen to" 

• Georgie of Tikki Knits - Australian knitwear designer and rad lady working with aussie fibres, knitting everything from baby cardis to art installations of australian fibres (not mentioned in the podcast but worth checking out- a project she contributed heavily to on climate change "warm" 
• Ambah O'Brien - Aussie knitwear designer who plays with colours and shapes 
• Lucy from Attic 24  - works with Yarndale

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts

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

The Close Knit podcast showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

In Episode Eleven of the Close Knit Podcast, I chat to Kate Smalley of Tracing Threads. Kate and I are email pen pals turned real life friends. I found Kate through her blog, tracing threads, a few years ago when she posted sewing and knitting projects and thoughts on life post-college.I’m so excited to have gotten the chance to chat to Kate in this capacity for the podcast - and fair warning, there’s a fair bit of giggling. 

Kate tells me about how she got into knitting and more recently spinning, and her frustrated relationship to sewing. She finds that sewing stresses her out, it can so rigid and she gets really tense when she sits down at a sewing machine. Her approach to spinning has been completely different, more intuitive, less rigid, and she's found this incredibly rewarding.

Her favourite part about fibre arts is that you can watch something all the way through the process and you have the whole history of the garment in front of you - her ultimate goal would be to spin the fibre, weave it into a cloth and sew it into a garment. 

Kate also tells me about why she started Tracing Threads, and the ups and downs of blogging. I love how she embraces the mistakes and the projects that don't go well, and shares those too, as teachable moments. 

"don't compare, espeically in the world of social media- stick with it and remember that you don't have to love every part of something - you push through those parts" 

• goonight day: Canadian knitter and knitwear designer, Tara-lynn Morrison - a favourite of mine and Kate's! 
• middle gray - maker, doer, generally killer aesthetic and blog 
• Ute - @ute_ig- sewing and making goddess and the person we have a general love fest over on the podcast. 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts

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

The Close Knit podcast showcases artists, designers, and makers from all over the world who work with fibre in its many forms. Knitters, spinners, sewers, textile artists - all will be celebrated on the Close Knit podcast.

Lizzy and I talk about how she sources her materials and the challenges shes faced in trying to find materials that she feels impact the world in a positive way. She gravitates toward natural fibres and natural dyes, and tries to primarily source these fibres for her label. She's found great folks along the way who are empowering local communities in economically-depressed area - and has incorporated their yarns into her business. 

For Lizzy, knitting came into her life one Christmas when her auntie taught her - she then went on to sew throughout her youth and happened upon knitting again as an adult. She tells the story of how the beginning of a beanie actually birthed the concept for Above the Canopy.

In addition to working on Above the Canopy, Lizzy had a full time job doing graphic design -another passion of hers, and only recently has she turned her attention full time to Above the Canopy. 

"stick with it.... You just have to persist with it, and once you get it it is so therapeutic. So you just have to persist through it" 

• Queen Babs - Jane - the woman who comes up on most podcast episodes because she is a gem. Lizzy admires her work, her strength, her grace. You can't not fall in love with Jane! 

• Subscribe: Itunes or Pocket Casts

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