Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n' Spinning Radio. Dionne sat Rebecca & Rachel down to quiz them about Knit City Vancouver 2025. Rebecca & Rachel had spent the weekend exploring the marketplace, meeting with everyone in our community & of course, shopping. We share some of the trends we noticed emerge this year, including maching knitting, crochet (yay!) and more. Lots of fleece talk this month - we fell into a bit of a rabbit hole at the end of the show about a property of wool that Melissa (MellyKnits) and Rachel have been exploring with increasing interest, along with Dionne and her fibre blending experiments, called porosity (skip to ~45 minutes to listen to just this discussion). The definition of porosity is the quality or degree of having minute spaces or holes through which liquid or air may pass. Melissa has described this phenomenon to me in the past as fleece, that when felt, has 'holes' or 'spaces' that she can 'fill' with something like cotton, possum, and other fibres. Silk, alpaca and llama seem to go into most fleece without problems. Dionne was the first in our community to put a word to the attributes of these fleeces that are able to blend with these sometimes difficult to card fibres. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Photos of Rachel & Rebecca at Knit City in their matching Jethro Cardigans, along with photos of their hauls and Rachel's tea towels inspired by her SweetGeorgia colourway (woven by Kathy Cunha) available on the Patreon post here. 

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• Knit Social here
• SweetGeorgia Yarns here
• All Wound Up Knitting & Sheep Fleeces here (reach out to Megan for information about her fleeces & shipping)
• Mawdsley Fibre Arts here (look for Helen's hollow whorl spindles)
• MellyKnits here
• Caliope Fibres here
• Coniagas Textiles here
• Fireweed Fibre Co here
• Crafty Jaks Boutique here

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n' Spinning Radio, Dionne, Rebecca and Rachel attempted to sow dissent and debate the merits of calling those handspun yarns that are not conventionally spun as 'novelty', 'art' or 'textured'. Increasingly, we are seeing people describe their textured or art yarns as what they actually are, be it 'corespun' or 'supercoils' or any other number of yarn structures that we know and celebrate on a regular basis. It's important to celebrate those in our wider handspinning community who have really helped to make these yarns household names by sharing their own practice around them, as well as, teaching others and fostering an environment of learning, exploration and joy around learning these various techniques. Calling our yarns by the structure really helps others to understand what was done to create that yarn since, as others' increase their knowledge, they will be able to recreate their own yarn, using those same techniques and thus, sharing with others.

For photos containing examples of textured or art yarns, look at the Patreon post here.

This episode of Wool n' Spinning Radio is to celebrate the beginning of our last part of study for our 2-year book study of Sarah Anderson's Book of Yarn Designs. Part IV is dedicated to the chapters in Sarah's book that come under the heading 'Novelty Yarns'. Much of Rebecca's work on The Wool Circle, which is one of the podcasts available when you subscribe on Patreon, will be centred around these yarns beginning now, September 2025 until the end of the year. The syllabus is linked here.

Rebecca has been spinning singles in August to get ready for her sampling schedule and I know she is excited to share her plans for the yarns with you as the Fall goes on! She will be starting with corespinning and variations, including super coils. Next, boucle will be explored. From the basic structure to some variations, this is an increasingly common yarn that was previously not really discussed much by knitters and seemed to be for weavers. That trend is changing and it's exciting to see how yarns evolve. Finally, some of the complicated and often very beautiful yarns that have those show-stopping features to them will finish us off: Pigtails, beehives, cocoons, and tailspun.

For those who have been wanting to learn those techniques to create those yarns, this is the time to jump into Patreon, join The Wool Circle and begin learning alongside Rebecca.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n’ Spinning Radio. We sat down together to discuss how Tour de Fleece went for each of us, what we accomplished and what went well. We each had some finished spins and Rebecca shares spinning while travelling again this summer, focusing mostly on her supported spindles. Dionne spun an incredible amount of fibre and shares her favourites. Thank you for joining us in another episode!

I hope you enjoy our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven.

Photos of our finished spins can be found here.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out to Rachel [at] welfordpurls [dot] com.

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n’ Spinning Radio. Rebecca and Rachel sat down with Dionne Carter, a long-time pillar of the Wool n’ Spinning Community. Dionne joined the community in 2021 and became an integral member right from the get-go. Her colour sense, experimentation and fearlessness with her spinning, and support and encouragement of others has helped innumerable people in our community feel more confident approaching their yarns, ideas and projects. Always trying something new, Dionne is happy to explain what she’s working on, offer a kind word to anyone with questions and cheer from the sidelines.

Rebecca picks Dionne’s brain about colour related to interior decorating today – namely how to choose colour, how Dionne thinks about colour and pitfalls one might fall into. If you are enjoying the audio podcast, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating or review to help other handspinners find it. Thank you so much!

I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Previous episode of Wool n' Spinning Radio with Dionne is here.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out to Rachel [at] welfordpurls [dot] com.

For complete shownotes and to join Patreon, please check here.

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Warmly,

Rachel

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n’ Spinning Radio. Debbie Held is a freelance journalist that I had the immense pleasure meeting in person in 2022, after following each other online for many years. Debbie’s love of blending boards started in 2015 when she began playing with this humble fibre preparation tool and began pushing it to its limit. While our conversation covered many topics about how Debbie began her spinning journey with a spindle from a friend in a time of need, to writing her book, The Spinner’s Blending Board Bible, to reflecting on what might be next, we really had a discussion about life. What will each of us do when the going gets tough? Truly, Debbie’s answer is that the tough get going. Her work is incredible and hope you have a look at her Instagram account, @doodler01.

***

If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out to Rachel [at] welfordpurls [dot] com.

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Warmly,

Rachel

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n' Spinning Radio. Rebecca and I were so pleased to be able to record this episode with Lisa Schweitzer, a pillar and leader in our community. For those who haven't met Lisa yet, she is a weaver, handspinner, knitter and maker, long-time member of the Wool n' Spinning community and lives in a remote area of Iowa, USA. Lisa is an eloquant speaker and I hope you enjoy our conversation about making in remote locations. Both Rebecca and Lisa live in remote areas, without many urban amenities, guilds and makers within their immediate neighbourhoods.

We started our conversation today with sharing what we are working on and then moved into a discussion about making in isolation. Lisa touches on why she makes and continues to share her makes. Because we recognize that many in our community make in many different types of isolation - whether physical, due to disability, remote locations, and many more factors, we wanted to discuss what this means when much of our interactions occur online versus in real life. Does this affect our making and how so?

If you have questions about what we discussed in today’s episode, please post them in the community, either as part of the Slack channel (available through Patreon) or on the Ravelry group, Wool n’ Spinning.

Patreon Post here

Of course, we would love to welcome you to our community. Membership in the community provides you access to an amazing archive of teaching vlogs & posts that will help you on your handspinning journey. I am also here as a resource to help you! The Join button is on the landing page on Patreon for those wishing to learn more.

If you are enjoying the audio podcast, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating or review to help other handspinners find it. Thank you so much!

Until next time, Happy Spinning!

Rachel & Rebecca

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

This month on Wool n' Spinning Radio, Rebecca and I sat down to 'try on' some segments that will be a regular part of the Radio show going forward: From what we're working on while recording to things we've aquired (and moved on) to events in our lives that are bringing us joy. So much to cozy up to this month: We hope you enjoy the show!

Previous Episodes are available here

If you have questions about what we discussed in today’s episode, please post them in the community, either as part of the Slack channel (available through Patreon) or on the Ravelry group, Wool n’ Spinning. Of course, we would love to welcome you to our community. Membership in the community provides you access to an amazing archive of teaching vlogs & posts that will help you on your handspinning journey. I am also here as a resource to help you! The Join button is on the landing page on Patreon for those wishing to learn more.

If you are enjoying the audio podcast, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating or review to help other handspinners find it. Thank you so much!

Until next time, Happy Spinning!

Rachel & Rebecca

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. Rebecca and Rachel sat down to have a fun chat about those imaginary yarns and garments we would love to spend time making but just don’t get a chance to do it. It’s not that they’re yarns we’re particularly motivated to actually make, it’s more that they are yarns we dream about. Think frivolity and fun. Just messing around with possibilities – what would happen if I did this to create that? I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Projects talked inthe episode {Ravelry Project Pages}:

Rachel's Albini Cardigan here

Rachel's Shifty Sweater here

Get Weaving with Sarah here

Rebecca's Draper Cardigan here

If you have questions about what we discussed in today’s episode, please post them in the community, either as part of the Slack channel (available through Patreon) or on the Ravelry group, Wool n’ Spinning. Of course, we would love to welcome you to our community. Membership in the community provides you access to an amazing archive of teaching vlogs & posts that will help you on your handspinning journey. I am also here as a resource to help you! The Join button is on the landing page on Patreon for those wishing to learn more.

Be sure to go back and listen to last month's episode on Mammoth Fibre Preparation - there was a flowchart and other visuals associated with that episode. We would love to hear your input! Listen here.

If you are enjoying the audio podcast, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating or review to help other handspinners find it. Thank you so much!

Until next time, Happy Spinning!

Rachel & Rebecca

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n’ Spinning Radio. Rebecca and Rachel sat down to chat about a mammoth in the room, which is fibre preparation. It has become such a major focus of what we talk about in this community and other handspinning communities, that we wanted to talk about it. While fibre preparation is a huge source of excitement and motivation to pull things out and prepare fibres, including those amazing fleeces many of us have in our stashes, it is also a time consuming and often expensive endeavor, particularly when looking at the possibility that tools need to be purchased.

Over the past month or so, Rebecca and I have been working on a flowchart (see attached) associated with this episode of WnS Radio. You can download it and explore the PDF while you are listening to this episode or save it for later if you follow the links in the show notes wherever you are listening to this. This flowchart is a Beta version of our ideas and we are going to be working in this throughout the remainder of the winter and into the Spring. There will be more pages added to it – we just haven’t quite gotten there yet! Any thoughts you have that would be helpful, please place them in the comments of the Patreon post – we would love to hear them.

What have been your road blocks with fibre preparation? If you live with mobility or accessibly issues, we would love to hear how that affects your fibre preparation.

Where would you categorise yourself on the scale from fibre preparation artist to hand spinner?

Direct Patreon Link here (for graphics)

If you have questions about what we discussed in today’s episode, please post them in the community, either as part of the Slack channel (available through Patreon) or on the Ravelry group, Wool n’ Spinning. Of course, we would love to welcome you to our community. Membership in the community provides you access to an amazing archive of teaching vlogs & posts that will help you on your handspinning journey. I am also here as a resource to help you! The Join button is on the landing page on Patreon for those wishing to learn more.

If you are enjoying the audio podcast, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating or review to help other handspinners find it. Thank you so much!

I hope you enjoy our conversation. Until next time, Happy Spinning!

Rachel & Rebecca

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n’ Spinning Radio. Rebecca and Rachel sat down with Meaghan of Bramble Ridge Hand Dyed Yarns, based out of Mission, British Columbia, Canada. Meaghan has been dyeing up a storm in the background, creating our next iteration of Breed Blends and Colour Study fibre for us to spin & create with! Thank you to Meaghan for this opportunity to work with you, support your small business and create with the community at large!

Meaghan has generously offered a discount code to the Patreon community of Wool n’ Spinning. When you log into your account, you will see at the top of your feed (if you didn’t get an email about the post already) that there is a post there about all things Breed Blends & Colour Study. This post has the ordering link, as well as the discount code. Please be sure to put the discount code in before you complete your ordering as refunds will not be offered.

Breed Blends & Colour Study Ordering Links & Discount Code Post here

You DO NOT need to be a member of the Patreon community to participate  - only to get the discount code!

If you have questions about what we discussed in today’s episode, please post them in the community, either as part of the Slack channel (available through Patreon) or on the Ravelry group, Wool n’ Spinning. Of course, we would love to welcome you to our community. Membership in the community provides you access to an amazing archive of teaching vlogs & posts that will help you on your handspinning journey. I am also here as a resource to help you! The Join button is also on the landing page on Patreon for those wishing to learn more. If you are enjoying the audio podcast, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating or review to help other handspinners find it. Thank you so much!

Comment here with your thoughts for your fibre! What are you going to spin with it? Socks? A fun yarn structure? Please share!

Warmly,

Rachel

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If this is your first time tuning into Wool n’ Spinning Radio, welcome. This audio podcast is a spin-off from the original podcast available on YouTube at youtube.com/RachelSmith. Rachel has been podcasting since 2014, talking about handspinning and making yarn. Her passion is working with her handspun yarns in projects, both knit and woven. Links to the website, Instagram and more are available in the show notes and at Patreon.com/woolnspinning.

***

Thank you for listening! If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out below, in the comments, or send an email to [email protected].

Until next month, keep wool close and your spindles closer!