CH 281: #knit20for2020 kicks off!

January 31, 2020

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The kids have made it back to school, our charity auction for those affected by the Australian bush fires is underway, and I’m starting to pick out my dream projects for our #knit20for2020 challenge. It’s pretty exciting to consider all the possibilities, and I’m feeling very inspired. I can’t wait to see all the amazing things we’ll knit together this year!

Show Links

KAL News

All the 2019 Curious Handmade KALs are ending this Friday the 31st, so add your FO photos to the Ravelry thread for a chance to win a lovely yarny prize.

A couple of housekeeping notes to keep things tidy:

Make sure you create a Ravelry project page for any design you’ll be entering!
For the individual shawl and sock threads, you can post one photo per completed project. So for example, if you knit two Sea Gleam Shawls or two pairs of Sailing School Socks, you can post each one separately for a chance to win.
For the Grand KAL Threads, please make one post per collection. You can use a collage type photo or photos of each finished object, but put them all into one post.
For the Knitvent 2019 FO Thread, you can make one post per finished item, however many you knitted from the collection. So one post for the Homebody Socks, another for the Habitation Throw, etc.
Remember that these are no-chat threads (to make drawing winners easier) so you should also post the same photo over in the chat threads so we can admire it out loud!

The Shawl Society Season 4:

The Handmade Sock Society Season 2:

Knitvent 2019:

Knitvent 2019 FO Thread

I will use a random number generator to draw a winner from each of the following threads on January 31st, 2020.

Destash Auction to Benefit Bushfire Relief

I am currently holding my destash auction on Instagram. There is a separate post for each lot, and people can enter their bids in the comments. We’re working across a lot of time zones, so I’ve done my best to choose a time that will work for most people.

LA: 2pm Saturday 1st Feb
New York: 5pm Saturday 1st Feb
London: 10pm Saturday 1st Feb
Brisbane: 8am Sunday 2nd Feb
Sydney: 9am Sunday 2nd Feb
NZ: 11am Sunday 2nd Feb

I will cover shipping internationally as part of my contribution and will divide all sums raised between these three charity efforts:

Go Fund Me for First Nations Communities of Australia Affected by Bushfires

The Australian Red Cross

The Nature Foundation in South Australia

Other things I talked about:

Sama Wrap by Renée Callahan

Exploration Station by Stephen West

Clio Pullover by Elizabeth Doherty

Terracotta Socks

Show transcript:

Welcome to the Curious Handmade podcast. You’re listening to episode 281. This podcast is all about crafting a life of happiness and creativity. I’m your host Helen and you can find me on Ravelry as HellsBells and on social media as Curious Handmade. You can also find full show notes on my website at curioushandmade.com.

Hello, and welcome to the show. I hope you’ve been having a good week. I’ve been having a pretty crazy week, just for something different. Managed to get the kids back to school. It’s a shorter week than normal with the bank holiday or public holiday we had on Monday here, in Australia. So, it’s been a short and sharp week. I am still setting up my office/studio and I’ve made quite a bit of progress on that this week. Although it’s still puzzle stuff everywhere that I need to sort through, I did manage to get my Ikea shelves together, so some things could be put away.

So, that was good. Slightly less stuff on the floor, but still quite a lot of things to sort through. The pile is not really going down, because now my mom has realized I have the space. She keeps bringing boxes over, that are just appearing and she’s hiding them amongst the other boxes that are there. No, she’s not really, but I’m not really getting to the bottom of things just yet.

So, I will have lots of yarn going out of the stash in the next week, because I have chosen 15 skeins for prizes, for all the knit-alongs. Basically, all the knit-alongs we had for all of last year, we will be drawing prizes for on Monday. So, you still have this weekend to post. I won’t close off the Finished Object threads in Ravelry until the end of the weekend or Monday. Yeah, so we have individual threads for each sock for the Handmade Sock Society as well as threads for each shawl for the Shawl Society from last year.

We also have a grand prize for Knitvent and a grand prize if you’ve knit all six socks from the Handmade Sock Society as well as a thread if you knit at least five or six shawls from the Shawl Society. It’s going to be a Prize-a-Palooza and I will find a cute project bag for the grand prizes as well to send the winners. They are going to be drawn at random from the Finished Object threads. So, post your projects in there before the end of this weekend.

We also have the destash auction happening right now for three charities I’ve chosen, for the bushfire relief effort happening here in Australia. And, of course the rehabilitation of people’s lives, people houses and the native Bush where lots of animals have lost their homes, will be continuing for many years to come. But, I have chosen three charities that I will split the proceeds between. One is the Australian Red Cross, one is the GoFundMe for First Nations Communities of Australia, and the third one is the Nature Foundation in South Australia.

I chose the Red Cross, because they’re doing amazing work for people across Australia and I just feel like they’re well-organized, and they are posting lots of updates on how they’re distributing the funds and what they’re doing with the money. So, I really like that. The First Nations Communities GoFundMe, I think is a wonderful initiative for Indigenous Australians, just to make sure that their needs are met through this particular fund. I chose the Nature Foundation in South Australia, because I think some of the New South Wales and Victorian charities are probably getting more publicity and more donations.

So, I just basically went online and found a charity that was in a different area and I really liked the sound of what they’re aiming to do. They said the objective is to help the wildlife recover from the devastating Bush fires in South Australia. While many community groups have mobilized to provide an immediate response to caring for injured wildlife, the Wildlife Recovery Fund will be used to re-establish habitat, particularly for threatened and vulnerable species.

The donations will go to local landowners, farmers and community groups in fire affected regions to urgently assist natural regeneration through activities, and just to give the threatened animal and plant life the best chance of recovery. Also, some funds towards fire-devastated national parks, particularly on Kangaroo Island, which is a really special area for nature.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve chosen and we have the auction happening at the moment. I posted, I think 13 lots on Instagram last night and already people have bid very generously. I’m so happy that people are getting into the spirit of it. If I have time today, I might try and add a couple of lots. I still have more yarn that I can add into it. I just ran out of time last night to do it. Yeah, so I’ll see if I can add a little bit more, and because I’m just really enjoying the fact that we can raise some money for these amazing charities, and I can contribute in a small way with your help and support. So, that’s really wonderful.

I am going to pay for postage internationally. And then, at the end of the auction which ends 10:00 p.m. UK time on Saturday, i.e., tomorrow, then I will contact the highest bidders for each lot and request payment, and then post out the parcels next week. So, hopefully that can all go smoothly. In the meantime, thank you so much for your support with that.

I’m also excited that I now have my printable and posts ready for Instagram, for the Curious Handmade Knit 20 for 2020. This is a fun knitting challenge that I’m going to be participating in this year, and hopefully other people will join in with me. I have a list of 20 prompts. Some of them are particular techniques, some of them are particular items such as cardigan or socks. And then, other prompts to do with the type of yarn like using deep stash or non-superwash yarn, and just some other fun random things that occurred to me like doing a scrappy project or an epic or bucket list project.

Yeah, so I’ll post that on my website as well as on Instagram. So, if anybody wants to use the template and use the same prompts that I’ve suggested or perhaps substitute in ones of your own that you’d like to do this year, that’s fine too. I’ve left space on the printable for people to write in either what they’re thinking about doing for that prompt, or what they end up doing for the prompt. I’m hoping that at the end of the year we can post these lists with quite full lines. It’s designed so that you can either knit 20 items using one item per prompt or you could knit less items and cover different prompts with one item.

So for example, I’m thinking about knitting a shawl with brioche and possibly color work. I was looking at, Renée Callahan has a gorgeous new shawl she’s just published called Sama and that is actually available right now for a discounted price if you’re a subscriber to her newsletter. So, if you go to the Sama pattern page on Ravelry, it does have the details of that and a link to her newsletter. That’s good from 16th of January to the 3rd of February. So, there’s still a couple of days for that discount if you like this pattern and it’s a gorgeous Brioche rectangular wrap. She said it’s named for a lost but never forgotten friend. Sama is a brioche and garter stitch, rectangular wrap that is big enough to keep you warm all winter and elegant enough to be draped over your shoulders on a glamorous evening out. She’s knit her sample in La Bien Aimée Merino Singles, in Winterfell, which is one of my favorite La Bien Aimée colors, and Dusk.

It’s a really striking wrap and I was thinking I might attempt this for my brioche prompt in my knitting challenge. But, I contacted Renée and said, “Would it be a good brioche beginner project? She said, “Maybe you don’t want to do this for your first brioche project.” Although she said, “If you really want to, you can.” Obviously, if we are determined enough we can do anything, but I am thinking I might look for an easier first brioche pattern just so that I don’t get discouraged and give up on it.

I have been eyeing off Exploration Station by Stephen West for the longest time and this would cover short rows, brioche, and a shawl. It could probably even be a scrappy project as well. Yeah, so I’m thinking about that one. It is a lot of knitting in that though, so I’m wondering if I might do a smaller project like a cowl for my brioche project. So, if anyone has any suggestions for something simple brioche, a cowl or slightly smaller project, perhaps a hat, I don’t know. I haven’t done brioche before, so I just want to get into the rhythm of doing fairly straightforward to color brioche, without too much in the way of increasing and decreasing and patterns. Basically, don’t want to have to think too much about it. I just want to practice the stitch.

So yes, that’s what I’m thinking about. Although, I am not allowed to start that until I’ve finished my WIP, i.e., my Clio pullover by Elizabeth Doherty. I have not found time this week to even pick up the sleeve stitches, which is I think my next step for that project. I have been way too crazy this week with getting kids back to school to do that, but it hasn’t stopped me from fantasizing about future projects.

So yeah, that’s where I’m at with my knitting. I’ve been doing a few stitches on my terracotta socks by Woolfield Studio. So, that’s at least been something I can work on without having to think and just easy to pick up and put down, which is good because swimming’s started again. So, I am having to go and sit by the pool for periods of time and things like that. So yes, a nice little sock project is perfect for those situations.

That’s about all I have for you this week. Thank you to everybody supporting my destash auction on Instagram. If you have participated in the Handmade Sock Society, the Shawl Society, or Knitvent last year, please don’t forget to post your finished objects in the threads this weekend, to be in draw for some lovely yarn prizes.

I have had quite a few questions asking me if the Handmade Sock Society is happening again this year. Yes, it is. It’ll be starting soon. I have been pushing the date back a little bit the last couple of weeks as I have been a bit overwhelmed by life and things, but it is coming and it is coming very soon. I am working towards getting it up and running in February, so very soon. Well that’s all from me. Have a fantastic week. Happy knitting and I’ll talk to you soon.