I'm Drea.
I'm Meg.
I'm Tina.
And I'm Jess.
And this is Pardon My Stash.
Welcome to Pardon My Stash, a podcast about creating within the fiber arts and how awesome it is.
Before we get into this week, let's share what we're working on now, Drea.
This Reese's cup that I'm eating.
Perfect.
How's that going for you?
Celebratory Reese's cups.
It is so good.
I don't get Reese's cups very often because Frank is allergic to nuts.
Oh, that's right.
So I don't do a lot of peanut butter or nut-based things.
Special outside the home.
You're in luck.
I know. Trust me.
I'm going to be eating my fair share.
I'm actually not working on anything right now.
I finished the French Can Can.
I'm still waiting on model availability for photos.
He has such a tight schedule.
He really does.
Actually, right now, I think what we're more waiting for, and it was better today, but last week it was hot.
It was real hot.
Not shawl weather.
No, I wasn't going to do that to him.
We are going to do photos probably this weekend.
It's supposed to be nice this weekend.
Yeah, like 69 degrees.
Yeah, so I'm really looking forward to it.
And then lined up, I'm torn between two patterns for a bolero that I want to do.
I'm still deciding.
One is a Kim Hargreaves pattern, and I had to order a magazine through Thrift Books, and that has not gotten here yet.
So I don't know if I'm even going to like the pattern once it gets here.
And then the other one that I am considering is the Floris Bolero by Sydney Crabbaugh in the Squid School.
I really liked that they have like this tulip sleeves on the bolero.
It's nice.
So I don't know if I want to do that one.
One's a fingering weight bolero, and the other one is a worsted weight.
I'm going to see what the Kim Hargreaves looks like, and then I'll make a decision.
Right now, the Floris Bolero has a lot of math.
If I were honest, it makes me concerned.
Guys, could you tell we got a new soundboard?
It took me a minute to get the right button, okay?
It's pretty awesome.
But that's all that I've got going on right now.
Reese's cups and a lot of considering, which I think is pretty good.
Considering is good.
Yeah, it's pretty good.
Meg?
I'm working on Ocean Stones by Gretha Mensen.
I'm still working away on this one.
It's in Fiberspace Vivacious DK in the colorway Heavenly.
And I am using my little mini minder here from Jimmy Beanswool.
I love this thing.
This is probably the best knitting tool that I've probably ever purchased.
What's it doing for you?
So what it does basically, if you sling it over your hand, there's like a leather strap,
and it attaches to a hook at the top of kind of what looks like a drop spindle.
And it just pulls your yarn from the outside, not a center pull,
which is honestly the way I prefer it anyway.
I usually take my yarn from the outside.
But I actually use this for...
Oh, but it'll spin so it doesn't tangle.
Right.
Sometimes it does like around the top slightly, but it's not a huge deal.
I use it for walking around the house and knitting.
Sometimes like if it's rainy out, I'll get my steps in this way.
I love this thing. It's fantastic.
Yeah. Can't recommend it.
I should get one of those.
You should. Honestly, it's really good.
I'm like kind of excited for weather getting cold.
And I'm like, do I take my walks outside with this thing?
Yes. And my knitting.
Probably not this because the shawl is getting really, really big.
But, you know, for smaller things, heck yeah.
Tina?
Well, I have a new soundboard.
But you're also knitting.
I'm also knitting. Yes.
But I'm really excited about this.
So if you hear you're going to hear all kinds of new sounds tonight.
I'm working on the slip on your shoulder test knit for blame the knots.
And I am doing the busty size.
I'll just keep it at that.
And I finished the there's like little panels that I had to do first.
And I finished those.
And now I'm working on the back panel.
Oh, and I also finished the short rows.
So I'm past the short rows and just working stockinette right now.
Awesome. Until a certain inch, which is my favorite type of stockinette.
It's a track. I know. Same. Same.
It's like the best to do. It's like kind of mindless.
Yeah.
And I'm using critical hit dies yarn in Druid Decay in Colorways.
Yeah. Good for Work.
Ooh.
This big 오늘 is beautiful.
It's going to be pistachio and blue corn in red Dae velocidade.
So this is beautiful.
And so you like that.
I'm just going to kind of make it air dying.
Of like moving two29 and 2 Monday and Saturday.
Terlike boldes.
webii and pushed some media punch products,
And, and what did you do with you?
of chickens and things all over the place.
I just, I'm trying to do them in batches,
so I'm still working on making all the bodies
and then I'm gonna sit and stuff them all in.
That makes sense. It does.
Like assembly line them almost.
Yeah, otherwise I like make half of what I actually
want to make, because I get like you have to transition.
Yeah. You know?
Jess?
So right now I'm making a spider,
because our kid decided for her creepy witch costume
this year, she wanted to have a spider.
She decided this out of nowhere.
She was just like, yeah, we're gonna have a spider.
Remembered all you said that I was gonna have a spider.
I was like, wait, what?
Remember you said.
So I was like, I mean.
Such an important comment.
I guess.
I'm between projects, so I may as well do it.
So I grabbed a leftover skein of Vishka.
I'm pretty sure it was leftover from my sweater that I did.
Sweater of Swords.
Yeah.
That one, because I didn't use a lot of the last skein.
So I'm pretty sure that's what it's from.
Otherwise, I have no idea.
I might've used this for something else,
but I'm gonna do that.
And then I'm gonna grab something else
for the contrast colors on this thing.
It is Spider is the name of the pattern.
Wow. So specific.
Skein Spider is the author.
I'm sensing a theme here.
It's on Ravelry.
It is free, but the free is YouTube, which is nice.
If you wanna go through the tutorial, it is there.
And then they have the directions on the screen.
So me, because I hate dealing tutorials on YouTube,
I went through the tutorial and screenshot everything
and made my own page by page of the instructions.
So thank you for putting those instructions in there too.
And now I just, I can't follow
because I can't really look at the screen
and then at what I'm doing.
So, and it's black yarn and I'm like,
this is gonna be a disaster.
So I did that.
So I have the screenshots, but it is.
It is Spider by Skein Spider.
And it's a cute little spider actually.
It's kind of cute.
So that's what I'm doing there.
I'm also like belting teeny tiny dragons
that I'm gonna stick on magnets because I don't know.
I did one and I thought it was adorable.
And I'm like, I'm gonna make like five of these.
They're really cute.
So they're like the size of a pinky.
They're so tiny.
They're just tiny little cute little dragons.
So I was like, I have no reason to make a ton of these.
Maybe other people want them and I can sell them
because I just like making them.
They're fun.
And then other than that,
I don't have anything specifically planned
for a future project.
I still have to block some stuff.
I did finish my enchantment shawl and I did block that.
So that's ready to go.
But yeah, so I'm looking at other projects
for when I'm done with these things to do.
But right now that is where we are at.
And as always, a shout out to our sponsor,
Jimmy Beanswool at jimmybeanswool.com
where we had talked about, we got the mini minder from.
It's super cute and super helpful.
And I'm pretty sure they're starting to offer a hook.
So you don't, if you don't want it on your hand,
like if you still want to use it at a table,
there, they have a hook now that you can put it on a table.
It's like a purse holder.
Yeah, it's kind of cool.
That is really cool.
So you can just hang it wherever as well.
So there's that.
And if you want to see pictures of our current projects
or get more information about part in my stash,
you can check out our website, partinmystash.com
for info, pics, patterns, and yarns.
So super exciting.
I feel like I can't press enough buttons.
Oh, wow.
That is awful.
That was like, Tina, no.
I like how they continue playing over each other.
I didn't know that they were just all.
I thought they would like stop the last one.
That was like a crescendo.
I like how there's all this good stuff, but in the background,
whoa, whoa, whoa.
That was so alarming.
That was amazing.
It was something.
That was beautiful.
It was something.
Well, there is good stuff happening today.
Today marks our 100th episode.
Woo!
Super exciting.
We're all excited to be here.
We've been doing this for a long time.
More applause.
Yeah.
We did this 100 times.
We did do this 100 times.
A little bit more, because we had a couple
just weird stuff thrown in that I don't think we numbered.
So yeah, definitely.
But this is our 100th official episode.
Yeah.
Mirror.
I don't know.
I was looking back, and I was like, oh my gosh,
it's our 100th episode.
And looking back to our first episodes, which none of us
really listened to anymore, because we were so awkward
when we first started.
Thank you all who listened to that and kept listening.
God, yeah.
You trusted in the past.
You trusted us, and we appreciated you.
Trusted the process.
We trusted the process.
Hi, I'm Tina, and this is about me.
It wasn't even that exciting.
Oh my gosh.
But I was.
I was looking back at that, and I was thinking about, oh man,
what do we like?
What's a good topic for our 100th episode?
And then I was thinking, what about maybe looking at it?
I was like, there are a lot of things
when we first started this that we didn't do,
or we hadn't thought of, or we weren't confident enough,
I guess, to go into that.
I think today, after all these episodes and doing this
and being here and listening to feedback and people,
we've gotten into since then.
And looking at that, I was like, oh,
so what sort of things would those be?
Because I'm looking at it.
I was like, you know, there was a thing way back,
early episodes where I was like, I'm
never going to do a sweater.
It is just not something I'm interested in.
But you did.
But I did.
And I actually did one.
A vest kind of counts as a sweater.
So I've done it a few times.
You did a kid's sweater, too.
I did do a kid's sweater, and I'm looking at other ones.
So that's something I never even considered looking at.
Blas.
And I don't know if I would have,
if I wasn't doing this and looking at different things
and seeing what other people were kind of doing
and commenting on.
So I was like, oh, that's from episode one to episode 100.
That's a lot of growth.
Is this our flashback episode?
Swann and I've done.
All right, we're going to go back in time.
I remember the first day I started knitting.
We're talking about from episode one.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry, I went back too far.
We're talking 2021, not 2008.
I went back too far.
Too far, too far.
Bring it forward a little bit.
When's it my fault?
Yeah, here, here.
We're going forward.
All right, I'm there.
I'm there.
That's a fast forward sound.
Apparently.
That's the sound of growing up.
What was the question?
From episode one to episode 100.
So from August 2021 to September 2024.
What's something maybe you've done that you don't think you
would have done if we hadn't have started all this?
Actually, I don't think that I ever would have made a sweater.
I've been very comfortable in a lot of things
that I had been doing at that time.
Like I was doing socks.
I was doing hats.
I was doing mitts.
You're an accessories gal.
I was an accessories gal.
And to some extent, I still am.
I really haven't done any garments,
except for that sweater.
Like I am one.
But you're thinking about it.
I am thinking about it.
It's like a third of a sweater.
It's a sweater without the tedium of the body.
Yes.
Yeah.
Like there's no body, and it's only
going to have elbow sleeves.
You're just getting to the good parts.
Yes, it's also cardigan style, so there's no front.
I mean, it still counts.
It absolutely counts.
It does.
And I am looking forward to that.
But I don't think that if we didn't start doing the podcast,
I would have just picked up sweater making in general.
Because I think the podcast does encourage me to do more
outside of my own comfort zone.
But I'm trying to think of like anything else that was like new
or adventurous.
And I think that that's really, you did brioche.
Oh, I did learn brioche.
I'm not going to lie, the first time I saw brioche, I said,
absolutely not.
That looks way too complicated.
But Tina did it first, and I was like, oh, well, let me do that.
Oh, yeah, I did, didn't I?
Yeah, you did.
Well, I mean, the first time was North Carolina,
and I really missed it.
But the first time I did it right was so much easier.
It was impressive.
Yeah, that was the high vis cowl.
Yeah, but there have definitely been some stitches
and some techniques that I have branched out into doing.
It's been a journey.
There are new things in my repertoire.
I've learned different cast ons.
I've learned different cast offs.
Yeah.
I think the one thing that I would like to do is steaking.
I would love to do that.
Will I ever be mentally prepared for it?
Probably not, but maybe one day.
Coffee cup steak.
Yeah.
I got to do that.
I got to do that, because if I don't try that first,
I'm never going to be able to sneak a sweater.
I know me.
Exactly.
If I do it successfully on a small scale, OK.
It'll be less intimidating on a larger scale.
Maybe, but yeah.
I feel like you're going to have that same feeling as when we
figured out how to do the two at a time.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, we thought it was really, whoa.
I'm not going to lie.
For me, that still is the case, because I still
haven't learned how to do two at a time anything.
Oh, right.
But you had.
You'd done it before, correct?
I did the sleeves on Calliope two at a time.
Yeah.
And I did.
At first, I was like, oh my god.
How am I going to do this?
But I had a very good friend, shout out to Mary,
who I know is listening, who was sending me tutorials
and saying, no, this is life changing.
Once you do this, you're not going
to want to go back to doing them one at a time.
And she had a point, because I hate
doing sleeves one at a time.
You finish it, and you're like, crap.
I got to go back and do it all over again.
I want to say that since our first episode,
I've become a more confident crafter.
I'm less intimidated to try new things.
I'm more open to the idea of new and different.
Taking that leap of faith.
Sweaters weren't that bad.
Thought it was going to be a lot harder.
It wasn't that bad.
I could do more.
I have it.
Until you made too much sweater.
I did make too much sweater.
And then I had to tink all that back.
No, I think it was Yarn Harlot that said once
that sweaters are really scary until you break them
into parts.
Because if you look at a whole sweater, it's big.
It's a lot.
There's a lot of different techniques.
There's a lot of construction.
But when you break it down to, OK, I'm
just going to do the collar, that's easy.
And then you just increasing.
That's easy.
And then split for the, you know,
it's like you break it down into parts
and make it less about I'm going to knit this sweater.
And more about I'm just going to do one bit at a time.
Same thing with socks.
Like you break down the socks.
And it's not nearly as intimidating.
Because you're just doing it step by step.
I agree with that.
That's probably the same way that I looked at socks
when I was doing socks.
Right.
Well, socks are great too.
Because it's like, OK, a cuff.
Cool.
I can cast on in the round.
I can do ribbing.
This is easy.
I know how to knit back and forth to make a heel flap.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And you break it down like that.
And it's all of a sudden it's not as intimidating anymore.
You're just knitting parts.
And a lot of those parts are things that you know how to do.
You already know how to do.
Anyway, you're just on a different scale.
Well, again with socks, like watching people use
all of those double points and having like the octopus.
The porcupine.
The porcupine as your project.
And you know, it always looked like it was so much.
But you're only using two needles at a time.
I think that's the thing is like people look at that.
They're like, how are you doing that?
Like you're some sort of magician with nine hands.
It's like, no, I'm literally just using two.
Still just two needles.
That's it.
Yeah.
The technique literally doesn't really change.
No, it doesn't.
It just looks different.
So I would say confidence, more open to trying new things,
wanting to try new things, which I think
are two different things.
Yeah.
I got pickier about needles.
Yeah.
I didn't pickier about needles.
It's the same.
I develop favorites.
Yeah.
And size favorites too.
Like I'm really into size sixes right now.
So I'm trying to find a lot of projects
where I can use that size needle because it
feels good in my hands.
That's me with eights.
Yeah.
I like eights.
Eight is my favorite.
But like nines, right?
Like come on.
Who uses a nine?
Like I don't like to use nines.
I see a pattern with a nine.
Guys, I had to use a nine.
And I was like, it was for like.
You should have seen her.
It was like she was being tortured.
Oh my god.
It was awful.
Then I had to use a 10 to bind off.
It was just for the bind off.
And it was awful.
I'm OK with a 10.
I'm OK with 10s too.
I'm OK with a 10.
I don't know why.
Don't give me a nine.
It's like sevens are usually my cut off.
Eights, I'm like, OK.
Nine, I'm like, oh god.
This is.
Broomstick knitting.
Oh no.
This is terrible.
No, actually, if I'm knitting with bulky yarn,
like give me the 10s.
I love the 10s.
I forgot which one I was looking for.
And I pulled out 13s.
I'm like, who has these?
Me, apparently.
What are you knitting with?
No, they're mine.
I also have 15s, 17s, and 19s.
That's the super bulkies.
Yeah, up here.
I'm not going to lie.
I inherited a ton of like bulky needles.
Like I have enormous sizes.
Like literal like broomsticks.
Like enormous.
Will I ever use them?
No.
Do I have them in case the urge ever strikes me?
Yes.
In case you ever need that last minute Christmas present
and some super bulky yarn, can knit a cowl in half an hour.
I know, but.
Yes.
I will say when I knit with 19s,
I feel like I'm taking like two cooking spoons.
I know.
Thick ones.
Like and just dig it in there.
It hurts your hands after a while.
They're just too big.
I get like there's a certain way I hold them to kind of get
them not to feel awkward.
But I hate it.
But I would rather hold 19s than nines.
I got a personal issue.
I'm not going to go that far.
I don't like nines, but not that much.
Nope.
Not that much.
If you like nines, you got to convince me
because they're not OK in my book.
Not to say that you personally cannot like nines.
No, no, this is totally just me.
My problem.
I feel like it's a table problem.
There's that one person who's like my favorites are nines
and I'm going to feel really bad.
And I'm really like, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
As always.
I still like you.
As always, these are always our personal favorites.
Yep, yep.
Your mileage may vary.
You're on our journey of self discovery right now.
I'll say for me, the journey, I felt
like there's separate things about the podcast as a whole
that has done things to my knitting and just
my life in general.
And I think for one, I feel like I now have kind of sort
of an opinion about audio mixers.
I think.
I do.
No, I definitely do.
Am I an expert?
Absolutely not.
But I know enough to get by.
I've done it'll be 100 episodes.
You've done pretty good by us so far.
Not bad.
And so now I feel like I have preferences
and feel like I understand a lot more about audio editing
and in general and podcasting configuration in general
and a lot of boring tech stuff that I am not
going to inundate our listeners with.
Thank God.
But in terms of my knitting, I definitely feel like when
we started, I had just recently that year
had come back to Connecticut.
I was recovering from health issues
I had at the beginning of the year.
And I feel like I came here and I
was using knitting as my coping mechanism at the time
to go through my recovery process.
And then in terms of knitting in general, I feel like I just
I definitely did more pattern work than I would have.
And pattern work, I should say, not just hats,
even though I like hats and my patterns tend
like I have a couple of patterns.
But I did mitts and I did a scarf.
And it was exciting to kind of do stuff like that
and bring it to life.
I remember 99 episodes ago, I was going, all right, guys,
we got this.
We're going to do the thing.
And we definitely did not got it because the mics needed
duct tape.
Listen, that was hilarious.
Because the holders were too small for the mic.
And why would you sell a package when the package doesn't
actually fully fit?
Someone did a new CD.
Yeah, something like that.
And then we went on this kind of crazy adventure.
And we recorded a second episode that I don't think
ever saw the light again.
And it never should see the light again.
And it never will.
I am so happy that we were all eventually like,
do you want to redo that?
Yeah.
We were just so awkward.
It wasn't bad.
It wasn't like there was anything horrific on it
that we can't release to the public.
I'll give you a synopsis.
I like Reese's.
Reese's are chocolatey and peanut buttery.
I like Reese's.
It was just, it was like favorite patterns, right?
Oh, god, it was so bad.
And what was really bad, because none of us
knew what the others were talking about.
So we're just like, oh, yeah, that sounds great.
As we round tabled it.
And it was just, oh, god, it was so bad.
I'm glad we didn't release it.
We would never have gone anywhere.
It was an antithesis to what we eventually
have come to learn what the podcast is,
which is authentic, round table, chatting with each other,
like just a casual conversation.
And it was so forced.
That second episode was so forced.
We just had our little papers.
We hadn't found our voices yet.
No.
No, and I think we were still at the time somewhat trying
to do what the other five or podcasts were more doing.
And we're like, and we realized, thankfully,
by the third episode, i.e. the second episode, hey,
that's not our style.
This is our style.
And it works for us.
I mean, we could never adhere to that, though.
I mean.
Yeah, I mean, the blooper reel, that was just like,
I winked that because we didn't have a holiday episode.
And I was like, we'll do bloopers.
Hey, it's all this stuff that we still have and haven't used.
I was like, you know what, guys?
I've been saving all of our bet.
Oh, no, I didn't.
I didn't save.
The first time I did that, I did not save the bloopers.
So usually, when I'm editing the episodes,
I will cut the bloopers out.
And then I put those MP3s in a separate folder.
And then when I want to do the blooper episode,
I'm just like, OK.
So I have all these bloopers.
This is what I'm going to pick from.
But the first time that we did it, that was not planned.
So I was just like, huh, I'm just
going to go through all the ones I think
I remember we had bloopers on.
And hope for the best.
Oh, my god.
That took so long.
I love listening to the blooper episodes, though.
It brings me so much joy.
See, now you have the better way of doing it.
Even back then, we would crack ourselves up.
And it still cracks me up listening to us crack up.
I'll never forget you saying noobs,
because noob is a nope for me or something like that.
And I was like, oh, my god.
She asked what a noob was.
Yeah.
And I said, it's P7TOG.
No.
Oh, that's a noob.
It just spilled out.
I don't think that I have had to do noobs.
It's not on my bucket list.
It's a hard pass.
Noobs to you or size nine needles to me?
Talking about the blooper reel, we
also did like that audio track.
You mean our top of the charts hit single?
Our debut single?
Oh, my god.
Yeah, if you haven't heard it, it's a riot.
Anyways, I want to say that was the second series of bloopers.
And again, you know, Dreya was living with me at the time.
And I asked her if she wanted to be involved in the bloopers
episode, to which she immediately said yes.
And then all of a sudden, we were rapping.
And it was what happens when you leave us unsupervised.
It's not good.
Anybody's guess what's going to happen.
There was a lot of trial and error.
But I feel like it's in a really good spot right now.
We got there in the end.
Yeah.
We found our people.
Our people have found us.
Yeah.
I love our people.
Our people are so awesome.
No, that's actually probably been the most surprising thing.
And I'll tell you why.
Because in general, I feel like if you
have a negative or pessimistic outlook on life in general
and people, you don't expect kind of like it's the internet.
You are expecting a lot of negativity.
And we got the opposite of that.
And yeah, it's crazy.
We get a lot of positive feedback
from all of you listeners.
And it's awesome.
Yeah, it's.
Every time we get a new comment or a new DM
or a new email submission, it really makes our day.
Yeah, even I don't think we respond to every single one
now that we get at this point.
Because sometimes there isn't necessarily a question.
But just getting them in, we talk about it.
We put it in our personal chat.
And we're like, hey, look what we got.
We read every single submission.
I will say, every time someone does send me,
hey, you guys made my day better today, and we read it,
it makes my day better too.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
It's very.
It's very like I feel like it's a good given
receive of, oh, yay.
And everyone seems, for the most part, like I said,
of course, it's the internet.
You're always going to get something here or there.
But for the most part, everyone is so supportive.
And backing everybody up, and that's awesome.
Not to say that we don't get negative commentary,
but it's very far and few in between.
And it's really hard to focus on that when you're just
overloaded with positivity.
And I think, honestly, sometimes that's
kept us going more than anything else.
Because we're like, no, we know this person's listening
because they don't have a knit circle near them
within a two hour window of driving.
And it gives us that motivation to, hey, we're going to do.
We're going to record an episode.
We're going to do it.
And I mean, our relationships have changed too,
just between each other.
Because I feel like we've seen a lot of each other,
which is awesome in my book.
And I feel like I've gotten closer to each of you
in different ways.
That, for me, is I'm not good with feelings.
I don't know why I went this route.
But I really do.
I see your struggle, but I accept it.
Yeah, just accept it for what it is.
I'm not going to.
Going way back past, we'll go back past.
I'll go back to 2008 with Dreya.
Oh, it's nice to.
We need the music again.
We'll go way back.
Hold on.
No, not.
Oh, yeah, that one.
Yeah, that is the one.
But going back to 2008, I remember when I started knitting.
I started knitting several years before that.
But 2008 was really when I started to expand out
into other things.
And a friend of mine met me at Atlanta Bread Company.
And we were knitting together.
And she realized I had no.
I didn't even know what notions were.
And she took me to Michael's.
And she was like, here are stitch markers.
I'm like, I'm not going to use those.
What do I need those for?
I'm so serious.
And she was like, you've got to read the Yarn Harlots blog.
And I got really into reading knit blogs at the time.
I read Yarn Harlot.
I read Grimperina.
I read a whole bunch of other ones.
They're all defunct now, unfortunately.
And I remember reading the blogs and seeing
all these amazing patterns that these people were making.
And then they would talk about going on knitting retreats
and learning new techniques and making knitting friends.
And I just remember thinking at that time,
being I was like 24, 25 years old,
I'm thinking, I wish I could be a part of that.
Like, I wanted that.
It just sounded so cool.
And I'm sitting there making my stockinette hats
and garter stitch scarves.
And I'm like, I will never be like that.
I'm never going to be that cool.
And I'm never going to kind of be in that world
because I was so anxious about trying new things.
And fast forward to 2021, and we started the podcast.
And that was right around the time
that I started branching out.
I had started trying new techniques a couple of months
before we started the podcast.
And right that fall was when I did my first test knit,
which, Tina, you were the one who kind of encouraged that.
And I don't test knit much anymore.
But I did enjoy it mainly because it kind of
gave me like a deadline.
And over time, I was like, OK, I'm trying new things.
I'm trying lace.
I'm doing cables.
I'm doing sweaters, extensive color work.
And that was right around the time that we started
to create this community.
And realizing, oh my god, I am a part of that knitting community.
And also in tandem realizing that I never
needed to be great to be a part of it.
And that realization along the way was worth everything.
Realizing that you don't need to be a fantastic knitter
to be a part of this community.
You don't need to do anything spectacular.
Just by virtue of being part of the craft and loving it,
that makes you part of the community.
And that was such an awesome realization.
And I think it really hit me the first time
that we went to Reinbeck and started meeting up
with people.
I'm like, wow, we are in the knitting community.
We have knitting friends.
We do knitting things.
And the realization that I didn't have to be perfect
or be spectacular to be a part of that was really fantastic.
And I hope that everybody who knits or crochets
or does anything in the fiber arts understands that,
gets that feeling.
And I hope that's something that we've
promoted on this podcast over the last three years
that we've been doing this.
You don't need to be fantastic.
You just need to like what you're doing.
And you're already a part of this community.
I mean, here, here.
Yeah, and we're sitting here, you're like, yeah, do that thing.
That's awesome.
Yeah, we will all be personally cheering you
on from the sidelines, no matter how you're doing.
There's something to be said.
Tina started the podcast.
She just showed up here one day with all the recording
equipment and said, we're doing this now.
And I love that.
But I don't think that we would be here if you didn't create
your own knitting circle here.
You taught me, Tina.
No, it's true.
Yeah, it's true.
Yeah, you did.
And you roped Jess in, too.
I'm just sitting here like, yeah, I'm
going to do this other fiber thing.
And then we're getting other fiber people like, oh, I
do that fiber thing.
And I feel like we're just slowly roping everybody in.
And it's awesome.
Really, we were before this podcast, we met for Knit Nights.
That was a thing we did.
And I was not the instigator of Knit Nights.
Definitely not.
I don't remember if you guys asked to learn how to knit
or if I was just like, this is a thing I do.
Does anybody else want to learn how to do it, too?
I don't remember how we started that.
I feel like I do remember this, actually,
because Crystal went with me to that apartment.
No, it was like one night at my apartment
and I had no furniture.
We had no furniture and we were just sitting on the carpet.
Yeah, so I'm pretty sure you told us beforehand
that we were all going to learn how to knit.
Oh, no, that was the plan because I told everybody
to bring yarn and needles.
But I don't remember if I just decided to be like,
I'm having a Knit Night, everybody come over,
or if people expressed an interest.
I feel like people expressed an interest.
I don't think I would just randomly
be like, everybody go buy some needles, we're doing this.
That's not me.
I just vaguely remember digging through the closet,
back through the crafts that I had
abandoned for a while closet.
Oh, god.
To find some needles and yarn that I could use that night.
But there is something to be said
that if you don't have a knitting community,
you can make your own.
You can't make your own.
You literally made your own.
I did.
I didn't.
That's the thing.
Everybody I knew knitted was online or lived out of state,
pretty much.
Or they were like my friend who took me to Michael's
was a grown woman, middle aged with a child.
She was not going to be available to just hang out
and knit every week.
Now look at us, grown women.
I did not.
That's the thing.
This is fair.
I mean, and hang out with me, who was 22, 23 at the time.
But yeah, that's really incredible.
And now that I think about it, that this is just
something that just built itself up.
And it seemed so far away at the time.
These people just getting together and having fun
with sticks and string and then going to Fiber Fest.
And oh, my god, I remember the first time I read about Ryan
back and I'm like, I want to go there.
And when you're 24 years old and you've barely driven anywhere,
it's like, I'm not going to drive to New York.
That's crazy by myself.
That's fair.
But no, but I think that does.
That really does encompass everything of we got together
doing this as just a couple friends being like, hey,
this sounds like a fun idea.
And we're going to bring our knit night out.
But it really has become a community of the people
that listen and join the Discord and join in to our knit circle.
Even not present on the nights, it's like,
you're still present because we're still thinking
about the stuff that you talked about and the things
a bunch of you have started and shared.
I know a lot of people started getting into different crafts
because of this or sharing back and forth questions.
And hey, it's fun.
It's nice.
It's great to see that it's becoming a closer community.
Close knit community.
That was awful.
But a closer community where we can share and be happy
and get like, it's cool.
It's really neat to see from where
it started with just that awkward first episode
to now where we've got a whole bunch of people
sharing their different things and likes.
And if they see like, hey, I saw this new product.
You guys should check it out.
And just sharing the experience all around.
It's been a ride.
And here we are, the moment you've all been waiting for,
our 100th episode announcement of the winners of the Dimmy
Beans Wool sponsored giveaway.
Woo!
Let's see who won.
First up, the winner of five skeins of yarn citizen harmony
fingering in driftwood.
Tina, who's our lucky winner?
Our first winner is Anna Al.
Woo!
Yay!
Congratulations!
All right, and now for our second prize, the Deli-Q mesh
tote bag in teal.
Tina?
Our next winner is Rachel M.
Woo!
Yay!
A P.M.
Congratulations!
And finally, the third mystery prize now
revealed as a Deli-Q hook and needle notebook in maroon
goes to our final winner is Katie S.
Woo!
So congratulations to our winners.
You will be receiving an email from us,
so please check your inboxes and your spam just in case
to receive notice from us on how we will
be sending you your prize.
Make sure it is from us.
Please do not accept any emails or trying to get information
from scammers.
Thank you.
And that is all the time.
We have for this episode.
For additional content and opportunities
to connect with the cast, be sure to check out our website
at partinmystache.com.
And remember to tune in next time for more tips, nips,
and whips at PartinMyStache.