I'm Drea.
I'm Meg.
I'm Tina.
And I'm Jess.
And this is Pardon My Stash.
["Pardon My Stash Theme Song"]
Welcome to Pardon My Stash,
a podcast about knitting, the fiber arts,
and how awesome it is.
Before we dive in today,
let's talk about what we're working on, Draeah.
I am still plugging away on my Echemy shawl
by Isabelle Krimmer.
And I'm using Silver Moon Fiber Arts
fingering weight in Faded Jeans.
It is looking good.
Oh, it's so stretchy.
It's very stretchy.
I didn't realize it was so stretchy.
Oh yeah.
The lace is making it like-
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is real stretchy.
Super stringy, so.
That's gonna look real cool when it's blocked.
I bet that's gonna open up like crazy.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's gonna be huge.
Well, that's the perfect shawl.
This one, it's big.
Tina.
I can't tell you what I'm working on.
Why not?
Because it's a secret.
What do you mean it's a secret?
It's a secret, but I can tell you
what yarn I'm using.
I was gonna say, can you at least tell us the yarn?
It is- Oh, I know what you're making.
Lena Grossa Cool Handad Limited Edition.
Limited Edition.
It is apparently number 4,738 of 5,000 skeins
that we're creating.
Wow.
Fancy, fancy.
That is fancy.
Basically, and there's no like,
of course, there's like no like color name,
but basically it looks like a vanilla cone
with rainbow sprinkles.
It does.
It's real pretty.
I like that.
Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
It's a super secret project because I am a masochist.
No, you just like test knitting.
Or you test knitting.
It's a test.
Oh, I thought you weren't test knitting anymore.
I wasn't.
She lied.
Somebody needed my help.
It's very pretty.
What a sucker.
I am a sucker.
No, it started with me like giving advice
and then it ended with me helping.
I remember I was sitting there on the couch with you
when you accepted.
I only agreed because it's a flexible deadline
and it's super cash and there's no like crazy like pressure
to like do anything.
It's just, you know, knit.
It's gonna be a good test.
Yeah.
And I really enjoy the stitch.
So it'll be fun.
Jess.
I'm working on square for the Astrid blanket pattern
by Mallory Krall.
And yeah, so I'm just making a whole ton of squares
using a bunch of our assorted colors from Critical Hit Dies
because I kind of want to have like a swatch blanket.
Is that crochet?
This is crochet.
Yes, it is a crochet.
It is a huge hook in my experience
because I usually work with smaller ones.
It's actually probably a decently normal sized hook.
You just like working with tiny.
I'm just silly.
What size is that?
It's like G, right?
Oh, that's I.
Okay, it is pretty big.
I don't know.
It's a 5.5 millimeter.
So that's like a 10 in knitting.
Yeah, that's pretty big.
It's pretty big needle.
It's decent size.
Yeah.
But yeah, so I'm cranking out a few of these
because it's fun and I like crochet
and we have all these colors I want to try and do.
And I'm just sort of nabbing colors like three at a time
and going to town at them and just switching out the order
in which I use them to make at least three squares.
But if you use three colors and switch them around,
you can make six different squares
just using those three colors.
I've never made a granny square, but.
It's fun.
I never did till yesterday.
It's a lot of fun.
Yeah.
It is.
I didn't realize there were so many kinds
of granny squares now, like, cause you know,
when my grandmother did it,
it was basically just your kind of box one.
And it was like, it was still like two to three colors,
but it was basically just squares within a square.
And I really liked this, this round puff one.
So.
So I never crocheted along anything in my life
until yesterday.
And she showed me how to do that along
with the video tutorial.
And that one square, I learned six different techniques.
Nice.
In that one square.
And it was really like, when I say I learned them,
you repeat them enough that you memorize them.
So that was like an amazing square to start with,
because like flat out now I'm like, okay, cool.
I know what single chain is, double chain, half,
what is it?
Half double chain.
Half double crochet.
I don't even know what any of these things are,
but I know how to do them.
So it was really neat.
Like how many techniques could be crammed
into one little square.
At some point I should show you flat
just so you know what they are.
Just like, okay, this is, this is a half double crochet.
So you're gonna, okay, you're gonna put this here,
you're gonna do this and do this.
And I'm like, okay.
But I just kept following her.
But you repeated enough that you actually do learn them.
So it's a really good,
it's a really good square to start with.
One day I'll let you teach me how to crochet Jess.
Not today.
Not this day.
But maybe one day.
She's been saying for years that she's a bad teacher
and she's really not.
I'm a bad teacher.
At all.
No, you're really not.
I feel like you've taught me stuff.
You're really not a bad teacher.
What are you working on Meg?
I'm still working on Ocean Stones by Grella Mensen.
I have not worked on it in a while.
I kind of put it down.
I got lured by other projects.
Color work, crochet.
It is, it's a really,
it's a great project right now for like just sitting
and going like randomly because it's very,
like I said, repetitive.
So I didn't need my pattern or anything like that.
I can just sit down and go.
Be sure to check out our website, PardonMyStash.com
for more information as well as pictures
regarding our current projects, patterns and yarns.
This week for our main topic,
we are going to be talking about misconceptions
about the fiber arts and how do we debunk them?
What are some of the things that people think, say or do
when you mentioned that you partake in the fiber arts
and how do you deal with it?
Thoughts?
Knitting is for old people.
We brought knitting to Kineticon.
I think it was 2009 and Jackie said
we were old lady level grinding.
Yes.
And I thought that was the funniest thing ever.
Cause I had never heard of level grinding before
cause I didn't play video games.
And I think Jess, you had to explain it to me what it meant.
And it was just so funny.
She was, she saw us take out our stuff and she's like,
Oh, time for some old lady level grinding.
And yeah, it was like, okay.
Knitting's for old ladies.
You know, though it's really funny right now.
I don't think I know any old ladies that knit.
Like personally, like I know of old ladies that knit,
but I don't know, like there is no older lady in my life
that I can think of.
Who currently knits.
Anybody that I would consider really old that knits.
Yeah.
My grandmother does, but she was convinced.
She thought I was doing some new age knitting
cause I wasn't knitting Portuguese.
And now that I've switched to Portuguese knitting,
she's like, Oh, so you do, oh okay.
New age knitting.
Oh, so you do know how to knit the right way.
Yeah, no, she just kept giving me like these looks of like,
why are you doing that to yourself?
Whenever I was throwing the yarn and she's just like,
that looks so painful.
Like just stop.
And then I switched and then she was like, oh, okay.
Yeah, that's how you're supposed to do it.
But yeah, she will do it.
If I put like, it put a pair of needles in her hand.
Like I gave her a crochet hook the other day and some yarn
cause my daughter was doing it and she just whipped up.
It was like a lace border, no pattern, just done.
Like it was nothing.
Okay, so that's one old person I know.
Yeah, I really, I really don't know that many older people
that are like, that are knitting.
I really don't.
Yeah, everybody that I know that's,
everybody that I know personally that is knitting
or crocheting, they're all about our age.
I have one coworker who's older than me by about 15 years
that is knitting, but I wouldn't consider her old.
My kids would.
Wow.
That's different.
That's a different problem.
But yeah, I think that's one.
It's like, it's an old person activity.
And I really think that that's not even the case anymore.
I think that it kind of got a wrap for being
like an old person activity, but it really isn't anymore.
Most of the people you see it at yarn stores knitting
are not that old.
Well, certain ones, certain ones have still have like
a couple of those, that older crowd.
Yeah.
I would say it's probably because the social medias
and all that have the young kids out there.
Well, retro, retros.
Those whippersnappers and.
Yeah, it's like this, you know,
it's like cool right now to knit.
Like it's the cool, uncool thing to do.
You know, like how I found that like,
there's this trend right now with like,
oh, I'm so uncool.
I do this.
That's how uncool I am.
And like that makes you cool.
Is that a trend?
I don't know if that makes sense.
That's a trend now?
I don't know.
I see people like, like embrace it.
Like they want to be considered like nerds of something
or they have hobbies or whatever.
And they just like want to hop on this train.
And I'm like, I mean, that's cool.
But like you should do it cause you like it,
not because it's some train to hop on, you know?
And I think that a lot of the misconceptions
that we're seeing actually comes from either people
who don't do it, which we already know.
And then like people who jump on the train and then go,
wow, this is not what I thought it was going to be.
Yeah.
You know, I don't think I've met that many people though
but I think there are like maybe two that asked to be taught
to knit and actively did not do it afterwards.
They were both guys.
Yup.
Yeah. You know exactly who I'm talking about.
That too.
Yeah. And, and like one of them is,
I don't really know his feelings about the fiber arts
at all anymore.
The other one has high respect for it,
but ripped out his knitting three times and was like,
yeah, this is not for me.
He does blacksmithing now.
Yeah. He does other stuff.
He does other stuff.
If you were wondering, he's still crafts.
Yeah.
He does crafts, but he's not, he doesn't knit,
but those are like literally the only two people
that ever were like, hey, I want to knit.
And then never picked it up again after that, that one time.
Most of the people that I know who asked to knit
eventually settled down and did knit,
even if they only do like one or two projects a year.
There were a couple people that I taught to knit
and I'm pretty sure they're, they're still knitting
even though I'm not really in contact with them anymore.
Yeah. Well, I think it's got a lot going for it.
I think that, you know, when people do it,
it's like, once you get the muscle memory, it's like,
oh, this actually is pretty relaxing.
And it gives me something to do while I'm watching TV
and you know, all of that.
So it's definitely not just for old people.
Spinsta ladies.
We are all Spinsta ladies.
I feel like that goes along with like, you know,
people who say like people who play D and D
are like terminally single and never get dates.
And I have not, I don't think I've met a single like person
in D and D that didn't have a significant other.
And most of them met significant others through D and D.
Like, yeah.
No, I've definitely met.
But you know what I'm saying?
Like it's not all of them.
And it's not, it's not the majority.
Look, when we were doing D and D, like our campaign,
everybody at our table was either married
or in a long-term committed relationship or.
Yeah.
I would say we're not the norm though.
Like if you go to like a PAX East or something
where they're doing a whole bunch of those games all at once.
But we could be.
There's a lot of dungeon dwellers in there.
But I think that's the point is that you don't know.
I mean, there could be a lot of a lot of women who are Spinstras.
I hate that term.
Who are knitters.
But I also think that like most people who are who are doing fiber arts
are in whatever position they're in because they want to be,
whether they're choosing to be in a relationship or be single or,
you know, whatever, but it's, it's not like.
You're a spinster, therefore you should be doing crafts.
I have nothing else to do with my life because there's not a man in it.
So I have to be knitting.
Like that's that's ridiculous.
I think most people are aware where they're at,
whether they're in a relationship or not by choice,
because that's where they they choose to be at this moment in time.
I got one. All right.
People who assume that if you're somewhat decent at the craft,
then therefore you must be selling or donating said, oh, my God.
You couldn't just be doing it to do it like that's a huge
like the amount of people that come out to me and go like, hey, sell it.
And I'm like, no. Yeah.
And I know that we've talked about that before.
Yeah, it's it's like it's very relevant and it's very prevalent in crafting.
If you're crafting, therefore you should be selling it. Yeah.
Well, I think it's also a double edged sword, too,
because nobody asks you to like make them something.
If you are making it look like you were you are having difficulty with it,
they ask you to do something when they think, wow, you are making that look so easy.
So for you to make me a sweater, that's going to be like nothing for you. Right.
Oh, I hate that one.
So there's I mean, it's it's it's like the double edged sword of wow.
I'm saying this because you look like you really have your you know what together
and you are doing a really good job and you're just like flying through that knitting.
But on the flip side of it, it's like, yeah,
yes, and it took me a very long time to get to this point.
And that does not mean that I, you know, sweaters are falling off of me while I walk.
Like, well, going along with that, there's also this idea
that what you hand custom make is going to cost the same as Wally World.
Wally World.
Yeah, you can't just go down to Walmart and pick up what
what you're creating with your own hands.
It's like, yes, you could get a knit sweater at Walmart for like twenty eight dollars.
Sure. But that's not talking to a single person
who probably has other stuff going on on the side that's getting all the materials
and taking all the time to custom make and custom build this sized object for you.
And they're also not those Wally World sweaters are not going to be seamless.
Top down sweaters. I'll tell you that right now they're going to be seemed.
They're going to be machine knit for the most part.
And not that there's anything wrong with that.
But when I say machine knit, not hand cranked like as those industrial.
Yeah. Knitting machines just cranking out sheets of fabric
and then that's being sewn by somebody that's probably not getting paid enough.
And then, you know, sent to your local Walmart and you're like,
twenty dollars, come on, why can't you give me that
thirty two per cent dollar merino sweater?
Yeah. So many crafter horror stories about their DMs with like,
well, I'd like to do this.
And then they give a price estimate and they're like, what?
No, I could get this at Walmart. It's like, OK, so go.
So go enjoy. Please enjoy.
I feel like I have no energy to argue with people like that.
And I feel like I don't want to.
You know, I did find a good way to get around that conversation.
You tell them that you're booked up for the next year.
Yeah, I'm just so good. Just just booked up.
If you want, you can give me your email and I'll put it on a waitlist.
And then you pretend to type their email in and then you walk away.
Like because they won't remember you a year from now,
especially if it's a stranger just coming up to you and saying that, like,
it's so easy. Oh, wow. Wow.
Oh, yeah, I'm going to make I'm going to make fifty six sweaters
in the next year. And I just can't fit another one.
It's just so much time.
Tina, that's like more than one sweater a week.
If they were baby chunky sweaters, I bet you could do it.
It would be really, really tough.
I bet you could.
I bet if it's a baby sweater in chunky, you know, what?
I could make that happen.
Yeah, if you don't got to do arms, just knit a tube with holes.
There you go.
I actually have one kind of piggyback off of that.
And I find this is interesting because it's even among other crafters,
a complete misconception about the fact that
it's a complete misconception about the cost of materials.
Yeah.
So my my mom and I were talking like about a month ago about and
and my mom said something about, you know, when she dies.
And I brought this up before my mother's crazy quilting stash,
like all the fabric. And she goes, well, you know, when when I die,
you know, my sister's going to get all my all my fabric.
But if she goes first, then you need to get rid of it.
And I'm like, oh, Jesus.
And she goes, but don't worry.
You can sell it. And I go, OK, but mom, I need you then to tell me
what it's worth because I have no clue what you paid for it.
And she you know, she started acting like I was nuts because I had no idea.
And I said, OK, let me ask you a question.
How much do you think a a skein of fingering weight, which hilarious,
she wouldn't know what that meant.
Fingering weight hand dyed yarn.
And I'm like, no.
And I told her what, you know, Jess and I charge at Critical Hit.
And she's like, and people pay that.
And I said, yes, we're actually like pretty middle of the road
as far as as indie dyers go.
And she wasn't trying to be disrespectful or anything like that.
It just literally had never crossed her mind that that was the amount of money.
So when somebody is like, will you knit me a sweater?
It's like, OK, so base price, if I buy the yarn, even if I use cheap yarn,
we're looking at like sixty dollars base price for just the yarn. Right.
And then add on everything else.
And I think, you know, even people who just just don't do fiber arts in general,
they have no idea what the actual materials cost.
I swear, if one more person says, well, it's just yarn.
It's like, guys, a lot goes into.
But you can say that about literally every hobby.
I know every hobby is just paint.
Well, that's what it's not just paint.
When you told me what optic markers were, I was like,
you have got to be freaking kidding me that markers cost that much.
But that's what I mean.
But Copic markers are like the best.
But it doesn't matter. I had no idea.
Like, this is me who can't draw.
And and she's telling me like, what's one marker like anywhere
from like four to eight dollars higher?
Like what I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
The cost of that. Right.
No, I would have said the same thing.
I have paid that much for a single company.
And if you are like if you really are trying to to use the best of the best,
which, you know, if you if you're enjoying your craft
and you're going to use it, like, by all means, you should buy
whatever you want to.
But people aren't going to understand that.
Wow, I really do want to buy this sixty dollar
skein of cashmere or silk blend.
And they're going to be like, that's literally string.
Yes, it is always going to be.
Yes, it is like your different types of paints or even going from like, OK,
like miniature paints, like, you know, those tiny little bottles
that I also pay like six dollars for that are usually like acrylic.
They are not the same as the tube acrylics that you can get,
which is also not the same as the kids acrylic paint that you can get.
They're all like different different levels.
Yeah. But if you don't know anything about paint, you're just like, dude,
it's a tiny as jar of paint.
I can get like one for a buck, an eight of that price.
That's like six times more.
And it's like, yeah, but that's the wrong kind of my super special crafting
stuff that I put it.
Different.
It is.
And people, people don't.
And the same thing with the tools.
I mean, my mom was asking me a couple of years ago,
like she wanted to buy me some nice needles and she asked me what kind I liked.
And I told her my favorites are the the carbons.
Yeah. And she saw the price and she was like, oh, my God.
Like, they're not cheap.
And it is it's like, yeah, I could go to to Joanne's
and I could buy a whole bunch of clovers that are perfectly good.
They're going to get the job done exactly the same way.
I'm not going to enjoy the the feel experience as much,
but they'll do the job just as well.
But somebody that would you spend,
you know, $20 on one pair of needles as opposed to like, you know, $4
on the same the same size that will do the exact same job.
So, yeah.
And I think that also plays into the whole like how much it should cost
because there's the just the overhead cost of everything, just the.
Yes, there's the yarn and yes, there's your time.
But then, like all your materials and notions and accessories
and winders and swifts and like all this stuff that you used with it
is like cost two and.
Yeah, right.
And you'll have people that are like, why would you ever buy a ball winder?
You have two perfectly good hands.
Just wind the yarn.
And that I say no, no, because I've done it.
I will. I will absolutely like I wash laundry down by the river.
But I mean,
there's a lot of stuff that I'm like, I know what I can live without this.
I know I don't I don't wind balls by hand anymore.
Absolutely not.
I'm sorry. I got that.
That Chris Farley thing where you could go live in a van down by the river.
Anyway, yeah.
Yeah. But that's but you know what?
There are people that would be like, why would you why would you
spend your time doing that?
Like that's true of any hobby.
Right.
It is. And that's a ridiculous cost and you shouldn't do it.
Well, besides cost, I think there's also a misconception of the type of things
that you can knit like sweaters and scarves.
Yeah.
And socks. That's it. Yeah.
That's it. Or it could be honestly any of those things.
Like I've heard people tell me like, oh, I thought you only like did like
hats and socks or scarves.
And I'm like, it's always scarves.
Scarves are always in there.
But then like, but then like it'll always change.
Like it'll be like a sweater. And when they say a sweater, like they're thinking
of like those Fair Isle, like Celtic, like gorgeous, detailed sweaters.
And and I'm just like, yeah, but like, you know, there's also like crop tops
and halters and mini skirts and apparently pants and and pants.
Yeah, I don't I don't want to do pants.
But there are pants. There is pants.
The chainmail in Monty Pants.
Yes, I sent that to you the other day.
Yeah, I saw it on TikTok.
Can you imagine walking around with with all that metal?
Exactly.
And die.
Dude, your sound people were like clank clank clank.
That's not right.
Yeah, I brought that up just because when I made my husband's high vis cowl,
I had gotten a comment of like, you could use colors like that.
And I'm like, yeah.
Only gray.
Yeah, like, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm like,
only gray. Yeah. Like, what did you think?
Neutrals. No, like, I don't know if they had the idea of like it has to like whatever the
colors on the sheep. That's all we can work with.
Like, there's no such thing as dying it.
And I'm like, so then I'm sitting there in my brain like, do you think that there's blue
sheep? Or like that?
No, it's like you gotta get the blue dye and just chuck it out of sheep.
And then they have blue wool all the time.
Now that's just Minecraft at that point.
If anyone plays Minecraft, you make the sheep mate and then they have a baby with a different
color.
That's how you get different colored yarn in Minecraft.
You need to know color theory.
It's super important.
Anyways.
And then you can make carpets.
Yeah, and different colored beds.
Stop.
And it's cool.
Like dying hasn't been around for thousands of years or anything like that.
But we're just gonna knit with the same sheep.
I think people are so removed from it.
At this point, if you need something, you buy it.
It's not as...
I think the whole...
Another just misconception is just the idea of patiently making something.
Like crafting something with your own hands.
And I think anyone that's a crafter can relate to that.
I've heard, well, why don't you just go buy a sweater on Amazon?
Well, why don't you just go buy a cupboard for someone who's a woodworker?
But maybe they don't want to.
Maybe I want to make this sweater more poorly.
And I want to spend like 150 bucks to make it for the glory of having made it.
I'm not gonna lie.
I never think about my own personal cost.
If I'm making something for myself, it's like, well, I have this yarn.
It just happens to be here.
But I will never sit there and tally how expensive something is.
Unless somebody is asking me if they can buy it off of my person while I'm standing in
a post office.
That meme of, why would I spend $15 on pad tie when I could spend $92 on ingredients
to make a shittier pad tie?
It just makes me think about it.
But more of it.
And you know what?
Then I also get the joy of having made it.
Like, yes, if I want a sweater that fits perfectly, I can go to the store and I can buy a sweater.
And whatever.
Or I can make it and be super proud of it, even though it's a little wonky and I totally
like fudged the armpit holes.
Don't say you haven't done it.
You have all done it.
And you know what?
I'm super proud of that sweater, even though the hem is a little bit wonky.
Like, you know what?
That's my choice.
I see your point, but I will disagree that I'm making it worse because I at this point,
the store bought stuff does not fit me as well as my handmade stuff.
And there is that too.
Like, because you're making it custom.
Yeah.
Your size like I can make adjustments for darts for my boobs.
I can make short rows for the back of my neck so it doesn't ride.
I can like change the collar height so I'm comfortable with it because like a lot of
times I'll be like, this is great.
And this is great in a store bought sweater.
But it's like cleavage, gore.
And I'm not comfortable with that because I'm heavy chested.
Or it's like, you know, it can change the bags.
Yeah.
Be more comfortable or flattering.
I can make them three quarter instead of full because the full makes me uncomfortable.
Or I can make it a short sleeve if I just feel like it or like it.
Or you can Frankenstein pattern.
Yeah.
Nobody is sitting here saying that buying off like making a sweater is easier than buying
a sweater.
Like nobody is saying that, but we're not talking about ease.
We're talking about crafting.
I think it's like a better outcome.
Like I just feel like you like, yeah, I'm going to invest this time.
And the reason why it's worth it is because in the end I would rather have two or three
sweaters that fit me amazingly in my whole life than 20 of them that I all hate because
they're either too short or too tight or too this or too that like, cause they're not made
to my body.
So it's, it's, yeah, it is time.
It does cost extra money.
But if I, if I went to somebody and said, Hey, I want you to make this beautiful, intricate
sweater.
It's custom to my measurements.
Heck yeah.
You should be paying hundreds of dollars.
That is insane to expect.
Like a machine knit sweater is in an average size that might fit the majority of the populace.
So if that doesn't fit you well and you want something custom, even if it was fabric, even
if you're a sewer, even if like it doesn't matter, you want something custom to you, that's
money.
That's like, it's expensive.
It's, it's, it's, and you also can't find that in many places.
You're very rarely going to find someone that will make you clothing custom fit to your
exact measurements from the ground up.
Yeah.
And, and usually the, the reach for that is very low because people don't have access
to those people because they actually charge what they're worth.
Yeah.
But like other than that, so the option is if you can't, you don't have millions of dollars
at your disposal to just throw around willy nilly, like, you know, so many of us do.
Anyways, you can, you can just get the materials, eat the cost of the materials, which even
if you not necessarily can afford $32 skeins of yarn, maybe you can afford $5 skeins of
yarn and that's fine.
And, and maybe it, cause like, I know with us, we're all on the larger spectrum of sizes
and that we are not making extra smalls or smalls.
So we're not looking at four or five skeins of yarn, we're looking at nine, 10, 11 skeins
of yarn to make a sweater for ourselves.
And so, yeah, maybe it'll be easier to eat $50 of yarn rather than like $150.
Yeah.
That's the one bonus of fingering weight.
Yeah.
I did my whole sweater and three and a half skeins.
That's kind of nice.
I know you never get that.
Like if I did that worse, it would be like 12.
Right.
So it's, it's all a balance of what you're willing to give up.
Right.
So are you, do you pay a little bit more?
It took me a lot longer.
Yeah.
And then it goes faster, but you don't.
It took me longer.
It's all give and take.
But that's the beauty of crafting.
You can make all those customers, if you need a certain price point, a certain fit, a certain
this, a certain that, every single measure is customizable for you, which like brings
us back full circle to misconceptions of, of all of it is just this idea that it's just
this one vertical of like, this is what knitting is when it's such a huge spectrum of things.
There's anything I've learned is just like, if you feel like you want to be a designer
of like cat beds, like you can do that because guess what?
There's a niche for that.
And probably, and even if there's eight other people doing that, no one's doing your type
of cat bed, so you are like, even though it's oddly specific, you definitely like, you can,
you can like, it's just, that's the beauty with crafting.
It's because it's your artistic expression.
Everyone has their own style.
Yeah.
Maybe somebody will like it, or maybe you just want to make it for yourself and that's
fine.
And your cat cats would never know they wouldn't.
They would look at them.
They would not use them.
You would, you could make them the most gorgeous cat bed.
Back me up on this tray.
You could make them the most gorgeous bed or buy them the most gorgeous bed and they
will look at it and be like, no, but I will sit on this single sheet of paper that I see
you dropped on the floor box that you left on the table.
Yes.
But I'm not sitting in that custom made cat bed.
Like, no, hell no.
That's not happening.
That's how I feel.
Like I started making my dog Barlow a doggy sweater, but every time I put anything remotely
on him that goes anywhere, but off of his collar, he's, he's, he's not having, he's
rolling around.
He's like, get this off of me.
So I was like, I've been like, you're like, it's not even worth it.
Yeah.
Well, that's like when I put bow ties on the cats.
They did not like that.
And this was the first year that I tried to do that to them.
And one is 10 and I think the other one is going to be seven this year.
And they're like, mm.
Like mom, I don't know where you got this idea, but we ain't those type of cats.
No, you got to start that young.
Yeah.
I have another one that I think Jess, you can probably debunk in a way that I think
the rest of us probably can't, but I think there's the prevailing notion that crochet
is easier than knitting.
Yes and no.
On the one hand, you have single strands.
They don't have to worry about like stitches getting dropped.
It's a little bit easier to pick them back up.
Like I said, they go, it tends to go faster.
Once you get the muscle memory down, I find that crochet goes a lot faster than knitting
patterns for crochet or God awful to read.
If you don't know what you're looking at, like if you open, I'm not talking about the
written ones.
They're about the same as a knitted one, you know, so long as you know, the, the, the acronym
and you're fine.
The pictures are tough.
Sometimes they don't put a key in.
And if you don't know where your designer is from, you have no idea because every country
has their own symbolism for stuff.
Let me tell you a Peacock stitch apparently has 12 different ones.
Wow.
And it took me forever to figure out which one on a pattern I was doing at one point.
Like, I was like, I don't know what this is.
I'm like, oh, it's a Peacock, which is a super simple stitch.
And I had no idea what it was.
But yeah, so, so there's that there's, there's learning how to read a crochet chart.
Crochet also you can't like, it's manmade only, you can't replicate crochet with machinery.
So if you see a crochet project that is handmade by someone somewhere machines can't do it.
They can do stuff that's kind of similar, but like braiding and whatnot, but it is not
the same.
It's really interesting that with all the technology we have in the world, I have never
managed to come up with a machine crochet.
I think it's just the way you do do crochet because there is a lot of nuance to it.
Wrist movement.
Yeah.
Well, there's wrist movement.
And there's also there's going back and forth on like, it's not just like a linear all the
way around or a back and forth.
Like you will go like up, down sideways, up, down sideways, around them, back around halfway,
then back around the whole way.
Like, like there's a lot of back and forth.
So for some pattern.
So I think crochet and knitting are very similar in how you pick them up and how you learn
them.
But they're also very different.
Like if just because you know knitting, you're not going to be able to look at a crochet
chart and be like, yes, I have this right off the bat because they're very different
techniques.
However, I think if you learn knitting, you can learn crochet.
And if you learn crochet, you can learn knitting.
Like I do think once you know you have a love for doing a fiber craft like that, you can
pick it up if that's what you like.
And a lot of people have preferences at the end of the day.
They're like, yeah, you know what?
I found out that I like, you know, I've knitted forever, but I really like crochet better.
And then you have the vice versa.
I was going to say to like really obvious misconception is when people are like knitting
is crochet and like crochet is knitting.
And you're like, it's all the same thing.
Oh, you know, same thing.
Oh my God.
I feel I feel also that cross stitchers and embroiderers also have this feud.
I only only because I knew I have a friend that I knew in North Carolina that did cross
stitch.
Yeah, she did cross stitch.
But yeah, I feel that happens a lot where like you'll just be knitting along and someone's
like, wow, my grandmother used to crochet too.
And I'm like, that's cool.
That's not what I'm doing.
I don't know if you guys remember like a million years ago, like did the quilted Northern commercials
where they had the old ladies quilting and they were quilting the toilet paper.
And my mother would like lose her mind every time because they were quilting with knitting
needles and she's like, that's not a thing.
Yeah, that was so weird.
Knitting needles.
And somebody finally must have said something because then he switched and they were using
their hands.
So I get she's like, OK, you also most people aren't going to like hand stitch a quilt,
but you know what?
Fine.
Like we're not going to miss.
We're not going to miss hairs anymore.
It was that it's the Liberty Mutual and they had the two guys and I was all excited about
this.
It was two guys and they were all excited about knitting.
And they were pulling up crocheted finished objects.
And I'm like, that's really neither.
It was like a crocheted bear.
And you're like, you know, that's not knit.
So to recap, just do your crafts the way that you want to do your crafts.
And when people give you a shout it just put on your hater blockers.
Yeah.
I just said that.
That was a sentence I just said.
Yeah, put on your hater blockers.
I'm not going to cut that out.
Don't.
Proud of it.
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