141 A Couple of Jersey Girls Sitting Around Talking

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Abby is joined by Sasha, formerly host of the Spin Doctor podcast, and currently owner of a new yarn company, Sheepspot! And, we digress, and digress. 

Latte: Sasha is making a “Simple Things” shawlette from sock yarn she dyed herself. She is also working on socks from Ann Budd’s  Getting Started Knitting Socks. A conversation ensued about the necessirty for knitting socks with negative ease, fear of clowns and their pants, and adventures in uncommon heel construction. Sasha is also knitting the Structured Alpaca Cowl, a pattern from Purl Soho. Sasha recommends their blog, The Purl Bee. Sasha sings the praises of Lobster Pot cashmere. Sasha talks about Indigo Dragonfly and their Dye Camp where she dyed the cashmere she is using for this cowl.  All Abby has been kntiting this week is the long-suffereing Color Affection and vows “nor more garter stitch” for a while. Abby refers to the Einstein Coat, which may be the ultimate garter stitch project.  

Chai: Abby talked about Stitches West, her “no sock yarn” constraint, and the lovely Three Feet of Sheep fiber that she is currently spinning as well as her “birthday earrings” from Sacred Laughter. Shasha and Abby both confess to having rather large stashes of sock yarn.  Abby feels that shopping at Stitches West is very difficult, and that for her, it is primarily a social event. We talk about the difficulty of having Madrona and Stitches West falling only one week apart, and decide that all of our friends simply need to attend Madrona next year. Sasha talks about finding wonderful shephards in Ontario and how getting to know them, their flocks, and interacting with them on behalf of her new company, Sheepspot has made Ontario feel so much more like home.  We hear of winemaking shepherds, Babydoll Southdowns, Ile-de-France and more! You can read about the Livestock Conservancy here.  

Caffeinated: Sasha, in case you don’t already know, is starting a “little yarn company” called Sheepspot. Sheepspot sells breed-specific, hand dyed yarns. “The natural spot for woolgathering. ”You can read all about it, sign up for the newsletter, and yes, buy yarn, right here. You will no doubt be as excited as we are!  

Abby is excited about table top games. We’ve already mentioned Ben’s game website peacoque.net but when we visited Ben last week we played Hanabi, Dominion and Carcassonne. Abby is hoping to learn Android:Netrunner, but it is complicated!

The rest of our conversation will be released as a separate episode in a week. Stay tuned!