(upbeat instrumental music) – Hey there and welcome
to The Knit Show. I’m Vickie Howell. Today we’re going to experiment
with some multi-craftuality, and what that means
is that we’re going to be working with different
types of textile crafts, mixing them together to
make really cool projects. First up, we are going to
have my friend, Brett Bara, who’s all the way
here from Brooklyn. She’s the owner of
Brooklyn Craft Company. She’s going to be making this
really cool mixed media purse. Then, we’re going to be headed
over to Kent, Washington to go to one of my
favorite craft shops called Makers’ Mercantile. After that, we’ll be
back in the studio with weaver, Smile and
Wave’s Rachel Denbow. But first, we are going
to meet today’s Knit Hive. Hello ladies, welcome. – [Group] Hi. – Thank you. – Ann, first of all, can
we talk about your shawl? – Oh, yes, please. – It’s beautiful!
– Thank you. – What pattern is that? – This is Wingspan, and it’s one skein, and it’s yarn by Vice, so it has a long colorway. – So you never had
to change colors? – I never did.
– I love that. I love when you don’t have to do extra work.
– Isn’t that fabulous? And, it’s just what you need for the office or
the church or just– – Or, when you go on a cruise? – Or, when you go on a cruise. – [Vickie] You cruise
around a lot, I hear. – We do. – Where do you go? – We do a lot of transatlantics, and so I’m in Europe
or on the East Coast, and I always look up
yarn shops before I go. – So as soon as you
port, you head over– – As soon as I port, we head off to find out where
the yarn shops are because it gets us out
of the tourist areas and into where the people are, and we’ve had so many
good experiences. – Have you ever been on one
of the knitting cruises? The retreat cruises? I’ve been playing around
with whether or not I want to do one of those. – I haven’t gone on one, but I have been on cruise
ships where they were. There was a group from Wisconsin that was on a cruise
ship that we were on and I don’t think they
ever saw the ocean. (laughing) – Fair enough.
– They were too busy knitting. – Fair enough, fair enough. Well, thank you being here.
– It was great to be there. Thank you.
– Thanks for being here. Patricia, you knit. You also spin?
– Yes. – Is that correct? Which I’m going to make you make a Sophie’s choice right now. Which one do you like better? – I like them both.
– Oh, you couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it. – I’m sorry.
– What are your favorite? What are you making now, a sock? – These are socks, and
this is some hand-dyed yarn that my friend Darlene
Hodge dyed for me and– – Do you usually knit with
hand-dyed and hand-spun yarn? – Yes.
– Is that your preference? – Yes. – I like it a lot.
– Thank you. – It’s very cool. Well, thank you for being here. And Susan, you, I think,
frequent my local yarn store, Hill Country Weavers, a lot. – Oh, I have, yes, of course. – So, what are you making now? I see that you’re making
something rainbowy. – Well, actually
this is, I’ve been, I’ve knit so many
things for myself and there’s only
so many sweaters and scarves I can wear and–
– Especially here in hot Texas. – Yes, exactly. And so, I’ve been doing a
lot of charity knitting. So, this is acrylic and–
– Do you have a favorite charity that we
can tell everyone about? – Well, yes, this
particular one is I’m knitting scarves for
the Special Olympics. – Oh, great.
– And, you know, a lot of knitters in town
are just knitting up. So, it’s multi-colors
with black. – That’s the requirement–
– Yes. – Just for that.
– Yes. – Oh, I love that project. Have any of you ever worked. Today, we’re really
focused on mixed media, so that means any
kind of textile or needle art we’re
going to play around. Have you ever, I know
you needlepoint, correct? – Mm-hm.
– Have you ever mixed your needlepoint with
crochet or with weaving or with sewing or anything? Do you ever, have you ever
played around with that? – Well, let’s see. I could show you that
I recently made my bag which is crocheted
and I held some yarn with embroidery floss. – And is that a bike tire?
– Yes, it is. – That’s awesome. (laughing) Check that out. – And the clips.
– And the clips? That is some major multimedia. – I don’t know if
I can give a plug to Austin Creative Reuse? – [Vickie] You absolutely can. – But, I work there
and they’re non-profit and have all kinds of
great craft things for sale at great prices.
– I love it. Well, this is really
great and so creative. I’m going to let
you all hang out and do a little
knitting while I go to go meet our first guest. Sound good? – Sounds great.
– Okay. (upbeat instrumental music) My first guest in the
studio today is the founder of Brooklyn Craft Company,
my friend Brett Bara. It is so good to
have you in Austin. I’m so excited to see you.
– I’m so happy to be here in Austin. – I have been a
big fan of yours, not just a friend
for a long time. Not just because
you’re amaze-balls, but also because you
hosted a knitting show. You wrote a sewing book. You had a cooking blog. You’re kind of a girl
of my own sort of like craftual heart. Was it natural
progression for you to start a store that
didn’t just cater to one niche that
really had a lot of different craft offerings? – Yeah, definitely
natural for me. I love doing every
kind of craft. I just get interested
in something new and I want to
learn all about it, and I love that
it’s very inspiring. So, it definitely
felt natural to me to start a business that
kind of spoke to that. We definitely find
with our customer base, we tend to have a lot of
kind of young New York girls who want to be creative
and learn how to do crafts, but don’t necessarily
know where to start. And we also find that we
have a lot of customers who really want kind of
that instant gratification, so we focus on sort of
like beginner level on lots of different
things, so it’s a lot of fun. – Yeah, and I think
that people really dig in this like busy day
and age to be able to just have something
preconceived. They go in, they make something and they walk out with that
sense of accomplishment and a cool project all at once. – Totally, you leave
with a great project. And, you know,
some people decide that they want to learn
more, and some people don’t. And then, it’s great either way. – But, they still have
this awesome project– – Still have.
– Much like this one that we’re about to make–
– Exactly. – Our fold-over clutch. So, you’ve put
together a project. We gave you a challenge. I called you up. I was like, “I need you to
use some different materials. “Go.”
– I was like, “I can do it.” – And you did, you did. You put together this
bag that uses leather and chunky yarn.
– Yes. So, this bag, right, it’s
part knitted, part leather and part made by hand and
part made on a sewing machine. The knitting part
is super-simple. It’s just stockinette stitch, like the most basic
kind of knitting. But, it’s a great way to explore what you can do
with your knitting besides just making
a knitted thing. You can also sew it
on a sewing machine and attach it to leather
and make a really cool bag. – So, it’s just kind–
– You can do what you want. – Of a fun way to like take
it another step further. – Yeah, so what I
think we should do is a quick refresher
for stockinette stitch just in case because you
can do this as a beginner. – Mm-hm.
– Or like she was saying, you can experiment if
you’re more advanced just with the sewing aspects. So, we’re going to go
over the knit stitch. – [Brett] So, yeah, stockinette
is just knit every stitch on the first row. And this is just your
classic knit stitch. I don’t even know what to
say about the knit stitch. – I mean, it’s knitty.
– It’s knitty. I mean, I love it like even
though this is easy knitting. Sometimes it just feels so good to do something really
easy, don’t you think? – [Vickie] I like it. I get into a zone. – Yeah, get in the zone. Just relax. This is also really,
really fast knitting ’cause it’s on such chunky
yarn which is great. – [Vickie] Which I love, which
again, speaks to being busy and getting something done.
– Yeah. Alright, so knit every
stitch on one row, and then purl every
stitch on the next row. So, now I’m going
to turn and purl. – And purling is just the
exact opposite of knitting. You’re just working on
the back of the fabric. – Right. – [Vickie] And so, you
would just continue. You get the idea. She’s purling. You would do that all
the way to the end, and you’re going to
repeat that every– – Just keep on going.
– Row. Every other row
until you get a piece that looks a little
something like this. – Yeah, so you just
have a panel like this. It’s just a rectangle. We’re actually going to make
two of these for the bag. And then, you need
a piece of leather. – Okay.
– So, here’s our leather. They’re cut to the same width. And now, what we would
do is sew these together to make the full
front of the bag. So, the trick to sewing leather is that you can’t use
any pins with leather because, one, it’s like too
hard to stick the pin through. And two, it would
leave a permanent hole. So, we actually use
double-sided tape to seam the leather
and this is actually a real leather
construction method. This is not just
like some crazy hack I dreamed up.
– Oh, really? – Mm-hm.
– And just regular like office supply tape?
– Well, this is regular office supply tape. I mean, there are definitely real leather
adhesives out there, but this totally works. – And this won’t gunk
up your machine at all? – It doesn’t gunk
up the machine. It just doesn’t. I know, I know. So, then, we’re going
to actually tape the knitting to the
leather just like that. And that’s going to
keep them in place. – So, with the right
sides together? – With the right sides
together, exactly. – You smoosh it down?
– You smoosh it down. And you can put a couple
of binder clips here just to prevent it from shifting when we start sewing.
– Okay, okay. Alright, so why don’t we get
set up and start sewing? – Okay. – Alright, so we’re all set up. I’m going to hand
you your piece. Do people need a special needle or a special foot
for their machine to make this?
– Yes. A couple of small
adjustments that you need to make to your home
machine to sew leather. You need to put on
a leather needle which is the type of
needle you can buy. Lengthen your stitch
length to very long, maybe the longest possible
or just under that. And I’m using a walking foot. You could probably get away
with maybe a Teflon foot or a roller foot, but I
really like a walking foot. – And don’t roll the dice when you’ve done all
this work so far. – Right, yeah, and
always do a test first. Like I would definitely
recommend knitting a little swatch and cutting
a little leather swatch and testing your seam
first to make sure that your machine is happy
and you like the results that you’re getting because there are not
do-overs with leather. Once you put a hole in
leather, it’s there. My tape is coming up a
little bit there but– – Yeah, and that’s–
– You put some binder clips and that would–
– Yeah, we’ll talk about binder clips in a second.
– Yeah, exactly. – [Vickie] And honestly,
can you just trim it? You can fake that
later too if it slides? – Yes, you can trim it.
– Okay. Okay, so do you need a
backstitch or anything? – No, not really because
it’ll be enclosed inside the side seams so
it’ll be taken care of later. – Okay, so what’s next?
– So, next we’re going to do the closure.
– Okay, I’m excited. Can you tell? I’m like, “What’s next,
what do we get to do next?” – I know, you’re really excited. We need to attach
the closure now before we finish seaming the bag because later,
it’ll be too late. So, talking about my love
of multi-craftual things. These are macrame
supplies which I use to make this kind of little
loopy decorative closure thing. So, the first thing we do
is cut a strip of leather and just feed it
through the wooden ring. And then, we would attach this to either one of
the knitted panels. It doesn’t matter which,
right at the center point just sort of so
that it’s hanging over the edge a little bit. I would put this down with
double-sided tape again and then take it to the machine. – Okay, onto the yarn?
– Mm-hm. – It works?
– Yeah. I mean, it’s not the best. You have to like be
careful and not– – Let’s be honest, it
may or may not work but– – I’m not going to lie. It’s a little tricky,
but you can do it. And the lovely thing
about working on knitting is you can see the
lines of your stitches so you know whether or not you’ve shifted or not.
– Oh, that is super-handy. – [Brett] Yeah, you can
totally just line it up with one of your
columns of stitches. Use some tape. I just attached it with
two rows of top stitching and then trimmed the leather after. The reason you trim it
after is it’s too hard to sew it without
a little bit of– – Sure, sure.
– Then, you can hold onto it. – [Vickie] And then, show,
I know it would be on it, but let’s go ahead
and show how you made the little like tassel action. – [Brett] Okay, so then we
would make a little tassel. May I please have my
wire and my wire cutters? – [Vickie] You may. – [Brett] Alright, so
the thing about the wire and the wire cutters is it’s
a really handy dandy way to make a big tassel. So, I’m going to make a
little like a needle threader with a piece of wire. – That is a handy tip.
– Thank you. – Macrame stuff is hard to find. Is that something they
find at your shop? – Yeah, we sell a
lot of macrame stuff. We do a lot of
macrame and we have some really cool cord
and different types of dowels and beads and whatnot. And that’s all on our website. So, this is like a little
handmade needle threader and you just feed
it through the bead. And then, you feed your yarn, and I’ve looped this yarn
over like four times. Left it pretty long. Feed that through the eye
of the needle threader. Fold it over, and
then you can pull it up through your bead. – Voila.
– Yeah. – That’s super handy.
– Then, you can just slip this away. Do you have scissors?
– I do. – [Brett] Thank you. Just trim this extra yarn. And then, to attach this
beady thing to the ring, you would just,
actually, it looks better if you do it this way.
– Yeah, ’cause I do that every time with fringe. – Every time. – ‘Cause I want the
bar to go under. – Yes, exactly. – [Vickie] I’m glad
I’m not the only one. – [Brett] I’m glad
I’m not the only one. (laughing) – We’re professionals.
– I know. This is called a
lark’s head knot and a little more macrame, a little more macrame
geekery for you. So, you just do a
lark’s head knot to attach the bead. And then, you could
just leave it like that because the inside of
the wooden bead is like a little sticky so it
doesn’t really fall through. But, you could also tie
another knot at the base here and then you just have
your little tassel and tassels are so on trend. It’s just like–
– They really are. – a cute little embellishment.
– It’s so cute. Honestly, this would look
cute put on anything. – Yeah, you could put
this like on your handbag. – Put a tassel on it. So, how do we finish this bag? – Okay, so pretend–
– Let’s pretend that on. – Pretend that that’s attached. Then, we’ve got our two pieces. They’re both exactly the
same, same size, same shape. We would just put them
together, right sides together. And at this point, we
would just be seaming around all three sides,
the sides and the bottom. And it’s just like sewing
the first step that we did. I would use more
double-sided tape here on the leather parts only. And then, as a little
added security, you can use binder clips. Again, you can’t use needles, but this is a really nice
way to just make sure that things don’t shift, especially when you’re
seaming two pieces together. You don’t want it
to end up where the other corner gets
all crazy on you. – [Vickie] Oh, yeah, I’ve
done that so many times. – [Brett] Yeah, that’s a
very common sewing thing so– – ‘Cause seam
ripping, this is like, that’s doubly bad. Like working with knitware–
– Yes. – And having the seam
rip and also leather. – Yes.
– So, just binder. – Don’t make any mistakes.
– Just binder. – [Brett] Exactly, and
also just double check to make sure that things are
lined up where these meet ’cause that’s a point where
it would be really obvious that they didn’t meet up.
– Sure. – [Brett] And of course, with
knitting, you can use pins, so you could just
get out your T-pins and put in a bunch of pins. Put in a lot because
the machine kind of wants to make
the two layers shift when they’re being sewn.
– And do you kind of slow down as you get over this like–
– Slow down, yeah. – Transfer of fibers.
– But, it’s actually, it’s a little bulky, but
with the walking foot. Walking foot, the
purpose of a walking foot is to handle really
thick layers. It’s often used in quilting.
– Sure. – [Brett] So, the walking foot
will just like barrel over that with no problem. That’s why it’s
really great to have. – Okay.
– So, we would just take this to the machine. Sew around all three sides. Turn it right-side
out and it’s done. – Yeah, and it would look
like this adorable bag. So cute, you could
make it in any color to go with anything
that you were wearing. I love it and I love
that you’re here. – Thank you, I’m so
happy to be here, and I’m so excited
about The Knit Show. – Thank you, thank you. Alright, and don’t
forget, you can go to TheKnitShow.com for
patterns from any episode of the season and
complete instructions to make this adorable bag. Up next, we are going to
take another field trip. We are headed to
Makers’ Mercantile. (gentle instrumental music) Whenever I travel,
I try to check out the local crafty scene. And of course, I
look for yarn stores, but the real great gems
are when I can find a store that sort of combines
a ton of my passions. Usually when we’re creative, we like more than
one thing, right? So, sewing, knitting, crochet, all kinds of great fiber arts. If you can find
them in one place, then that is a good trip. So, whenever I’m here
in the Seattle area, I make sure to stop at a space
called Makers’ Mercantile. It’s owned by my
friend Karin Skacel, and it really encompasses all
that I love about creativity. So, I’m going to
go in and I’m going to give you a little inside peek of what this great
shop is all about. Come on. So, Karin, most people
know you as the CEO of Skacel which is, of
course, addi Turbos® and HiKoo® yarn and
all this great stuff. But, it is the wholesale
side of the business. What made you want to sort
of step into the public light and create a gorgeous
space like this that’s open to community? – Well, I think that’s
the key word is community. I wanted to have a place
where the community could come in and
actually do their craft. As a CEO, I do a lot
of administrative work, and I actually don’t
get to be creative or be involved with the people. And in this place
here, I actually get to talk to the customers. And I don’t work
here all that much, but when I do, I
get to sell yarn. I get to sell needles. I get to share my
ideas with other people and hear what their ideas are. And that’s all part
of the community. – Well, and I think what a lot of
people maybe don’t think about is that you’re one of
the few wholesalers that also owns a retail. But, you also know
all of the crafts and are passionate
with all the crafts which is not all that
common amongst executives. Talk about a little bit. You’ve sort of like
made this a hub for your own passions. Will you walk us through
just a little bit of this gorgeous space,
like the different sections? – Sure. Of course, we have yarn and
that’s because I love to knit and I love to crochet. So, I would have to say
that’s my first love. But, I also enjoy
sewing, so we’ve got a fabric department. And I try to bring in
fabrics from other places that are not so
commonly purchased in your quilt shop or
in a big box store. And so, I bring in a lot
from Europe and so on. I enjoy embroidery, so we have a small embroidery department. Felting is a really
big passion of mine, so we do have a big
felting department. And what other kinds of crafts do we have?
– You have buttons. – Oh, we have a lot of buttons. I love buttons. So, and that’s why I bought a
button company last year too is ’cause I love buttons. I’ve always loved buttons. I have a huge
collection at home. So, this is just an extension
of my love for buttons. – [Vickie] And then,
gifts, were gifts, have novelties and
gifts always also been a passion of yours? – Because we have the
gluten-free bakery here, we also have a lot
of people coming in that don’t knit
and don’t crochet. And that’s why we
brought in gifts so that there’s something
for them to look at when they come in too.
– That’s pretty good thinkin’ there, Karin. – That’s works pretty good. – And I’ve noticed that you
support a lot of local artisans. – We do have jewelry. We have several indie
dyers that are local. We carry their yarns. We have some Angoras
that are actually raised and spun here in the
state as well as alpacas. And you know, whenever we
can incorporate someone or bring ’em in for a trunk
show or something, we do it. – How important was the
educational aspect for you? You have all those
classrooms in the back. – Well, education, I think,
is the most important factor. It enables people to
learn something new. That encourages them then
to purchase something which then keeps us going. – What do you think
sets your shop apart from, I don’t even want
to say other craft shops, ’cause your shop’s
more than that. But, what other yarn shops
or other basic craft shops or other shops of the sort? – Well, I think because
we have the space for you to come and
work on your craft here, I think that sets us apart. We encourage you to come
down and sit all day and spend the day with us,
and talk to other people who are doing other
crafts and so on. I think that is the
biggest difference. – Well, I love it here. You know, whenever I’m in town, this is on the list to stop. Thank you for having me here. Cheers.
– Cheers. (cups clinking) Going to get a mustache?
– Uh-huh. (laughing) Alright, we’re
back in the studio. My next guest is
author and founder of Smile and Wave,
Rachel Denbow. I am so thrilled
to have you here in the studio.
– It is such a dream come true.
– Oh, you’re very sweet. I love, love, love like
borderline obsessed with your work with
your wall hangings. You, as a weaver, really
sort of naturally work with different textiles
and fibers, right? – Yes, I love combining and
contrasting soft and rough. And I’ve started
selling fiber packs and I also have started
to offer supplies, looms and tools in my shop because I can’t get enough
of weaving and I want to be able to show other
people how easy it is. – I think that
people also really, or at least I know
I do appreciate that you’ve sort of put like
color palettes together, different fibers
together so that people can play with that because
I think people need a little permission–
– Yes. – To–
– Think outside the box. – Exactly, exactly.
– Yes. – So, we’re going to be
combining a couple things today. Normally, you work on a loom? – Yes. – We’re not doing that today. We’re going to actually
work with crochet. So, this would be great if you
have swatches at home already and you could turn
them into little pieces of hanging art.
– Mm-hmm. Yes, if you love the
look of wall hangings, but you don’t really
want to spend money or learn how to
weave, you can just crochet your base and
then add a few stitches in to get that same handmade
wall hanging woven look. – Okay, so we’re
going to crochet, and then you’re going
to give us a couple of, you’re going to give
us some insider tips on some weaving techniques?
– Yes. – Okay, alright, so why
don’t we get started on the crochet portion
of the project. – So, we’re going
to create our base, and you’re going to chain stitch as many as you want
to have it tall ’cause we’re going
to flip it sideways. And then, you’re going
to double crochet all the way back. – [Vickie] And so, you’ve
done, you’ve completed a row of double crochet already? – [Rachel] And so, I’ve
completed that already. And then, we want
to chain three more. – [Vickie] And this
creates your height for that double crochet stitch. – Yes, and then flip it over. And then yarn over
and go through here. Yarn over, go through two loops. And then, you continue
that all the way across. And then, you want
to keep crocheting as wide as you would like it. So, you’ve got
this part is long, and then this part
is going to be as wide as you would like it. – Let’s, show ’em what you mean ’cause you’re going
to flip it, right? – So, once that’s done, yes, you’re going to tie off
your knots at both ends on the same side and then
you’re going to flip it. So, this is the top
and this is the bottom. And then, we are going
to use three strands of this really
thick chunky wool. And we’re going to create
these, the rya knots. That creates this fringe
detail on the bottom. So, you’re going to
find the center part and we’re going to
stick all three through the very bottom. We’re going to treat this
as the outer warp row and then this part
right here in-between, wrap it around. – [Vickie] So, the row
where the two rows meet, you’re actually going to use. There’s kind of a bar there. You’re going to use that. – [Rachel] It’s going
to act as the warp rows as you would use in
a weaving project. And you can kind of see
the holes that are created. You just want to
use where they meet and wrap around both sides. And you would do that
all the way across. – [Vickie] Okay, and then
you get a little something that looks like this. – This is what you end up with. And then, we’re going to
take three more strands of the orange.
– The orange. I love this yarn.
– It’s such a good pumpkiny color. Okay, and you’re
essentially going to do the same thing where
you fold it in the middle and you’re going to
create another row of the same color so that
it is nestled in-between. And that will really
help fill out – [Vickie] Oh, so
you’re not getting those weird hanging gaps?
– Yes, yes. – Okay.
– And then, after you’ve got those two of that color,
you add your next color and you start from the outside. And you’ll be able to
tell where the holes are and kind of fill in the gaps. It’s very forgiving. – [Vickie] Just using
that exact same technique? – Yes, and that’s a rya knot. And those are used
in wall hangings for a variety of patterns, but
this is the most popular one. – Okay. – So, once you’ve got
all three of your rows– – Look at it.
– It’s going to be kind of fluffy and shaggy, and you can trim all
of this up later. We’re going to use roving. And this is just my favorite
’cause it’s so fluffy. You’re going to
want to take about a four or five-foot
section and stick one end through a hole on the outside. And that is going to
kind of hide your end. And then, you’re going to take your other end–
– Do you have to weave it in? – Nope, you just leave on–
– You just let it hang. the back side and let it hang. – That’s so counterintuitive for a knitter.
– I know, right. – It makes me nervous. – So, you’re going to
wrap around that outside little warp row and stick
it through this hole. And you want to keep
it kind of fluffy so that it hides
all those warps. And then, we’re going to
be stitching this direction all the way, so you want to kind of count out two holes, stick it to the back side. And this is where you
really kind of have to wrestle with your project. This roving can
get really tricky. Leave it kind of fluffy. – Sometimes roving breaks. If it breaks, do you need to pull
it out and start again? or is there some kind of magic spell you can make?
– You can, as long as you have about
two or three inches, you can just leave
it on the backside and it won’t be showing. And then, this part will
just hold it all in. – [Vickie] Oh, I see
what you’re saying. – [Rachel] It’s not
going to fall out. – [Vickie] So you can join
it in the center, okay? – [Rachel] Yes, yes. And so, then you’re
going to want to go a little bit over. Find a hole, maybe one
back in the row up. And then, go this direction, so it kind of creates
this slanted pattern. And once you get one
whole row of this, again, you’re going to have
to wrestle with that roving. Pull it out and
you’ll be able to see just how fluffy it
gets once it goes all the way across. And think we have a
sample of that next. So, this is a sample of
that diagonal pattern that you get, and
this will be hidden. When you get all the
way to the other side, you’re going to loop
around that outer row and come back in, and then
loop around a second time. And leave that nice and fluffy. And then, you will continue in the same overhand
pattern all the way back. – [Vickie] Okay, and so, you
just keep going with that. Why don’t you go ahead
and finish that off and then we’ll go the next step. (upbeat instrumental music) Okay, so now
you’ve come to the end, and how do you
finish this part off? – [Rachel] Okay, so if you
have little bits like this, you just want to
cover up this space, so you can tuck them under. I’m going to leave that
there and use this part to wrap around
kind of in reverse so that it hides that edge. And then, everything ends
up tucked on the back. – Okay.
– So, that part is done. And this is called soumak. – Very cute, I love
the braided look. Okay, so the last sort
of touch is you’re going to be actually weaving?
– Yes. – Okay, great color.
– Actually starting the weaving portion.
– Now we will be weaving. (laughing) – I mean, I guess this is
all technically weaving. – Technically.
– But, what people traditionally have
thought of as weaving. – Yes, and so, you can take
a single strand of yarn, or you can double it up. I’m going to double this one up. – And you recommend using
a bulky at this point? – Bulky’s really great if
you have a lot of holes because it will fill up space and add all that texture. If you are using
a fingering lace, it’s not going to
show up as much. So, I do like using bulky. So, start on the backside. And again, you’re just
finding your holes. And again, that can
just rest on the back. And you’re just going to go
through every other hole. – [Vickie] So, you don’t
need needle or anything? – [Rachel] You just
use your fingers. It’s very friendly.
– This would actually really be a great introduction
to weaving for kids too if you’re looking for, you know, projects over a holiday vacation or spring break or whatever. This is a great way
to get kids excited about working with
different materials. – [Rachel] And even
if you just created the crocheted portion and helped
them just weave through it, that’s really good for that
fine motor skills development. Okay, so you would just continue to weave all the way through. You can go a couple at a time. – [Vickie] And you can kind
of just decide how long you want those strands to be.
– Yeah. – [Vickie] And you would continue
that until, you could really, I mean, you do you right?
– Yeah. – [Vickie] You could
do a couple rows or you could–
– Change your color. – And then, let’s
just briefly kind of talk about how
you finish it off. If you want to, of course,
you want to hang it. When you add a hanger, is there any, do you have any tips? Do you have any?
– So, you can stitch your dowel on or you
could even just stitch it through all of those holes, and then you just
add a cotton hanger and it’s ready to go. – It’s ready to go. Really cute, great gift. You can also use copper piping– – Yes.
– And you know, branches from outside and
bring a little nature inside. There’s, it’s endless and it’s
so creative and I adore it. I adore it.
– Oh, thank you. – Thank you so much
for being here. – Yes, it’s my pleasure. – Up next, we’re going
to play a little more with crochet where I show
you all different kinds of materials that you can add
to a bangle that you wear. (guitar strumming) A really fun way to experiment
with different materials and mixing and
matching is by making tiny pieces of wearables. So, today we’re going to
be focused on bangles. I love vintage bangles. I found a bunch of these at
just my local thrift store. And I thought that
it would be super fun just to add a little
crocheted detailing. What’s fun about this is
not only are you mixing like a jewelry piece with
some kind of textile, but you can also
experiment easily without having to commit
to a large project. So, you could use plain
old, well, not plain, but beautifully dyed
yarn or even strips of fabric or fabric yarn. Maybe some linen. A suede is really
fun, metallics. I’ve even spun some
newspaper before and done it or create yarn
out of plastic bags. Really anything that
can be made into string can be knit or crocheted
with, so have fun and play. So, what I thought I would
do is I would show you how to add something,
any of these things. I have this velveteen
ribbon here, to a bracelet. So, this one, I decided
that I would just do a little arch because
I really wanted to see that pop of color. I might want to see
less color here, so I’m going to
choose a wider one and I’m going to use this
velveteen ribbon, really skinny. And you can get it,
you know, online, at any trim store or at
your local craft store. You’re going to
make a slip knot. Choose a crochet hook. Then, you’re going to
take your crochet hook and sort of dive through
the center of the bangle. You’ll place the slip
knot on your hook and pull it through. And this is set
up and you’ll see that you’re set up because
it’s attached-ish, right? Okay, so then, what
we’re going to do is we are going to yarn over and pull it through
and now it’s attached. And we’re just going
to continue doing that, so dive under. Yarn over. You’ll now have two
loops on your hook. You’ll pull it through both. Yarn over. Pull through both. And you’ll continue that. You can really do, you can
do it all the way around. You can do it, you know, just
a little pop of color here. You can have it drape
down and be fringe. Really just have fun with it. I decided for this
one that I would go all the way around. I liked the orange and
the magenta together, or the fuchsia with just
having a little tiny, tiny pop. So, it’s fun. It’s easy. It adds a little
bit of uniqueness to any bangle or
item, so have fun and just play a little. (guitar strumming) Alright, that does
it for us today. Thank you so much
for hanging out and playing with
different textiles. Remember, everything
that you need to know, downloadables, and
scoop and links, info on our experts, you
can find on TheKnitShow.com. I also want to just say
thank you for watching and also a huge shout-out
to my Knit Hive this time. Be sure to tune in
to our next episode where we focus on vintage style. We will have Lorna’s
Laces, Amanda Jarvis. We’ll also have crochet
author Edie Eckman. I can’t wait to see you again, but until then,
breathe in, knit out. (upbeat instrumental music)