Yarn Craze

We were driving home today and my husband got annoyed. Not a unusual thing. Next to us there was a guy driving a “kit car” I think it was a Ferrari. Anyways, he explained to me that it was insulting to people that saved their entire lives to have a “real”one and then these people acted all proud about having “fake” ones.

This got me to thinking.

Are there people out there who do not like out knitted sweaters because they are not the “real” thing. There are TONS of patterns out there that try and duplicate the latest trends. Do the people that spend thousands of dollars on clothing a year feel that we are “fake” because we knit the “wanna be” rather then put out the money for the real thing?

I’m not talking about something like socks where you are paying more to knit them then to buy them. But on something like the “cable luxe tunic” by lion brand. It’s long gone now but it was a knockoff of a tunic that cost somewhere around $600 or so. Do those people think that we are wanna be’s since even with a pretty good yarn it would have only cost $150 to make it?

For anyone that is not coming here through Ravelry my patterns are listed in the right hand column under the heading of “patterns”.

There will be more to come as I am working on some things at the moment.

Hope that you enjoy the ones that are already there.

There are so many podcasts out there. I listen to about 15 of them so far. If you have any podcasts or video podcast that you do or love to listen to and would like to have a review posted here leave a comment and let me know where I can get it at.

Also if you have any particular fiber, yarn, notions, patterns that you would like to let the world know about let me know also. I would like to review these things too.

I love all things knitting and it’s always great to listen to people talk about knitting while I am knitting.
Finding out about all the new things out there is so much fun.

Just from the titles you can tell that her podcasts are going to be entertaining and informative. I love what she has done with this podcast. Every episode she breaks it down into 3 segments.

1. She begins with a specific topic. Talking about things like cables, swatches, needle sizing are just a few of the things that she has gone over.
2. Book reviews are next on the list. It’s super nice that she constantly tries to recommend books that have to do with the focus of the podcast that you are listening too.
3. What’s on the needles. In this part she gets a little bit more personal and talks about her life and what is she knitting, spinning and other things that we may find interesting.

There are times when she does not follow this format for instance when she does interviews or has knit picks employees on the podcast.

She has a very nice voice and is soothing to listen to. When I don’t play the podcasts in the car for a long time my daughter (8) has been known to ask for them. She says “That lady is nice to listen to”.

I downloaded all that I could get my hands on from Itunes. I have listen to about 20 or so of the shows so far and I just cannot find anything that I don’t like about them. They are entertaining, well thought out, thought provoking, and really get me wanting to knit.

Okay maybe that is the down side. Every time I listen I want to cast on something new. But c’mon is that really something that bad in the world of knitters. I know it’s not a bad thing for me anyways.

You can find Kellys blog at http://kelleypetkun.typepad.com . You can down load them at Itunes also

I listen to lost and lots of Podcast from Itunes. I have found others that are not on there and from the ones I do have there are lots and lots more out there.

As I listen to the old and find new podcasts I am going to tell you what I think of some them.

Today is the first one that I am going to review. It’s Yarn Thing with Marnie.

I downloaded them all and listened to new, old and some in the middle.

The first thing that I noticed is that Marnie is constantly giggling. It’s like she doesn’t think anyone else will find what she is saying is funny so she laughs at it her self to let us all know. That or it’s a nervous habit. Either way it’s distracting. Not that I find there is much to be distracted from. Generally when I think of a knitting podcast I think of knitting advice, places, or projects. While this podcast does have a little bit of that and some interviews it should really be called “The Marnie Podcast”. Most of the time you will find her talking about herself. It would be one thing if these stories mostly included knitting but they don’t or the knitting is added in to the story is make it seem like it is. There is also music added in as “breaks” I don’t care for this at all. If I am going to listen I would rather have it all taken out and have a 45 minute podcast instead. I like to have taken something away with me from every podcast that I listen to and while this is not possible, most manage it a decent percent of them time. This podcast does not I find that I more often couldn’t even remember what it was about 10 minutes later.

On the other side of things if you like to listen to people and learn about them this is perfect for you. It’s a solid 45 minutes of talking with 15 minutes of eclectic music.

As with everything that I review I ALWAYS urge you to go and check it out for yourself every person is different and you might find out that you just LOVE her.

You can find this podcast on Itunes as Yarn Thing, Marnie is on Ravelry as user YarnThing and her website is http://yarnthing.blogspot.com

OH YES - I do have to mention that on her blog/website she has some GREAT cal-kals (crochet a long/Knit a long) and she has really fantastic patterns. She is a published designer just in case you didn’t know, her patterns are gorgeous.