Fruity Knitting, More Than Halfway, Hilarity, and Cuteness

I did some more stitching last night whilst watching several episodes of the Fruity Knitting Podcast on YouTube. The podcast had been recommended to me by two crafty friends at two different times, Diane and Barb. The current episode is No. 60 but I decided to start back at Episode No. 1 and watch in sequence.

From the very first episode I was very impressed with the quality and content. They film in their home in Offenbach, Germany. They feature their own projects they're working on in 'Under Construction', what they've finished in 'Bring and Brag', and show items that Andrea has knit in the past in 'From the Archives'.

Andrew and Andrea Doig are Australians that have lived in Germany with their daughter, Madeleine, and worked there for almost two decades. Andrew has recently taken up knitting as well and his projects are very impressive for a newbie. He even sponsored his own KAL (KnitALong) early on.

They feature knitters and designers from all over the world in two segments.

One of the most impressive things to me is that their video podcasts are almost 2 hours long and they post one every two weeks.

If you're a knitter or fibre lover, I highly recommend you give the Fruity Knitting video Podcast a try.

We bought a SmartTV a few years ago. It basically is a computer in your TV that allows you to stream programs, play games, and have access to the internet rather than having to connect your computer to a TV with an HDMI cable. I usually watch Fruity Knitting on the SmartTV in HD.

While I watched last night, I did more stitching on the Berlingot. I'm more than halfway finished.

The 4cm long needle gives you perspective on the size of the piece. The honeycomb is stitched with one thread over 4 threads but the flowers and leaves are over 1 thread. I could not do this scale of stitchery (36ct) without a magnifying light.

Yesterday was a comedy of errors. Barb came over to spend the day stitching (and gabbing, drinking tea, eating snacks, and having lunch) and was working on a stitched piece of tulips for greeting cards to send to members of her embroidery guild. We basically spread our stuff out as far as space permits.

After stitching for a while on one fabric she didn't like the look of it, so she decided to switch to a different fabric and start again. Then we went for lunch. During lunch she mentioned that she had accidentally stitched through two layers of fabric as well. After lunch, she resumed stitching and spent some time working out 1/4 and 3/4 stitches. She took a moment and looked at her work and determined she didn't like how it was turning out. In fact, she noted it didn't look anything like the picture on the pattern cover.

I took a look at it and also noted a distinct difference between her stitching the the photo. She told me the colour she had been using on the flower stem. I looked at the legend and didn't see that colour at all. We quickly determined that she had been looking at the wrong colour legend - the one on the facing page for a totally different flower and colour array. After laughing our guts out, she picked out all the wrong-coloured stitches and began stitching the stems again - this time in the correct colour. It looked MUCH better.

This is what she managed to accomplish after about 4 hours of stitching chez moi.

I'm sure the stitching will go a lot faster, now that she's on the right track.

Time came to pack up and get on with the rest of our days.

Last night I sat down to stitch on my Berlingot and I couldn't find my pattern book anywhere. Barb had brought over the second book in the series for me to peruse and I wondered if she had scooped my book up when she grabbed hers. Sure enough, she had it. Yesterday was not Barb's day.

BTW, she did give me permission to 'throw her under the bus' and relate this humorous story. Personally, I was gratified to know that there are other people out there who create and experience the same mishaps I frequently do.

It is good to have a good laugh once and a while, even if it's at the expense of a very good-natured friend.

I will leave you with a photo of a pair of Southdown babydoll lambs that someone posted on Facebook. I stole the photo and have it as my profile photo.

Cuteness alert!!!


Bring on September!