The Shinybees Knitting and Yarn Podcast
Leisure:Hobbies
Mitch of Surfing Ducks is my guest on the podcast this week, where we discuss a plethora of things that spiral slightly out of control and end somewhere around knitted, transferable 'tramp stamps.'
Yes...
Mitch designs sock patterns with a particular twist; every heel flap is adorned with a quirky design. This led to the brand developing into an almost secret society under the #HiddenHeels theme. The idea is you can have these socks on, and have a heel that is usually hidden from view, but then is brought out on show at exactly the right moment. this moment may well be to secure access to some underground speakeasy with a gin urn.
Mitch is several patterns in now (more have been added since this interview was recorded a few months ago) and each time a new one is released, there is a badge to go along with it. Be one of the first to finish and share pictures of your #HiddenHeels design and collect your limited edition badge.
I don't know about you, but I want all those badges.
We also discuss how Mitch balances her design work against her demanding day job. She began her foray back into socks a couple of years ago after previously finding them difficult. A chance meeting with the lovely Christine Perry of Winwick Mum at Sirdar led to her catching the bug again, thanks to Christine's infectious enthusiasm for the medium of socks.
Mitch had also worked in customer support for a large online retailer and was the pattern support specialist. Through the experience, she was able to gather lots of knowledge and learn exactly what sort of thing trip knitters up when knitting a pattern, and has been able to bring all that to her design work. Her aim is to make knitting easy, and each of her designs adds one new technique, to ease the knitter into developing their skills in an easy feeling way.
Although her patterns look complicated, only the small heel canvas contains the colour changing. Because it is so small, it can be a great way to introduce techniques without it feeling too overwhelming. Brand new sock knitters have knit several of her patterns and had success, so if you are even a little bit intrigued, chances are you will be able to do them.
For her design work, Mitch uses Stitchmastery and Stitch Fiddler (snigger) although she also advocates Excel as useful for charts.
All of her patterns are available via Ravelry, and there are plans to produce ebooks of the collections at a later stage. Mitch is already teaching socks knitting and would love to do more of this as her business expands.
You can find Mitch at www.surfingducks.com.
Links and full show notes for this episode are at www.shinybees.com/109
Ep 178 - A Cross Stitch
Ep 177 - Unravel Review with Aimee of Knit.Spin.Cake.
Ep 176 - A Hybrid Yarn Festival?
Ep 175 - Liz's Lucky Scarf
Ep 174 - Birthday Gifts For Knitters (That's Not Yarn)
Ep 173 - Baby Knits Roundup
Ep 172 - Great Yarns For Baby and Kids Knits
Ep 171 - Knitting Patterns For New Babies
Ep 170 - Knitting Trends for 2021
Knitting Challenges For 2021
Ep 168 - Canter
Ep 167 - A Pod of Christmas Past
Ep 166 - A Scotch Egg is Not a Substantial Knit
Ep 165 - Getting Rid of Moths in Knitwear
Ep 164 - Knitted Wreaths For Christmas
Ep 163 - Delicious Little Joys
Ep 162 - The Boyfriend Sweater Curse
Ep 161 - Colourwork Sock Inspiration
Ep 160 - Dorset Buttons with Tania Ashton Jones of TJ Frog
Ep 159 - Socktober, the Month of Socks
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