How to Pick the Perfect Yarn for Fall and Winter Projects | Podcast Episode #80

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Do you struggle with choosing the right yarn for your fall projects?

You’re not alone! Honestly, it wasn’t until I started learning the hard way that particular yarns were more appropriate for some projects than others. If you’ve ever had a saggy sweater or fuzzy pair of mitts, you may have found a yarn that isn’t right for that project.

Rather than learn the hard way, let’s take an educated approach to choosing the right yarn for our fall projects. That way we can save ourselves time, effort, and money!

Special Guests

I’m joined by Kersti and Taiu from Koigu Yarns, a family-owned business for three generations. They start off sharing the story of the family business and then we dive into common fall projects and the yarns that are ideal for each. Along the way, you’ll find many golden nuggets about things such as dying yarn and planning a color palette!

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
Hey there, and welcome to episode number 80 of the BHooked podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I have a real special treat in line for you. And since we’re kicking off a brand new month here on the podcast, well, that means we have a new topic to discuss.

So as you know, I’ve been trying to make sure that my episodes are centered around one theme. Definitely makes my job easier as a creator, but I think that it also helps to keep you focused and moving in the right direction. So this month on the podcast, the theme is a little more general, and that’s mainly because we’re moving into my favorite time of the year, fall.

So all of the episodes, all of the guests are going to be centered around the fall. Fall projects, fall yarns, just general things that arise when we’re moving into this really busy season. For all of us it’s a really busy time whether you have a market or an Etsy shop you’re working really hard to make sure that you have enough stock for your shows. If you are crafting for your friends or your family members making lots of gifts for the holidays, well now is the time that you’re starting to think about the things that you’re going to make.

And of course if you’re a content creator like myself, well this is the busy season. This is when everybody starts to knit and crochet once again and so of course course, we get really excited because we have so many people that are joining us once again to do the craft that we love. So with that being said, the fall is a really important time for us.

Today on the show, I wanted to kick things off with two guests that I had the pleasure of meeting at the Our Maker Life event in Chicago earlier this year, back in July. Kersti and Tayu from Koigu Yarns. This is a family-owned business that’s been around for generations, and today they share some tips about using natural yarns and choosing the right type of yarn for your fall projects.

Before we dive into today’s show, I have a brand new sponsor on board today. I’m really excited to share one of their new products with you. Now, you may have seen this new craze where you can make projects without any hooks or any needles. You only need your fingers. Well, Red Heart has a brand new yarn out called Loop It. Anyone can do it. You only need your fingers. You can make any type of project, and it really looks like knitting, kind of like the stockinette stitch.

It’s a really cool yarn, super easy to work with, and everybody is talking about it right now. So Loop It is available at Michael’s stores, so if you’re driving home from work, you might want to make a beeline for the store so you can check this out, pick up some yarn so that you and your kids can have a fun activity after school or on the weekends. If you don’t have extra time to pick it up at your store, you can of course order it on michaels.com.

And if you’d like to see some really fun tutorials on how you can use this yarn taught by my friend Marley Bird, head over to redheart.com slash loop dash it. That’s redheart.com slash loop it.

Now, as always, you can find the show notes page over on my website. The link for today’s episode is BeHookedCrochet.com slash session 080. 80 episodes, man. We’re getting crazy. This is actually getting to the point of 100 episodes. We’re not actually going to meet that by the end of this year, but man, I am going to have to plan something amazing for episode 100. Okay. Got a little sidetracked there.

Head over to BeHookedCrochet.com slash session080 for the show notes for today’s show. You can find the information about our guests, so Kirstie and Taiyu and their company, Koigu Yarns. They have some amazing products. And it’s the right place for you to continue the conversation.

If you have any questions whatsoever… about anything we talk about, leave that in the comments section. I would love to hear your responses to this episode and really just gauge if this is something that you would like to hear more of. By leaving little nuggets like that in the comments section, that’s how I know that I’m on the right track and that I can keep giving you episodes and guests that matter to you.

All right, so I don’t want to delay anymore. Let’s dive into today’s show with Kirstie and Tayu from Koigu. Well, I am joined by not one, but two guests today. I had the absolute pleasure of meeting them in person at the Our Maker Life event in Chicago this year. Kirstie and Tayu, hi, how are you doing today?

Taiu: 5:35
Oh great. This is Taiu. And yeah, it’s a really nice day today and doing well.

Kersti: 5:41
And it’s Kerstie here, and yeah, we’re just finishing up the summer, which is being really busy here. Oh,

Brittany: 5:48
yeah. So I’m curious, is summer sort of a very busy season for you?

Taiu: 5:54
You know, actually, it is in certain ways, because our large trade show that we… we do to get all the fall orders is in June. So a lot of the preparation and a lot of stores want us to ship before Labor Day. So it gets pretty busy actually July and August and just preparing the fall season and making sure we have something new or something that is going very strongly and then just sort of turning it around and promoting it some more.

Um, but generally we’re getting the bulk of our yarn to our stores for the fall season.

Brittany: 6:39
Ah, yeah, that’s a nice contrast to really what I’m used to. What a lot of our content creators are used to because we tend to experience this like summer dip and it’s almost like a, a reverse bell shaped curve as far as traffic goes for a lot of us crochet and knit bloggers. Things definitely go down in the spring or, well, they kind of bottom out in the summer months and then sort of have an upward trend at the end of August and through September.

So it’s really great that you have, you pretty much stay busy year round.

Taiu: 7:13
It has been. I had this very question actually earlier today. And yes, I would say probably after American Thanksgiving to Christmas is our slowest sort of dull side of it but then we’re also then getting ready mentally for another trade show so sort of we have to be that many more months ahead of everyone else and sometimes when it is supposed to be low we’re actually trying that’s when we need to be more inspirational ideas brainstorming and that actually can take a lot of energy out of one as we know designing does and other things

Brittany: 7:57
well that’s very cool I know Koiku is very new to me I like said I met you guys earlier this year and I had seen some of your products on Instagram through some of the other influencers or accounts there but I was really blown away by the story and I would love for you to share just that story and how the business has been in the family for so many years

Taiu: 8:23
yeah so Pretty well, it’s been a– the story kind of starts– my mother’s vision so third generation older than the two of us she was a she’s a graduate of Ontario College of Art and my grandmother actually also was into textiles so textiles has been in our family for a very long time and my mom got inspired by doing tapestries and then bought six sheep and thought she could do it all so that’s sort of the very young innocent beginnings of our business and basically when I came into the picture was when I graduated from university and had a business side of things and I wanted to make my mom’s art creativity into a business and And from there, things grew and, you know, with design as well as product.

So we married the two. So we have our own hand dyed, hand painted yarns and as well as designs. So in the early years, my mom did all the designing, all the creating. And then, of course, we wrote the patterns, which was, you know, I sort of joke and say, well, this was pre-internet, pre- this. And we have some patterns that we need to rewrite, actually, because they’re still good patterns. There’s some that have quite the longevity.

And so it has been about 1999 we went strictly wholesale. It was a big jump because we also had done the retail wholesale prior to that. And then that’s actually around when Kirstie was born. So she grew up with the business. Literally, we photographed her, and some people would say she was the face of the business. Right, Kirstie?

Kersti: 10:38
Yes. We go back. and people recognize her and not me.

Brittany: 10:38
Yes, that’s what I was about to say. I know you find it fun that people know your face. You’ve been in a lot of different publications. Kirstie, what was that like for you growing up, just sort of being in the public eye, wearing all these cozy things that your mom and grandma were making?

Kersti: 10:57
Well, it’s kind of funny because in the knitting world, at least, it seems like some people will joke around and be like, well, your face is a superstar and I’ve watched you grow up in Vogue Knitting magazines and elsewhere, but in normal day life, most people have no idea what my mom do, let alone would never notice to see a knitting magazine and pick it up.

But then there’s the odd person, you’re in a creative area or at a craft show or at Vogue Knitting Live or Our Maker Life, and they’ll be like, oh, I recognize you. Where do I recognize you from? And I was like, well, if you’ve opened up a Vogue Knitting magazine in the last 20 years, then you might have seen my face at some point in time.

Brittany: 11:36
Very cool. So right now, you said that you’ve gone completely wholesale. That really is new to me. So what was it that sort of led you in that direction?

Taiu: 11:48
Um, at the time we had that many wholesale accounts and we actually could only produce, um, so much and the wholesale was, was driving the business and the volume. So we needed to concentrate on volume.

And, um, so one needed to decide if you, um, And it was at a different time. 1999 was very much a different time of where there was a division between wholesale and retail. And retail shops really… you know, some of them weren’t going to buy from you if you actually did sell retail.

So the climate was very different. Today with the avenue of internet and online buying has once again changed. So I’ve actually experienced several changes in the industry. And with that, you’ve got to go with the change.

So I mean, now we do, you know, locally do sell Periodically, we’ll have an open house where we’ll sell retail, but it’s at the same price as our stores would sell. Or then we have generated a Shopify site where product that necessarily we’re not shipping to stores or they’re off in color or there’s just something that we can’t ship it to the stores, we’ll actually sell it online because the product’s still good. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just not the regular.

So you kind of discover, you know, as you go, what is going to work for you. And every year you change what it is. In 99, it was something where we could not serve retail customers and the energy was, It was just the two of us. So the energy and no employees.

Now we have about eight employees. But the energy you put into shipping out two skeins of yarn is the same energy of sending out 40 skeins of yarn. So that’s kind of to give the… you know if you’re two people you will go for sending out the 40 skeins of yarn because it’s more money in your pocket right so that’s that’s a very you know that was a reality at that point.

Brittany: 14:12
Yeah so now the big question I have is where can somebody get a hold of your products? Do they sell to like online places or is it only maybe like local yarn shops?

Kersti: 14:24
Um, well, we now sell, we currently sell globally, so we sell in, um, around the U.S., we sell in Canada, we sell across Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea, um, I’m sure I’m missing something right now, but we do sell online to a lot of your major yarn shops that you can think of, Love Knitting, Webs, Jimmy Bean, but we also sell to a lot of local yarn shops, like we sell to String Yarns in New York. We sell to Fig Tree Yarns in the Jersey Islands. We sell to all sorts of different levels of yarn shops.

Brittany: 15:03
Very cool. So now that people know where they can get it, I would love to perhaps entice the listeners a little bit. You know, a lot of crocheters were used to sort of our big box yarn, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There is a perfect time and a place for a lot of the yarns that you have easy access to. But one thing I’ve learned personally this year is the appreciation for a hand painted yarn, just the beauty of it. And even animal fibers, you can get animal fibers in your bigger craft stores, but there’s really just something about just the process of it. So what goes into making your yarn?

Taiu: 15:48
Well, for the fact that for 30 years we raised sheep and spun it, we basically did quite a study of yarn and fiber and understanding it. And so our merino yarn actually, because we can’t really actually raise that many animals for the amount of yarn we go through, is bought off the world market and we buy it with a certain specification. So we buy it a certain micron and we, it’s a certain fiber length and it is spun at a mill abroad for us. But then we, um, it arrives and then we hand dye and hand paint it here.

Um, because we’ve gone through this, uh, concept of volume and production, uh, we dye a kilogram at a time. So we’re not dyeing a small skein or a hundred gram skein. We actually dye a large kilogram hank. And then we, um, rewind it into 50 gram skeins. So we actually have industrial machinery that we were actually blessed in finding at a time when a mill was going out of business 20, 25 years ago.

And so that has been our blessing that we have been able to do the production that we do do. So we, and then we label it, twist it and label it. So the hand dyeing is a process that can take up to three hours, sometimes four. Some of the speckling that you see out there can actually be a little longer because it’s like the true artistry that we’re placing into it.

Brittany: 17:44
Very cool. Now, we haven’t really had the pleasure of talking a lot about dyeing yarn here on the show. I know just from my own personal faux pas that there are certain things, like certain steps that you have to do, like just from in the very, very basic sense. What’s required to dye a yarn?

Taiu: 18:07
Well, to dye wool, wool uses weak acid dyes. And so you need a leveler, which is generally salt, and then you need an acid, which could be vinegar or some of the other acids, like citric acid somebody would use—least harmful to yourself or the environment. And then you need heat. Wool actually requires heat.

If you were dyeing, and most animal fibers, you need heat. If you had any other foreign fiber or cellulose fiber, meaning your cottons, your bamboos, you would be using a whole different spectrum of dyes. So wool in that aspect can use actually fairly, so we use weak natural dyes that you can actually now buy sometimes. I’ve done a lot of nature dyeing and sometimes I find it almost more toxic than the weak acid dyes because you’re actually burning you’re boiling the chemical compound of that root down and so you’re getting the chemical out of it so that’s getting a little more technical yeah.

Brittany: 19:38
I appreciate that tip. Like I said, I haven’t really had the pleasure of speaking to somebody who really knows a lot about that. I feel like that could be an entire episode all on its own, it sounds like.

Taiu: 19:41
Oh, yes, it could be. Definitely.

Brittany: 19:44
So Kerstie, tell me a little bit about what you do in the family business.

Kersti: 19:56
Well, essentially, I have the ability to do everything just growing up through the business. I mean, as early as like a baby, I was crawling around the shop. I was drawing, I was helping pick colors. I could essentially do everything my mom can do, but not as good. Just because that’s what I’ve been trained to do. I’ve dyed at some point, I’ve reeled at some point, I’ve twisted, I’ve designed.

But one of my favorite parts of the business is actually helping do the marketing and the product designing of different things. So helping my mom, I’ve redesigned her website, I’ve run her Instagram. But I also really enjoy when we create new products, the unveiling of it and choosing the colors. And definitely one of my favorite parts of the business is putting together color combinations and things like that.

Brittany: 20:45
That’s another topic that I hear come up over and over is how to plan for color combinations. Do you have any tips for that? Like if somebody, maybe they don’t have a designer’s sort of brain and they don’t know how colors work or how the color wheel works. Are there any basic tips that somebody can put to use to come up with a nice color palette? Or is it really just personal preference?

Kersti: 21:10
Well, part of it is personal preference. I mean, sometimes someone will put together a color combination in front of me and they’ll absolutely love it. And I’ll be like, wow, there’s too much green in there because I do not like green. But I mean, at the same time, a lot of putting together a beautiful color combination is practice.

But a really quick and easy tip when it comes to putting the color together with skeined yarn is that you can undo three or four skeins of that yarn if you’re looking at mixing some different colors. And then you twist all of the four skeins or three skeins together. And when you twist different colors of skeins together, you can see how the colors are going to blend together if you mix them.

And then that’s a good way to see if you have any color that’s too odd topping or if there’s not enough difference in your colors. Another way is you can kind of explain this more with the red glass.

Taiu: 22:05
Oh, yes. A lot of quilters use this. And that is, let’s say you were doing Fair Isle or you had a lot of big popularity right now is knitting solid and a variegated into sort of your Fair Isle yoke sweaters. And opposed to losing your variegated or making your eyes go cross-eyed, is you in that scenario you want actually two very opposite colors and you don’t want them in the same hue.

One way is to put a red piece of glass over it so if you don’t see any difference between the two yarns they are in the same hue. They are in the same color intensity. So you do, you, you basically don’t want to be that big, do that or knit the two together because you will lose the beauty of both colors.

So if there’s a bit of contrast and you see the contrast under the red glass then you’ve got two really good colors that are going to work together. Another thing with variegated yarns or hand painted yarns is I like to call them bridging colors so if you needed to pick five colors together you could go from let’s say one is blue, green. Your next color has blue and pink. So your blue is bridging.

And then you could go pink and orange and then sort of see what I’m kind of creating. There’s enough variegateds that you could actually do bridging points and create. So if someone’s not sure I’m going to put these colors together, pick a color in there and make that color in that variegated your predominant across all the other variegateds.

Brittany: 23:47
Very cool. Definitely useful tips for us to try here as we move into the fall. I know one of the things I like to do is look at the Pantone forecast for what colors are going to be popular in different parts of the year and kind of go from there. But it’s always good to just choose what you like, not necessarily what somebody has forecasted is going to be popular at that particular time of the year, you know?

Kersti: 24:17
I mean, definitely there’s some people that they will only knit with purple and that’s great. And they’ll only wear purple and purple might not even be in that year, but that doesn’t matter. As long as you’re happy with whatever you’re knitting or whatever you’re wearing, it really doesn’t matter what’s in fashion necessarily because you’re making it, you’re putting the time into knitting it.

So you might as well love whatever you’re doing.

Brittany: 24:37
Exactly. It would be a shame to put all of that time and effort into something. And then at the end of it, you just kind of lukewarm about it.

Taiu: 24:46
Exactly. You need to feel the color and feel… Also, people grow with color. The more they knit with color, often a lot of people, when they first start knitting, they do go to their go-tos or they’ll knit a white sweater or something like that.

And they have a difficulty working with it. And the more you deal with knitting with color or crocheting with color, you get excited about it. And then you actually start working out of your paradigm. So out of your box. And when they start doing that, it’s fun to see repeat customers come and they’re all of a sudden not, you know, knitting with purple and blue and they’re actually greens and pinks or, you know, or yellow or oranges. And they’re going out of their box, which is a pleasure to see.

Brittany: 25:42
Yeah, it’s really fun to experiment a little bit. And I like to do that a lot with fall projects. I tend to use colors in the fall that… that are sort of out of my comfort zone. I love cool neutrals, blues and grays. That’s pretty much my go-to. But in the fall, I can’t help but just fall in love with all of the oranges and rust color and dark reds, browns even.

I tend to normally stay away from warm neutrals for whatever reason. But in the fall, I do seem to be a little more ambitious. The question that I always have, though, is there any good yarns that’s sort of like a go-to for a fall project. I know there’s a lot of personal preference that goes into that, but I know both of you have had so much experience with so many types of yarns. If you could pinpoint a few that you think are really great for fall projects, what would that be? Would that be perhaps a certain fiber type or a certain weight? We can kind of brainstorm a little bit here.

Kersti: 26:49
Well, I definitely think your typical go-to fall outerwear would definitely be something chunkier. Definitely something with wool. I mean, your summer is the time to play with linen and cotton and things like that in your crafting, but you’re going to want something that’s warmer and sturdier, and wool is definitely the best thing for all temperatures as it cools you and it warms you all at the same time.

Taiu: 27:15
Yeah, I mean, we, we generally seem to be more knitting with our aran weight or our, you know, a DK weight, opposed to any of our finer yarns. And generally, it’s, you know, making outer garments opposed to, you know, knitting an indoor sweater. And that and then generally, that’s where we often go to look for the fall and starting to get into, you know, scarf and, um, you know, hats, um, just, uh, you know, a good, um, throw, you know, a lot of people love knitting with that and, you know, the, the cooler weather, uh, kind of, uh, our ironic thing when you do say fall knitting is, is sometimes I think of, um, and we, have some but it because we’ve been handling it lately but we don’t really promote it is is a mohair and mohair is a perfect is understated but it is actually a perfect Ontario fall outer garment because it’s just perfect other than the fact it doesn’t cut the wind um so if you’re looking at a sweater is it’s great to blend it with a wool and then you have the coziness and you know a good wool will also wick any rain Um, so like a heavier wool. Um, so I, I’m more towards going probably a DK weight. I think Kirstie is probably the bulky weight and, and, uh, and an aran weight, uh, into the fall and making sweaters. Um, definitely it is whether sweater weather, uh, I don’t say that too fast, but, um, you know, definitely planning and, you know, just that nice outer, uh, garment cardigan is wonderful. Or a good poncho sometimes. Just something you can throw on, get in the car and go without not struggling with a jacket.

Kersti: 29:21
Yeah and I think also fall is definitely the time for you to show off your knits and your crochets and all your other projects because you’re not quite at that stage yet where you need to cover up fully with your winter jacket if you’re in our climate um or whether they’re else but in the fall you can have a couple of your knits on and you can be outside comfortably and all cozy and then you can show them off and have people asking you oh where’d you get that oh well I made it myself.

Taiu: 29:46
Yeah I mean how cool would that be? We’ve actually been stalked by… we’ve gone to festivals and ladies will like run us down and going like where did you get this and it’s like well it’s our yarn and you know you get into a conversation but it’s uh it’s that’s where you’re showing off and you’re really enjoying the compliments and uh and and then you feel good that you’ve made it yourself and it’s the personal satisfaction.

Brittany: 30:15
Exactly. I love the extra thought that goes into planning a project too. I know I’m sometimes guilty of falling into that trap of, well, I just love this yarn. Maybe I love the color or the texture or whatever, and not really think about how that fiber is going to work with the project. So I think it might be helpful to maybe outline some of the different types of projects based on their wear. And maybe you can sort of spitball a little bit of the fiber type that would be good. So I’m thinking… like mittens and socks, those get a lot of use or a lot of wear or rubbing. Is there a particular fiber that might be best for, let’s say, that type of project?

Kersti: 31:03
Well, our KPPPM, which is our fingering, is what most people typically like to make their socks out of. But we also recommend that sometimes you put a little bit of nylon in the heel or in the toes on that sock on that kind of project because those are the locations that do get the most wear or if you’re working with like a merino and a nylon base so then it does have that little bit more extra hold to it. Um mittens I mean people if you like knitting mittens you know that you knit mittens every year because they just get their wear out. I’d say something chunkier is best for mittens not the fingering weight because then you have that coziness and it can also get a little bit more wear to it.

Taiu: 31:44
Well and the other the other thing is is if you if it’s a different type of season and you’re in slightly warmer climate than than we are in into like October November um in when you knit from the fingering weight mittens per se uh it’s more like a walking I’d actually rather make gloves. Our fingering weight is actually great for gloves um and uh or like a you know great crochet glove because it’ll have like the the holes um through so there’s so they’re not as hot on you um but like a good walking mitten or glove um definitely now if you’re looking for warmth like a mitten is supposed to be and it’s it you know our November we get snow uh yeah you you want to go to a heavier weight wool definitely. Now socks like care reiterate, a big thing with socks is a lot of people love socks and everyone wears socks differently and it doesn’t, there’s a, there’s no trick in it. If you’re hard on your feet and you’re hard on socks, you’re going to be hard on anything. You’re going to hand knit on socks. Some people come back to us and say they’ve worn our socks for 14 years from our yarn and it’s wonderful. Wow. And you know, as to reinforcing, yes, reinforce. Um, but you know, socks are, um, diamond dozen people make them and, you know, love them, um, and, uh, and treasure them. It’s a, it’s, it’s, you know, uh, socks is a very personal, there’s a lot of sock knitters out there and it’s, they, they know their stuff.

Brittany: 33:27
Yeah. I am definitely not of that. That is not my expertise here. I’m wondering if, does stretch come into play? Like, do you need to have a yarn with a little bit of stretch or does that just come with the stitch pattern?

Kersti: 33:41
It’s a little bit of both. I mean, once you’ve done your gauging test, if you see that your yarn doesn’t have a lot of stretch to it, then you do something more like a rib or maybe knit a little bit more. But a lot of wool yarns do have a natural stretch to them already, so you’re going to get that in your sock pattern or your mitts or whatever else you’re knitting.

Taiu: 34:04
Something like if you had bamboo, I would be… knitting them a bit tighter and putting the ribbon and maybe an elastic to keep the sock up because things like the cellulose fibers have no give where wool does and it has its natural elasticity. So that’s where you’ll find a lot of bamboo and wool combinations. So giving it a lighter sock, not as warm. So the reasoning of some of the… is because of basically one gives a strength and one gives the nice elasticity.

Brittany: 34:47
Good tips there. I’m thinking now of sweaters. I know for myself personally, I know that I’m pretty sensitive to wool that is just maybe not quite as soft or as smooth as some breeds out there. Do you have a recommendation as to what type of yarn or what type of fiber is good for sweaters?

Kersti: 35:09
I mean merino fiber is your most typical sweater wool or wool in general in the knitting world. It’s used most often. A trick about your scratchier wools is when you’re wearing a scratchier wool you need to be wearing that in a cold climate. When you notice that the wool is scratching you that means that you’re not You’re hot. You don’t need that wool. But I mean, those in like Northern Canada, Northern Europe, all of those places, that’s why you’ll find those sweaters are really scratchy. And the point for that is that the scratch of the wool actually irritates your skin to heat your body. And when you start noticing the scratch, that means that your body’s heating up.

Brittany: 35:52
Oh, that is

Kersti: 35:53
So fascinating. I had no idea. So that’s why a lot of like Northern Scotland, Iceland, all those kinds of places, you’re going to find those scratchier wools, but you’re not going to need that in the South or places like that or even indoors. So that’s why those scratchy sweaters are your outdoor sweaters.

Brittany: 36:09
Gotcha. Okay. So I’m thinking too about just the weight of the sweater or of the garment. I know that can come into play. Some fibers tend to, I guess, stretch more or maybe they relax more. And… a couple weeks or months of wear, maybe it doesn’t lay the same way. Maybe it’s a little bit more saggy than it was. Is there any tips to avoiding that or is it sort of just figuring it out as you go?

Taiu: 36:35
Well, a big thing is, is to block your, your project. Um, so, um, I come from a game with my grandmother and my mother and watching them is, is that, um, they don’t steam, um, their projects, they fully and dorsely wet their projects and then they pin it down. And that blocking is so important because then you’ve blocked the ultimate stretch out of it. And not the stretch, you kind of make it to the shape you want. Most natural fibers are going to do that.

You’re gonna find in your mohairs and your silks and cottons, generally they will stretch. So you want to give that sometimes into your equation of your project. Another thing is certain stitches will cause… things to sag or stretch. And then, you know, there’s other variables is possibly the spin, how it was spun, how the yarn was actually produced. It’s not necessarily the fiber’s fault. It’s actually, there’s so many factors leading up. And if you’re a tight knitter, Technically, yes. So if you use a larger needle and the yarn should have been, yes, you might have more of a sag. So you are making the product, so make sure you check your, you’re making your sweater, so make sure you check your gauge. That’s really important.

And some, you know, another, if it’s a big, big project and you put some money into it and you really don’t, you’re really not sure of yourself, Make a swatch. Make a swatch of the stitch you’re making. Wash it. Pin it. torture test it and see how much it changed from your original knitting and then adjust your stitches. That can actually help and, you know, avoid some sort of disappointing situations.

Brittany: 38:47
Yeah, I know a lot of people are really tempted to skip that step because they just want to dive right into it. They don’t want to wait for, I mean, a couple of days, really, that whole process could take. But when you think about how much money you’ve invested in the nice yarn and probably the pattern and the time that’s going to go into creating that thing, it’s totally worth it.

Taiu: 39:09
Exactly. It is. It is. Definitely.

Brittany: 39:12
So some more fall projects that are coming to mind. I feel like hats are pretty flexible. I feel like you could almost go with any type of fiber or yarn for a hat. Would you all agree with that?

Taiu: 39:25
Yes, definitely. A hat is, you know, a very personal preference and people wear them and some people wear them more for decoration. So the fiber really is ultimately doesn’t matter. Some people wear it. I mean, if you’re wearing it for warmth, yeah, I could see more diving into more natural fibers for that, again, because you will get the, you know, ultimate warmth. Another thing is, is some people have been putting, you know, sort of an extra brim around because you don’t want the wind. The elements are sometimes the big factor in how we construct our piece.

Brittany: 40:10
I know from personal experience too, the hats that I have used an animal fiber, like actually gone out and bought a very nice hank of yarn for, I usually reserve that a lot for my birthday. I love going to a local yarn shop and spending way more on one or two hanks of yarn than I normally would. And that’s just a real treat for me. Those hats that I’ve crocheted with that nicer yarn, they have lasted several seasons and I can’t really say that that’s the case with some of my other acrylic blends or other yarns that I have, other hats that I’ve made.

Taiu: 40:47
Well, yeah, natural fibers are, you know, they basically will be around. I mean, we have a slave blanket from the probably beginning of the 1800s from Estonia. Wow. It’s made of 100% wool. It’s natural black and gray, hand-woven. I don’t know personally how they spun that fine, but they spun it very finely. And it’s, you know, we still have it as an heirloom. And, you know, as a kid, we used it as a throw on our couch. I never knew until just a few years ago that it actually came from where it did. So, you know, we’re a little more cautious of it now because it’s such a heirloom. But that’s virtually the glory of natural fibers. Unless they’re in humidity, get wet, mold, moth. Really, the whole thing is they are biodegradable, but at the same time, they last generations.

Brittany: 41:55
Very cool. I know it sounds like for an heirloom, if somebody is planning a project, that they really want to stick around for a while, that maybe spending a little bit more money on the yarn is going to make sure that it will last a little bit longer.

Kersti: 42:12
Yeah, definitely. I mean, anyone who’s making a blanket for a baby that they are closer to, that baby blanket could last all the way up to that. They’ll be taking that same blanket to college at some point in time. If you do make it out of a great material, it’ll definitely last its time.

Brittany: 42:32
Yeah, very cool. So the last project that I’m thinking of here is scarves. Do you have any tips for planning or figuring out the best yarn for a scarf? Or is that kind of like hats and it’s really just personal preference and a lot of different options work?

Taiu: 42:50
Well, it’s a personal preference. I mean, Kirstie likes to get her projects done quickly, so she goes for the thicker yarn, right?

Kersti: 43:00
I mean, it depends on also the scarf you’re doing. If you’re doing something that’s like some beautiful Fair Isle scarves, you’re going to want something thinner because as much as I’ve tried, Fair Isle shows up the best in a fingering or DK weight, not a chunky weight for the lack of trying. Yeah.

Taiu: 43:18
Well, and, and also, um, if you’re, um, you know, if you’re actually doing two color knitting with the Fair Isle scarf is it, uh, usually is double and it’s probably just as extra warm, um, to wrap around you, but it’s a lot more work. Um, so again, it’s, it’s how quick the, the satisfaction, um, for the fall, I think scarves are going to be big this year. Um, I think we’re, we’re slowly creeping out of the cowls personally. I like cowls. Yeah. Get strangled by my scarf but you know it’s it’s something where I think scarves are going to be you know it can be very dressy you know on the other side you can make a piece that you know could look nice with somebody’s you know a suit you know for a boyfriend his suit and and coat and off he goes and he looks really smart with your hand knit scarf so you know planning that out um and and some people you know a big thing we we have fun with right Kirstie is is coming up with scarves that um are like your vitamin d you know your your extra bright of fresh air that’s more when we start getting more into the fall is is that it’s so dreary and the fall colors are gone and and you want a bit of red and yellow and and so your scarf will dress up and give you that extra color.

Kersti: 44:51
I think you do have to be aware of with scarves and I mean hats and mitts and all other things is when you are picking a fiber some fibers and some the most natural say you’ve been near a farm or at Rhinebeck and you bought yarn straight from a sheep farmer or an alpaca farmer be aware that when that does get wet you will smell a little bit like an alpaca some people like For me, that smell reminds me of my childhood and I’m like, whatever, okay, move on. I smell a little bit like an alpaca. But you don’t like that smell or just beware that you don’t wear your hand knits of natural fibers necessarily in direct rain because they will dry and they’ll be perfectly fine. But sometimes they will give off a little bit of an odor, which I discovered this past fall with one of my—

Brittany: 45:40
Alpaca scarves. Yeah, I can’t say I’ve experienced that yet. I’m curious, what about some of the wool washes that you can get? Eucalan is the one that I have here. And I know they have that with scents like sort of built into them. Do you have any experience with those? Does that help with that?

Taiu: 45:58
Yeah well they’re soak Eucalan. Most of them, they help them tremendously. It’s like a refreshing of the product. It’s kind of sort of you know even even putting it outside and on a windy day to air. I know everyone doesn’t have the ability because we live on a farm that we have a great deck that will put something out. But that’s even your sweater. Sometimes you don’t need to actually wash your woolen sweater. Let’s say it’s a heavy woolen sweater. You can actually just put it out in a fresh snow and flip it both sides and bring it in and brush it off and dry it. It refreshes it. So wool does that. It refreshes itself. Because generally a heavyweight sweater, let’s say a cardigan that you’re not wearing against your skin, you don’t need to wash it that much. It actually, a good breeze will, I mean, it’s not often against your skin that you’re going to get sweat. Mm-hmm. You know, I, those kind of sweaters, I only wash once a year. So it, and if you get a smell like that, and if I’ve been in a barn and I’ve actually attracted smell, we’ll just put them outside and it refreshes them. I think they should have like a wool wash that you could just spray on it and it would actually help it. But I mean, you could do that. You could probably put in the Eucalan into a spray bottle and it would just be perfect. It just would refresh the garment.

Brittany: 47:37
Yeah. That’s a good point. I should try that. Do you have any tips for washing when you do have to do that?

Taiu: 47:45
Uh, I would, I would use Eucalan or, uh, Soak is the other, other product we use, uh, and, uh, layer your, your walls, uh, flat, even if it says, um, to, to machine wash, um, depending on your piece, like, okay, my socks, I’ll put under the hand wash cycle and the washing machine, but, um, necessary, or, you know, you’ve done something for a baby and the baby’s thrown up, but, um, you know, if you, if you have the space and you have a flat surface and you’ve done something, you know, fairly intricate and you put a lot of time in it. Let’s say it’s a project you’ve spent three months, six months, a year on. You do want to hand wash it because the washing machine does actually do put three years of life. Kirstie actually, here’s a story. She put a sweater when she was five into the washing machine with my jeans and, you know, nothing happened to it didn’t shrink but it kind of looked worn you know that all worn look and the way we sort of put it is puts three years of life onto the garment.

So yes lay it flat to dry, put, put you know towels down, flip it sometimes you know if it’s a finer yarn you might want to pin it down just again to reshape it because anything knit anything crochet my grandmother was a big crocheter and all she did was knit to a shape. Crochet to a shape. Crochet to a shape. And she would just pin down the pieces to the shape she wanted. And it was phenomenal what pieces she did. Kirstie actually has worn, in the summer, the crochet tops that she made.

Brittany: 49:42
Oh, that’s very cool.

Taiu: 49:45
You should actually post some of those.

Brittany: 49:47
Yeah, that would be really interesting to see over on the Instagram.

Kersti: 49:54
Yeah, it’s kind of fun. A lot of the pieces my great-grandmother crocheted in the 80s and 90s, well, if they don’t fit me, they fit one of my cousins, but we all each kind of have a piece, and some of them are cropped, some of them are full length, and they’re all cute little off-the-shoulder or tank tops, and they… look like I could have just bought them out of a shop today and I get compliments on them all the time and I’m like yeah my great-grandmother made them in the 80s and people always look at me like no she didn’t what but yeah no it’s actually awesome that we and almost all my cousins each have a piece that she made because she was a prolific crocheter oh.

Brittany: 50:31
So cool. I wish I had something like that—that’s probably, I’m sure you guys cherish that. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Well, as we wrap things up, I would love to know a little bit more about what you guys have going on this fall. I know we’ve chatted a lot about different projects, and I appreciate your tips here so much. I’ve learned a ton. But what do you guys have going on over at Koigu?

Kersti: 50:54
Well, we’re currently working on a lot of different things. We have a couple projects, magazine type things in the works right now with different patterns. We have a Volume Two in the works. Our first volume came out based with Chelsea and Othello, our chunkier weight yarn patterns, and we had a couple different influencer type people do projects out of them. Our second issue is going to be no different—we’re going to have some awesome people designing for us.

And then as well, we have a lot of events going on this fall. We have a couple different trunk shows traveling around this fall. We published a book a few years ago with Soho Publishing called Wrapped in Color. It features 30 shawl patterns, and that will be traveling across the states in a trunk show this fall. So we’ll have more of that on our website.

Along with one of our first events we’ll be doing this fall is we’ll be going to Vogue Knitting Live San Francisco, so I’ll be there that weekend and going to our shops in San Francisco that we sell to, as well as we’ll have a fashion show and different things like that.

As well, we’ve done a pencil box which you may have seen on our Instagram—they’re really cute, they’re great gifts—that will be in a trunk show at Yarn Scout at the beginning of September in Montana. Montana, thank you. And we have a lot going on actually, really busy fall.

Brittany: 52:24
Yeah, it sounds that way. So I know a lot of people are very interested in learning about these different shows and things to attend. I know a lot of people think about it in the fall too. They want to go to maybe like a fiber festival or that sort of thing. And there’s really a lack of knowledge online as to where you can find these places. You sort of just have to know somebody.

Taiu: 52:49
Yeah, I agree. I have often said it’s like the secret service.

Brittany: 52:54
It is.

Taiu: 52:54
Trying to get in.

Brittany: 52:57
Yes, I have tried Googling it so many times and I always come up short.

Taiu: 53:04
Well, we have several of the, a lot of the businesses will actually list a lot of the ongoing events. I think there are some other links where people list all ongoing. It’s kind of difficult to get them all from North America. I mean, I’ve discovered, oh, there was one going on in Quebec last weekend and I knew about it, but I always forget that it’s there because it’s new and it’s 10 years and it’s up and coming now. So, you know, it’s hard to get to the mall. We would love to go to, for instance, Rhinebeck, the New York Sheep and Wool Festival, but it’s, you know, timing again. It’s the middle of October and there’s a lot of other things going on.

And one other thing we’re having in October, which is sold out, we have a Vogue Knitting destination to Koigu. So 21 people get an opportunity to get a workshop of dyeing and color and shopping at our facility.

Brittany: 54:17
Very cool. Is that something you do—

Kersti: 54:18
Every year? With Vogue Knitting, we have been. This is our third year with them. Yeah, we love it. The women that come love it. We’re going as well because in our area, it’s a beautiful area to be in the fall and it’s apple season and the leaves are changing. So we’ll also be going to a local winery on that weekend. So it’s a lot of fun for the people to get to go on it.

Brittany: 54:44
That sounds fun. Where do you normally publish that? If like you said, you’re sold out this year, but somebody is really interested maybe for next year, how would they learn about it?

Taiu: 54:53
You can send us an email and we can contact you to the right people. But it’s also on the Vogue Knitting website under events. So if you go to their website. And—

Kersti: 55:07
They have an email for you that you can email if you’re interested in getting on, I mean, the wait list for this year, let alone for a list to be the first to know about it for next year as well. And they have—

Taiu: 55:17
Several destinations. So that’s something other people might be interested. They have a—

Kersti: 55:21
Lot of, if you’re ever interested in going on a knitting tour with a group of people you’ve never met before but you’re all interested in knitting and crochet, they go to a lot of very cool places.

Brittany: 55:31
Well, that’s neat. I’ll have to do some investigation here on the back end to get that information up on the show notes page so listeners can check that out if it’s something they’re into.

Taiu: 55:42
Definitely.

Brittany: 55:43
Yeah. Well, it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with both of you today. I thank you so much for your time. I know you’re super busy. And this has been just a really insightful conversation. I know we’re all getting really excited about fall. We’re thinking about our fall projects. And I’m sure that you have saved at least a handful of people a lot of time and frustration with your tips here today.

Taiu: 56:06
Well, thank you for having us. It’s been a pleasure. Yes.

Kersti: 56:09
Definitely. And follow along on our Instagram to see our fall projects as they grow as well. And give us your handle for that. Our handle is koigu1, so koigu—

Brittany: 56:21
K-O-I-G-U.

Taiu: 56:22
One.

Brittany: 56:23
One. The number. Got it. Okay. So that’s a great place to connect with you on social. And as always, I’ll have a link to your website on the show notes page. So no need to memorize that URL, but you can go ahead and throw it out there just in case we have somebody who is really good at memorizing. Our website URL is just www.koigu.com. Oh, simple enough. Yep. All right. Thank you guys so much. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

Alright, I hope you enjoyed that episode with Kirstie and Taiyu from Koigu. Thank you both so much for all of your time today and for sharing your wisdom about fall projects and how to properly plan the yarns for those projects. Now once again, you can check out Koigu Yarns over on their website at koigu.com. They have some really great fibers. And as you heard, when you purchase from this company, you’re helping a family business. And I’m all about that. So if you want to spoil yourself with some beautiful yarn, head over to Koigu.com and check it out.

One last thing before I wrap up for today. I want to thank Red Heart once again for sponsoring the show, for bringing that really cool product to us, Loop It. Again, you can check that out at your Michaels stores. It’s a brand new yarn where you only need your fingers to work a project. And what I would encourage you to do right now so that you can stay in the loop on patterns, news, and promotions is sign up for Red Heart’s newsletter. Let me tell you, I know we all have tons and tons of emails in our inbox, but there are a few places where it’s actually worth being on their email list. Red Heart is one of those companies. I am personally on their email list and I enjoy seeing inspiration in my inbox every single week. So to get on Red Heart’s mailing list, all you need to do is go to redheart.com. You can find the link to sign up right there on that page.

It’s been such a wonderful ride today. I’m sad to see it go, but I have another great episode lined up for you next week. Same time, same place. I’ll see you there. Bye-bye.