All Things Amigurumi with Amy Ting from Curious Papaya
My guest for this episode of Making Stitches Podcast is Amy Ting, a crochet designer from the US who specialises in amigurumi. Amy is a passionate advocate for the Japanese technique of crocheting in the round to create soft toys. She has been crocheting amigurumi creatures for 7 years and shares her work online on her website: https://curiouspapaya.com/ and on social media too https://www.instagram.com/curiouspapaya/This summer, Amy released her first book of crochet patterns called Amigurumi Critters which contains 25 patterns to make cute crocheted animal soft toys. In this chat we spoke about how crochet came into her life and led her to publish her first book.For full show notes, please visit https://makingstitchespodcast.com/To join the mailing list for the Making Stitches Newsletter, please click onto this linkThe theme music is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.The Making Stitches logo was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.Making Stitches Podcast is supported by the Making Stitches Shop which offers Making Stitches Podcast merchandise for sale as well as Up the Garden Path crochet patterns created by me & illustrated by Emma Jackson.Making Stitches Podcast is presented, recorded and edited by Lindsay Weston.
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YARNDALE 2025 : Celebrating Yarn & Community
On the weekend of 27th & 28th September, Skipton Auction Mart was again transformed into Yarndale. The festival of all things creative brings stall holders and crafts people from far and wide to share their love of their creative passions.While knitting and crochet take centre stage with every imaginable colour and type of yarn, there are many other crafts to enjoy, including embroidery, sewing, spinning, felting, lacemaking and so much more. I went along with my trusty microphone and chatted to so many people, friends I've known online, people I've met before and so many new acquauintances too. It was a total joy.I was also thrilled to be able to chat to Julie Park, a good friend of the late Amanda Bloom, who was there to represent her friend and support 3 new creative businesses with the Yarndale Start-Up Bursary.My thanks to everyone who spoke to me for this episode including:Carley from Unicorn Puffs & RainbowsLydia from Laurette CraftsSue Maton from The MercerieEmma Wood from VerdeJulie Park on behalf of Amanda Bloom & the Yarndale Start-Up BursarySammy from Auspicious StitchAnd Sara & Sean from Crochet in the GlenFor full show notes, please visit https://makingstitchespodcast.com/To join the mailing list for the Making Stitches Newsletter, please click onto this linkThe theme music is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.The Making Stitches logo was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.Making Stitches Podcast is supported by the Making Stitches Shop which offers Making Stitches Podcast merchandise for sale as well as Up the Garden Path crochet patterns created by me & illustrated by Emma Jackson.Making Stitches Podcast is presented, recorded and edited by Lindsay Weston.
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THE RED DRESS with Kirstie Macleod
The Red Dress, recently recognised by the Guiness World Records as the largest collaborative embroidery project, is a truly stunning piece of work. It was created by Kirstie Macleod, a British artist, over a period of 14 years with the help of 380 different embroiderers.The dress is made of 87 silk panels which have been embroidered by people from 51 different countries and includes techniques passed down through generations, the work of skilled crafts people and first time stitchers. There are purely decorative sections and others which reflect stories of trauma, resilience and healing. The embroiderers include female refugees from Palestine, Syria and Ukraine, women seeking asylum in the UK from Iran, Iraq, China, Nigeria and Namibia, survivors of war in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda and DR Congo. Now complete, The Red Dress tours museums and exhibitions around the world amplifying the voices of the people who have contributed to it. Kirstie has also recently published a fascinating and beautiful book about the project called The Red Dress - Conversations in Stitch.I was lucky enough to see The Red Dress for myself and hear Kirstie speak about this truly amazing project at World Stitch Day at Woven in Kirklees Festival this summer. I feel privileged to have been able to see it and hear just a few of the stories of the people behind this mammoth project.I hope you enjoy listening to this episode, if you would like to find out more about The Red Dress, please visit Kirstie's website for more info on its creation and where you can see it for yourself.For full show notes, please visit https://makingstitchespodcast.com/To join the mailing list for the Making Stitches Newsletter, please click onto this linkThe theme music is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.The Making Stitches logo was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.Making Stitches Podcast is supported by the Making Stitches Shop which offers Making Stitches Podcast merchandise for sale as well as Up the Garden Path crochet patterns created by me & illustrated by Emma Jackson.Making Stitches Podcast is presented, recorded and edited by Lindsay Weston.
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World Stitch Day 2025
Back on 1st June this summer, the Woven in Kirklees Festival kicked off with World Stitch Day at Oakwell Hall in Batley. Among the attractions of stalls from local community groups, textile artists, workshops and an interactive fabric 'Time Machine' was The Red Dress on display in West Yorkshire for the first time.The Red Dress is an award winning collaborative embroidery project which was conceived by the British artist Kirstie Macleod. It took 14 years to complete and features the work of 380 embroiderers from 51 different countries, many of whom come from marginalised communities. The dress is currently in the middle of a global tour and was on display for the whole of June at Oakwell Hall in Birstall.The 'Woven in Kirklees' textiles festival first launched in 2019. The community festival celebrates all kinds of textiles and related crafts with yarn bombs, textile art exhibitions, workshops and talks.The biennial festival runs for a whole month and this year had 130 different events happening throughout June. Initiated in 2019 by Kirklees Council, the festival "is owned by everyone, including community groups, textile businesses, cultural and educational organisations, artists and heritage sites across the district".I went along to World Stitch Day and spoke to a number of the exhibitors, the festival's curator, Nat Walton as well as Kirstie Macleod about the amazing Red Dress. Here are some useful links to discover more about the events and groups featured in this episode:Woven in Kirklees WebsiteThe Red Dress Website The Campervan Collective Six Million PlusAnd to find out more about the appeal to make crocheted hearts for the North West & North Wales Paediatric Transport Service, please click this link.For full show notes for this episode, please visit this page on the Making Stitches Podcast website.To join the mailing list for the Making Stitches Newsletter, please click onto this linkThe theme music is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.The Making Stitches logo was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.Making Stitches Podcast is supported by the Making Stitches Shop which offers Making Stitches Podcast merchandise for sale as well as Up the Garden Path crochet patterns created by me & illustrated by Emma Jackson.Making Stitches Podcast is presented, recorded and edited by Lindsay Weston.
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LET'S CELEBRATE with Eleonora Tully from Coastal Crochet & a look ahead to Series 10
Hello and welcome to the first episode in this new series of podcasts from Making Stitches.This time, I'm sharing a chat with my crochet friend Eleonora Tully from Coastal Crochet. Eleonora and I have both celebrated a special blog birthday this year. It's 10 years since we both began our blogging adventure.While there's no doubt that Eleonora's blogging and designing has taken her to extraordinary places compared to my own experience, it's been so lovely for me to follow her success and share my own journey with her over the years. Our blogging platform connected us in our early days of blogging, and for the past decade we have regularly communicated both through blog comments and through social media. We were lucky enough to be able to meet in person at Yarndale in 2022, then again last year. It was at Yarndale 2024 that we decided to work on a collaboration to mark our blog birthdays. Today, we are launching our collaborative crochet pattern, the Let's Celebrate wreath. You can find the patterns for the wreath cover and the bunting over on Eleonora's blog at coastalcrochet.com and the patterns for the amigurumi balloons & birthday cake on my blog at makingstitches.co.ukAlso in this episode, you will hear a few teasers of what to look forward to in upcoming episodes of Making Stitches including World Stitch Day at the start of Woven in Kirklees, a chat I had with Kirstie Macleod, the artist behind The Red Dress, and Amy Ting, the amigurumi designer behind Curious Papaya and the author of Amigurumi Critters.For full show notes for this episode, please visit this page on the Making Stitches Podcast website.To join the mailing list for the Making Stitches Newsletter, please click onto this linkThe theme music is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.The Making Stitches logo was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.Making Stitches Podcast is supported by the Making Stitches Shop which offers Making Stitches Podcast merchandise for sale as well as Up the Garden Path crochet patterns created by me & illustrated by Emma Jackson.Making Stitches Podcast is presented, recorded and edited by Lindsay Weston.
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