season 3, episode 12 - sparking creativity with the creative coven challenge

this week we're talking with a couple of ash's creative coven community members about their experience with the latest live round of the #creativecovenchallenge as well as the role that ritual plays in their knitting and making practices! big thanks to jen and carolee for opening up, getting vulnerable, and sharing their experiences and creative sparks with us! you can find the creative coven challenge and work through it on your own time 24/7 in the creative coven community, and take things a step further like jen has with the creative coven online design course.

each season we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #snortandcacklebookclub, with a book review by ash and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. this season's #snortandcacklebookclub read is brujas: the magic and power of witches of color by lorraine monteagut.

take the fibre witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz. follow us on instagram @snortandcackle and be sure to subscribe via your favourite podcasting app so you don't miss an episode!

seasons 1-3 of snort & cackle are generously supported by the manitoba arts council. you can support future episodes of snort & cackle by sponsoring a full episode or transcript.

transcript

snort & cackle - season 3, episode 12 - sparking creativity with the creative coven challenge

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] Hello, and welcome to the Snort and Cackle podcast. I'm your host, Ash Alberg. I'm a queer fibre witch and hedgewitch. And each week I interview a fellow boss witch to discuss how everyday magic helps them make their life and the wider world, a better place.

Expect serious discussions about intersections of privilege and oppression, big C versus small C capitalism, rituals, sustainability, astrology, ancestral work, and a whole lot of snorts and cackles. Each season, we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #SnortAndCackleBookClub with a book review by me and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. Our book this season is Brujas: The Magic and Power of Witches of Color by Lorraine Monteagut.

Whether you're an aspiring boss witch looking to start your knitwear design business, a plant witch looking to play more with your local naturally dyed color palette or a knit witch wondering just what the hell is a natural yarn and how do you use it in your favorite patterns, we've got the solution for you.

Take the free fiber witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz and find out which self-paced online program will help you take your dreams into reality. Visit ashalberg.com/quiz [upbeat music fades out] and then join fellow fiber witches in the Creative Coven Community at ashalberg.com/creative-coven-community for 24/7 access to Ash’s favorite resources, monthly zoom knit nights, and more. [End of intro.]

We've got a special episode today because you're actually going to be hearing from a couple of folks in the Creative Coven community and also the Creative Coven design. And so first up, we have Jen, and Jen has spent the past 25 years as a professional archeologist working in Vermont in the States.

And during her early childhood, Jen would spend hours in her yard, digging in the dirt, or pretending to live in a cottage in the woods collecting all manner of bits of nature and crafting with the items she found. This sounds like my life.

Later on in life it seemed as though this connection with nature took a back seat to school and life in general, although Jen knew that she wanted work that would take her outside as an adult. She has had opportunities to work as an archeologist in both Scotland and Vermont and formerly studied archeology at the University of Nottingham in England. In 2010, Jen and her husband became certified divers and this love for the natural world expanded into the underwater world.

Jen's husband is a certified dive instructor and together they lead yearly trips all over the world. When COVID hit, Jen began working from home and that offered her an opportunity to really take in the environment around her and observe seasonal changes on a daily basis. It also offered her an opportunity to connect with other like-minded people in many areas that were previously unavailable.

Knitting and crafting in general has always been a passion of Jen's and last year she discovered the Creative Coven design course and took the leap to register after taking the natural dyeing classes with Ash, aka moi, and really enjoying them. Jen envisions a future career that centers around her connection with and passion for the natural world.

Hi Jen!
jen russell: Hi!
ash alberg: How are you?
jen russell: I'm doing well, thank you.

ash alberg: Good. Good. Good. So thank you for joining me. This is going to be a slightly abnormal episode in terms of, we're not actually going to go through our usual questions but we are going to talk about your knitting and what you're working on and the inspiration and ritual that your knitting offers you and like where else you find ritual and inspiration.

And I guess let's start with the Creative Coven challenge, which is technically what this episode is about is the Creative Coven challenge, which was, it's available 24/7 in the Creative Coven course, as well as in the Creative Coven community, because it's obviously a very useful exercise if you're a designer and you get stuck just with too many ideas or not enough ideas, but it also, I think, is really useful for people a.) to realize that they have creativity as an innate muscle.

I think a lot of people are really scared of starting on any sort of creative path if that's not been something that they've maintained through their life, because they're worried that they're not creative. And I think that's fooey, that we're all creative, but it is a muscle and the more you work on it, then the stronger it is and the more confident you can feel in it. And so with the challenge, the goal of it is that you go from seed of inspiration to tangible stitches and that it basically takes an idea out of your brain in it's like ephemeral space and literally into your hands into something tangible.

But let's chat about what your experience has been doing the challenge. We recently completed, semi-recently completed a live round of it. And so you made a really beautiful swatch and that is now turning into a design so I would love to hear about all of that.

jen russell: Yeah. Yeah, so I had joined the Creative Coven course at the beginning of the year. And I had hoped to do that sooner, but there was just a lot of shit went down over the past couple of years. [Laughs.] So ...

ash alberg: Just a teeny bit. Just a small ... the world's very similar.
jen russell: [Laughs.] Yeah. So it was something that I wanted to do and I

decided I need to make this a priority.

So I registered for that. And I took a look at it some of the introductory classes in that and started working my way through it but I needed some inspiration and like almost within a couple of weeks of that you sent out the invite for the challenge, for the live challenge and I thought this will be really good because I'll be able to connect. I can ask questions. There'll be other folks in the class.

And I sometimes find that when I have hit a roadblock or, like you said, with the create-- the whole creativity aspect of it is that when it almost is like, when I'm not thinking about it so hard is when I become more creative. When I think about it or when there's pressure or when I'm just like, oh, I can't do this. I can't think. Everything's already been created that's great and I'm not doing it.

You started to thinking that way. And so I joined the challenge Monday. It was a three day, three meetings, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And Monday, we all got together and I thought, oh great. Okay. I've got some things to work with, I took some notes and I looked at, and then I had, I like this type of stitch. I like this type of stitch. Oh, this is really good.

Oh, look at all the things that I'm finding. [Ash laughs.] So then I went from, “I don't know what to do” to “I've got so many ideas floating around in my head.” It's either feast or famine with these kinds of things.

ash alberg: It’s true.

jen russell: So then and we were supposed to have kind of an idea of a swatch by Wednesday and I thought, oh my god, oh my god. And then I just thought, you know what, you need to calm down and choose one thing. Choose the thing that’s speaking to you most. Those other designs, those other ideas, jot them down, but then let them go. Set them aside, let them go.

And then focus on this one thing. And I think being able to just give a nod to those other ideas and write them down and then being able to let them go like that in of itself was a little ritual that I needed to do. I needed to spend some time with that. And then, and then I found, I looked at the mood boards that are up there, which if folks are doing the challenge, those mood boards are fantastic and you're definitely going to connect with at least a few of those images and the music lists and that.

I found something that really spoke to me and then I came up with a stitch that sort of put that image that I was envisioning, put that into reality and then I swatched the pattern. I swatched it in one size and I was not happy with it. Actually it wasn't the size. It was the yarn.

I started with a different yarn and I wasn't really happy with it. So then I thought, I'll use a different yarn and then I was very happy with it. And I have the swatch and I'm not sure exactly which direction I'm going to go, if it's going to be a shawl or if it's going to be a wrap or ... I've got a couple of ways to go.

I would like to try the shawl design, but I feel like I feel like I need to work with the, just getting the basic patterns of the shawl designs first before I start incorporating any sort of lace aspect to it.

ash alberg: Yup, that’s fair. Yup.
jen russell: You know, learn to, learn to walk before you run.
ash alberg: I don't know. Just run. Apparently I went from like ... jen russell: Just go right in there.

ash alberg: ... bumming my way along the Florida, just like running.

jen russell: I know, I was the same way. When I was a kid, I was, I immediately started running, which I would bump into things and fall and I'd have black and blues from the knees down. And my mom would be afraid to take me to the doctor because she'd be afraid they'd be like, oh my god ...

ash alberg: Yes, oh my god!
jen russell: “You're beating your child.” [Ash laughs.]

Yeah. I was always doing things like that, getting myself, but that was part of who I was and that's part of like you read in my bio about me being outside all the time. Like I was always go.

So anyway, yeah, I have this really nice swatch and I definitely have some plans for it. I've got some other ideas that I would like to, that I envision eventually turning into patterns or works, but I found that the challenge gives you some direction. The Creative Coven challenge, it helps to focus your ideas, like you said, either, if you don't have any, or if you have so many floating around in your head that you can't calm down and focus.

I find that it was really helpful for that. And so it teaches you how to, how to manage your creativity. And it gives you steps to take it from that vision to reality, which I really, I thought was very valuable. I got so much out of the class and just being able to talk with other people and ask questions. I thought that was really valuable.

ash alberg: Awesome. That's so good to hear. Yeah. I feel like I remember one of the things that was really hard for me in the first few years of designing honestly, was like being okay with committing to an idea for a pattern and that meaning that there were other patterns that I wasn't going to have time for, and that maybe I would never have time for them.

And then just learning to trust that was the universe basically telling me, “This is not something that you need to make and put out there. Yeah, you got excited about it for a hot second, but It's not actually something that you were committed enough to try all the way through.”

And I think also I spent enough time being like, initially really excited about something, but then not actually being that invested in it, but still feeling like I needed to make the sample and I needed to follow through with it. And then just

being like, really unhappy with those ones and not ... like a bunch of them just never ended up actually being published.

But I also published probably more than a few patterns, especially initially Because I think it was also, now that I've removed myself from Ravelry, I don't feel this anymore, but I remember like even like right up to the end, just the way that platform kind of functions, which is similar to honestly, the way that most social media platforms function is that if you're not regularly putting out fresh content, then it's not relevant.

Instagram's algorithm is totally the same way where it's you put something up and then if you want to go and edit it, or you want to go and bring it to the front of your content again, like you can't do that. Whereas, like with Pinterest, something lives for a very long time or if you've got a blog, then you can like refresh things if it's your own website and you're like, I want to refocus on this one thing. You can do that.

But, and with Instagram, you can always use a photo again. The algorithm isn't going to like it, but it's going to let you. But I remember with Ravelry, just feeling like I needed to always be putting out new things and always cranking out new patterns, which is not actually a good way of designing anyway.

But there were definitely some ones in there where like they've gone into semi-retirement and I don't really plan on taking them out of semi-retirement. [Laughs.]

jen russell: Yeah, it seems like the pressure to constantly be putting out new content, that can take the joy out of it.

ash alberg: Yes! And I feel especially when we're doing creative work then you ... it's so important that if you’re going ... especially if you're going to run a business that like any level of the income you're making from that business is actually like necessary for your household, like whether it's that you've fully replaced your old income, or this is the secondary income coming in and you actually need it, or even just you really need it as the like gift buffer for the year or the vacation buffer for the year.

Regardless of that, any level of pressure to that extent that you're putting on your creativity, where it's like you need it to produce in a certain kind of a way in a very specific kind of a way financially, like you have to figure out how to keep the joy in, because otherwise all that shit's going to suck it right out of it.

jen russell: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think, like having a passion for the work anyway, like knitting, having a passion for that, having a passion for ... you do natural dyeing as well so having a passion for it, that's great. But as with any work, it’s work. It's still there's aspects of a business that isn't going to be the most fun.

ash alberg: Yup. [Chuckles.]

jen russell: And things. And so if you're, if you're also trying to crank out, constantly crank out content to meet an algorithm so that you stay in the view of people that are scrolling, like that's just that's a lot of pressure to put on someone. And I will post to Instagram occasionally, but I don't, I'm not those folks that post all the time or YouTube.

Yeah. There's some people I enjoy watching ... ash alberg: Yes, oh my god.

jen russell: ... on YouTube, but like the pressure for YouTube and you have to get this many subscribers and you've got to have all the likes and everything like that. Oh my god.

ash alberg: It's exhausting, but I think it's also like the thing that is lovely in that more of us are start-- like as more folks who are not like just influencers who make like shit tons of money because they partner with really big brands. Like the small businesses that operate largely online, they're not just a brick and mortar where like they have a local audience that is already established and they're just like pushing out a little bit with online stuff.

As more people are relying on these different platforms and also realizing wow, this is a lot of fucking work that we're putting in that is not necessarily being directly paying off, like maybe we're getting orders coming in, but if you don't have a specific way of tracking like this Instagram post that we put up directly resulted in these sales, then it's can be hard to measure those things.

And if you're a small business or a micro business, you don't have a marketing person whose sole job is to be doing that work so it's a lot of extra work to be putting on yourself or on a small team. And what I think is really great is that it does offer us a lot of opportunities that didn't exist prior and so people are figuring out ways of using those opportunities without driving themselves nuts.

Like figuring out, okay, your algorithm wants to do this. I don't really give that much of a shit but I still want to use the platform, whatever the platform happens to be. And this is the way that I am choosing to engage with it. And that, you just build an audience that understands that's the way you're going to show up.

If it's that you love making short videos and so you're going to be on TikTok all the time, cool. That's a thing. Or if you like longer form video in you’re, you have a YouTube channel and people know, okay, we're going to get a new YouTube thing from you every week or every month or every three months, whatever it is that people come to expect, the way that they can see you showing up and that's, and then they adjust their expectations accordingly.

Like we don't actually need to be appearing in front of everybody all the time, but I think it's useful where if we want to be building a business and using these platforms in ways that are not just like for personal shits and giggles, which is also super valid, that we figure out ways of doing that, that still supports us and feel sustainable and doesn't lead to burnout.

jen russell: No, that's a good idea of, so you set your boundaries of how and when you're going to post. No, that's good. Yeah.

ash alberg: Totally. So with all that in mind, you are working on designing, you are working on ... because you've been an archeologist for the majority of your career.

jen russell: A long time. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: A long time and are looking towards transitioning from that in a few years. And so also over that time, like doing, adding pattern design into things.

And so what are the ways that you are building that for yourself and what do you envision at this point that, that might look like?

jen russell: Yeah. Yeah. I can talk big right now and that may all change in like ... yeah. I've always really enjoyed making things with my hands. And I think even as a kid, I loved art. I loved being outside. I, I was never one to have it part, like my job is part desk and part field.

Obviously living in Vermont and as I look out my window, we still have snow on the ground, we can't do archeology during the winter. So my winters are

spent reviewing projects and things like that and getting things geared up for the spring. But yeah, so like finding inspiration for designs, I look to nature a lot for that, whether it's the way that I see elements in nature, textures, times of the year, the colors, like all of that plays into it.

For example, like the swatch that I was working on, I got my inspiration from ... part of it was structural. There was an image that showed an arch and I took that arch and made it a little bit more organic with the type of stitch that I chose that, it was a combination of an archway and a tree.

And I forget what the other picture was. It was very symbolic though. And melded those into something more organic that would express that sort of idea that I was trying to get across. And so like just some of the things that I'm interested in as far as I, I love the forest. I live on the edge of a large forest on family property that's about 144 acres.

And my husband and I live in an old farmhouse that's on about 8 to 10 of those acres. And then there's a hill like right across the street from my house that I spend a lot of time in. And so I get a lot of my inspiration just from walking around and connecting with nature, whether it's the texture on a birch tree and looking at how the colors are on a tree or the colors in a winter sky or things like that.

But I would like to eventually take those concepts and do some more with those and organize them and look at how I can incorporate those things into patterns because that's what really speaks to me. So yeah, that's where I find my inspiration for my work.

ash alberg: It sounds like the ideal location for it. I'm just like man, 8 to 10 acres with like forest being a good chunk of that is my ideal situation.

jen russell: The forest is outside of that. The forest is actually --

ash alberg: Oh wait, so you guys have 8 to 10 cleared?

jen russell: We have 8 to 10 that's mostly cleared and then the family property is 144. And most of that is in a forestry management plan, so it's comprised of hardwoods. Part of it's hardwoods. Part of it is deer yard and some wetlands in there.

And there's, my, my mother-in-law's the one who owns the property, the rest of the property currently. And it's been in a management plan for a long time. We

actually just had a logger come in and thin out some of the forest and take some selective cutting just to keep a healthy balance in there, but ... and re-establish some of the trails that we had that had gotten quite overgrown.

ash alberg: Reasonable.

jen russell: But I, it wasn't like, in my bio, I mentioned how kind of life got in the way. And as a child, I would spend all day outside. In the summer I’d eat breakfast and go out and I'd play all day and I'd have to be called in for dinner. [Ash chuckles.]

I'd be called in for my meals ‘cause I'd be out all the time. And then working, you get busy, you get thinking about your career. You get thinking about this or that, you go to school, life happens and those observations of nature sometimes take a back seat.

When you're working inside all day and you go in and it's dark in the morning or just getting light and then you come home and like in the winter time, when it gets dark at four o'clock, 4:30, so you're coming home and it's dark and you can't really observe what's going on around you so you lose that connection that we not only should have but that we really need with the natural environment. And I noticed that when, and it was two years ago like last week, that we were told you need to go home and work from home ...

ash alberg: It’s true! Oh my god.

jen russell: Yeah, we were just thinking about that.

We're like, it was the, like the second week of March that everyone gave their order, like we were to go home. And I've been working from home ever since but during that time I started going for walks every day as a break from my job. And I started noticing subtle changes every day.

And I had, there was a book that was recommended to me and it's called Naturally Curious, Day by Day, and the author escapes me right at the moment, but she's a New England ... I think she is either from Vermont or from Massachusetts or trained in Massachusetts, but she's got a couple books out and basically the books are designed to take you ... they’re like daily, maybe a paragraph or two, little things to read.

And it's month by month, every day of the month you have a little thing to read and it's about what's going on in the natural world around you. And I started

reading that book and then I would go on my walks and I would observe those things and I'd be like, oh my god! Today, I saw this and like these tracks or this type of flower blooming or whatever. And so then I started really, because I was home and I could do that on a daily basis, I started really noticing those things more and more.

And then I felt much more directly connected and I could feel like even breathing in the air, you can feel if the air is dry or if the air has moisture in it, is there a storm coming? It's, it sounds like a little bit hokey, but it's so true, you know?

ash alberg: Absolutely it is. Yeah.

jen russell: And so I realized like ... and I have enjoyed my, I love my job as an archeologist. I've, it's given me the opportunity to do a lot. I think it was when we got certified as divers, I really started noticing more like what's happening in the natural world. I felt more of a concern about what's happening, especially in the marine environment and how commercial fishing is handled or not handled.

And I felt more of a need, like this is something that I need to study and I want to protect it somehow. I want to learn how to do that. One thing I've been doing in my job, and this is, I'm fortunate that my job allows me to do this, is I've been taking some classes in natural resource, in natural resources. I'm currently in a class that's starting this spring where I will be learning how to delineate a wetland.

So you basically learn how to scientifically determine wetland boundaries. And so I'll be working with our biologist who's in-house and a colleague of mine. And it's a certification course so I'll get a certification at the end of that. I've been working on tree and plant identification. That's something I really want to get involved in and I think that's something you can probably relate to with plants and natural dyeing and things like that.

But so that's where I'm shifting. And so along with that, I'm looking at careers that could that I could do where I would be able to really focus my energy in that area. And I've always enjoyed crafting so I figure something like knitting and it might not just be knitting, it might be other types of crafts. It might be some herbal, some herbal work as well.

But I'd like to have a business that would afford me the opportunity to do things like that. I may still work in some natural resource work in there too, I see

myself, I have a regular tarot practice and I see myself as the personification of the seven of cups. I always have a lot of these choices

ash alberg: I love that.

jen russell: And I have a hard time like deciding on what I'm going to do. [Ash laugh-snorts.] So I have a lot out there and then I'll eventually pick something. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: That's so fun, but also the nice thing is that you don't have to pick a single thing, right? That's, right now I'm having a really hard time and it's like it's tax season. I should be focusing on like really specific things for the business. And I am like, fully distracted with miniatures ‘cause my dad just finished the dollhouse he's been building me since I was a child.

And then also quilts. I'm like, I have a thousand skeins of yarn literally to be dyeing right now. And instead I would rather have my dye pots full of scraps of cotton that I can then turn into quilts. And it's what the fuck? This makes no sense.

But I, my, my goal is to continue building a life that allows me to do basically that. Follow those whims, have my work be something that for the most part I love and would do regardless. But it's nice to be able to say, okay, today my job is dyeing yarn as well as doing my taxes.

But yeah, I think the nice thing when we have a hard time picking one thing to focus on is that you get to choose which of those things you want to focus on, things being plural.

jen russell: Yeah, yeah.

And I think that one outcome of the pandemic is an increased opportunity for online learning. And that's something that I alluded to in the bio was that it afforded me the opportunity to connect with people in a way that I hadn't been able to before. Knit nights! Through knit nights I learned about you and you’re your courses and things like that.

So it's one thing leading to another. And these opportunities online learning for, like I mentioned, the wetland course that I'm taking is online and then I'm able to do the field work here in my state and send it to the school that I'm working out of. And that's incredible.

I think that's so nice. That’s one of the positive things that has come out of both the pandemic and technology. I have a love/hate relationship with things like social media and technology and stuff like that. But this is a positive thing that's come out of it. And there's almost too much out there.

But if you're looking for something, then there's definitely that opportunity out there. And the one thing that I would say is to just really do your research so that that you're getting a quality item, because it's like a garage sale. There's always like a few really good things. There’s a lot of garbage.

ash alberg: That's a perfect analogy. [Both laugh.] It's so true, but yeah, that is true, right? Like one of the things that I have learned in my ... because I am loving the online learning, like the Sagittarius in my chart is just, what are more things that I can learn from? But I've, I, one of the things that I have also learned is that there is a fair amount of shit that you have to sift through.

And it, I think a big part of it is knowing in advance, not necessarily what you expect the outcome to be, but at the very least what are you looking to learn? What is the skill set that you are trying to fill or trying to scratch at? And then looking at whatever the offer is and figuring out is this going to teach me in the way that I learn best?

If somebody doesn't learn well from video classes or they need their hand held in a live format way, the Creative Coven course is probably not going to be the best fit for them, unless they really want to come to, to zoom knit night every single month, and also are okay with not making the entire knit night just about whatever they're stuck on.

If you just need the occasional check-in or you just want to like, be able to chat with other knitters and toss some ideas around yes, that combo can work really well. But if your brain is one where pre-recorded online learning is not going to be the best fit, then it's not the right course for you.

And simultaneously, if you're somebody who, I know for myself that whenever I'm learning from a coach and they're like, and we have a wonderful resource with our Facebook group, I'm like, I am not making use of that Facebook group. I fucking hate it. I avoid them at all costs. I get really annoyed when I am being forced to engage with them for any of the content.

I’m like, post the content somewhere else and then that way I can decide whether or not I want to speak to these fuckers. I'm sure they're all very nice, but I really don't want to.

And if the, if the content that is being offered in a way where you're not going to be able to consume it in a way that feels natural for you, there's probably something else out there that will teach you in a way that is a better fit. But also, if it's like a combined thing, I don't necessarily enjoy those, those Facebook groups, but that doesn't mean that the entire program or package or whatever it is all out the window and now not useful to me just because it happens to include a Facebook group.

Like for me, I'm like, if there's other content that's included that is going to teach me what I need and that feels like it's worth whatever the price point is, then the Facebook group is a non- ... it's a non-thing for me. I'm like, if that's not a central part of the course and the content that I am looking to learn is being housed in a different space that is going to, work for me in the way that my brain works, then it is worth me signing up and I can ignore the Facebook group.

But if all of the videos are in the Facebook group and all of the conversation is in the Facebook group and all of the homework assignments are there, then like probably no, I'm not going to be engaging [Chuckles.] And I'll find something else that, that teaches in a different way.

jen russell: Yeah. Definitely. I think some, some of the really good ones recognize that. They recognize that not everyone has time or is interested in being part of all these Facebook groups.

There's so many groups out there. And I'm part of a couple and I'm very selective about them. And the two that I am part of, I know personally people that are in them. Some of them, I don't know personally, but I at least have that connection with some of them personally.

And they're smaller groups. I think too, when you get these, “join this thing” and there's a thousand members, like you're not going to really make a connection with all those people. And I don't know, I, honestly, in my Facebook group of friends, most of them I know in real life. I am, I'm like not really initially trusting of people or strangers.

ash alberg: Me neither. Whenever people are like, oh, we're in this group together. Let's ... or my favorite is because I have a business page, like before ... there was a Nazi scare. And so I changed my personal account, so it's harder to find me personally on Facebook. But it's still not totally impossible.

And back before I changed my name, people would just be like, oh, okay. I know exactly where to find Ash. And they'd send me personal Facebook ... this was also at a time where I actually checked my Facebook. I don't anymore. But like I would get these personal invites to like, be friends with complete strangers because they liked my business page.

And I'm like, how do you engage online? I'm very confused. This is not how I use this particular platform. Maybe on Instagram where it's, I have a public profile and you can just follow, but I'm not letting you into ... it's oh, I'm going to have like my exhibition over here, with Instagram being the exhibition, but I'm not actually going to invite you into my house, which is the way that I kind of view ...

jen russell: Exactly. Yeah. I think I like my boundaries. I like my boundaries of my personal life and for some people that may be fine with them to have a very public profile and allow people into their personal life. People with hundreds or a thousand friends and that you get accepted friends of friends and things like that.

I just don't, I don't want complete strangers knowing that much about me in my personal ... and you're right. Instagram is a little bit different, but it's so easy to block people on Instagram.

[Both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: This is the thing. This is what I love about Instagram. I'm like, you actually like, I'm blocking you, or you're just like ... it's really bizarre to me. Actually, it's not bizarre ‘cause it's Mark Zuckerberg, but like the fact that like Facebook bought Instagram and then never bothered to take advantage of the fact that Instagram already had these really strong privacy methods.

And like those never migrated over to Facebook. I was like, why is it so easy for me to block shitty people in an Instagram but I can't do that on, even just on my business page. This is bizarre to me that I can't just be like, I don't want this person able to access my shit. Please remove them. [Chuckles.]

jen russell: Yeah.
ash alberg: Yeah. It’s sometimes ...

jen russell: Yep, exactly. And I just, I'm careful what I post. Like people that post oh, we're going on vacation and we are going to be away from our house for two weeks.

ash alberg: And here's a photo of my house with the like thing. To be fair though, I've definitely, if somebody really wanted to start combing, it probably wouldn't take that long to find that shit. But yeah, it's always a funny one. And I'm like, also to be fair, if I'm gone for that long, somebody is staying at my house, like insurance purposes, somebody has to be there anyway.

jen russell: That's like us, ‘cause our in-laws literally live like a hundred, well, about a thousand feet up the road and so on the same property. So usually if we go away, they will take care of our cat and on our property. So that's not an issue, but I don't know. I just, and maybe some of it is that I grew up in a time before social media so I could control, like it was easier to control your privacy back then.

And some of it, just because we're all on social media now in one form or another, there's not as much privacy as there was before and certainly if you have a business or you want to be known for something, you've got to put yourself out there to some extent and accept. But I like platforms that allow me to control who, who makes it in the doors and who I let, you know.

And like you said, I am I set my algorithms pretty high on Facebook. So if, usually it's if I know someone and they're like, oh, you want to, here, this is how you can find me or this. Instagram's a little different, I find when I start posting things or when I start publishing designs there will definitely be a way for people to find me.

And I think Instagram people can follow that, but, and then I will definitely have a separate site for business purposes. But, so I think that, I think ... and I'm sure that there's definitely advice out there for people who are business people in a social media world, how to navigate that, and that, I'll be definitely looking into that more as I progress

ash alberg: Yeah, totally. There's a few classes on that in the Creative Coven, but it's really, that shit changes so much that I was like, we're not going to go into strategy with any of this because that's, it's going to be obsolete in three months.

jen russell: Absolutely.

ash alberg: It’s, what's important is to ... what is consistently important, no matter what platform you're on and no matter how those platforms change is figuring out for yourself, what are your boundaries? What are you comfortable with? How do you want to show up and how do you make that fit in with your brand and/or make your brand fit in with what those boundaries are?

And that's how you then play the game, whatever platform game you're playing, where it's like ... And I think that's something like, yes, we all have personal ideas of what is oversharing, what is not sharing, what is privacy, what is dah. Like there's, everybody's going to have a slightly different and sometimes very different interpretation of those things.

But it we do have to keep in mind that whatever you are seeing online is a snippet. It's a curated portion of somebody's life and they're not showing you all of the things. They might invite you into some of the shit. Maybe they invite you into way more of the shit than you ask them to.

But it's, I think one of the things that I have learned the longer that I have been being public online with my business kind of forcing me to stay public, which is not always my favorite thing, but also is a useful tool as well at times, is like I've learned that if I'm actively going through the shit, most of the time, that's not going to be when I want to be posting online.

Like the only times that I'm going to say anything is like, if Willow gets injured, which this past year has been a little too frequent. We don't need to see our vet as often as we've been seeing him, thank you very much. Like him, don't need to see him.

And then if it's like a interrupting something that was planned and it's, but I'm not going to necessarily go into full details. Like I've learned if my mental health is really shit that, and I'm supposed to show up for something and I know that I can't then letting folks know, “Look, my mental health is shitty. And we're going to have to reschedule this and thank you for your understanding,” but not going into the details of it.

Definitely if it, if whatever is happening involves another person, not pulling them into that because like I've chosen to be public. They have not necessarily. And it's also just, we want some privacy for ourselves. If I'm having a fight with a friend or am breaking up with somebody, or alternatively I'm dating somebody new, like that information is not really that relevant to my business.

If I want to make it relevant at a later point in time, once things feel more stable in whatever way, that's fine, but I have learned that for myself, I don't want to share all of the shit as it is actively happening because it changes really quickly and, and it's ... yeah.

But that's me. I definitely follow some folks who I really admire and they actively talk about the shit that they are currently going through. And that's the way they roll.

jen russell: Yeah. Yeah, everyone has their, everyone has their different levels of comfort and so I think that is definitely something, that's something that I'm going to have to navigate as I go down this road of how public. Because it means something very different in this world than it did 30 years ago, or even content. Even publishing.

And I know like you've published hard copy books and you publish online content. And so that's a choice, 30 years ago, it was hard copy publishing only, there was nothing online. And now, now to have that choice. But now what's online? How do you protect that?

How do ... you know, that kind of thing. So it's like a whole different rule set. And I think people that grew up with that maybe are more familiar at how to navigate it, are more comfortable with it. And I think people like, I'm speaking only for myself, but people like me that spent a lot of their life without a computer or a cell phone or the internet, or, like I said, I really, I, there are some very positive things about it and then there's some things that I'm just like, oh man, I'm glad I grew up without that stuff.

It's handy now. And I don't know that I would really want to go back to the way that it was before. Just after you've, after it's become the norm, I think it's much more difficult to, to go back the ... I think we could if we had to and we would adjust and things like that, but some better than others.

But I think there's just that it's a different sort of learning curve for some people then people that were born into it.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah, totally. I can't imagine. At some point, I'm going to have to imagine it because I do plan on parenting at some point, but like to be a kid and especially a preteen and like a teen, those are fucking hard years, and to do that with social media as a factor, like learning those ... which is also like actually why I think it's important for kids to be exposed to like media and technology at an early age.

Not necessarily at the point of like they're one years old and they've got a screen in front of their face the whole time. That's not what I'm saying, but I do think that it is, it's like consent, where it's, we teach consent from when they are young enough to understand the basics of, this is my body, I get to decide who touches my body and how they interact with my body and those things, and learning how to voice those things so that by the time we're dealing with other stuff, it's not a completely foreign concept to them where now we have to give them all of the content.

It's already an idea that is familiar and so now we're gonna expand on this idea and it's oh, okay, that makes sense. That's a natural expansion. So in the same way where it's like getting kids comfortable with technology and then adding in the much bigger complexity of now what happens if this technology allows you to speak to other people? And how do we navigate that?

And you're putting yourself out in a slightly more public space, even if that is a protected people need to request to be your friend, parents have access to the list and all of those things, there's still, there's still things that it would help for them to have gotten used to seeing, how do we have boundaries around the way that we use this?

Before now, it's, we also need to have boundaries around the way that other people are going to use this as well.

jen russell: And understanding that what you put out there is out there forever. It's not in school, if, back in the, like when I was in school you do something that's stupid or embarrassing or whatever, potentially dangerous, that it's an incident that happens and it's over and eventually forgotten. But if you're out there and you put something out on social media, it's potentially out there forever and it spreads like crazy.

And that's, that's the other thing that sometimes ... and I do not have kids. I have no desire to parent anything other than fur babies. [Ash laughs.] But my husband works with, he's the director of a non-profit youth agency so he deals with young people being defined as someone up to about 26 when the brain development matures, but, and that's a concept that, you know ... we're off the topic of knitting but the topic of social media and putting yourself out there and how much to be public and sometimes teens, and people in general, don't understand that once you put it out there, it becomes less yours and you have less control over that once it's out there.

You can't necessarily, even if you take it back, chances are it's already been shared. We've learned that with all kinds of things and especially with the push to constantly like be publishing or even with the news, like I'm the first person to put out this article. It doesn’t matter if there’s a bunch of ...

ash alberg: Right, whether ...

jen russell: ... falsehoods in it, and then all of a sudden it's out there and people are like, oh, this is the truth. And there's a whole, there's a whole topic of social media that can be discussed as like a separate, whole separate episode.

ash alberg: But I think it's also, yeah, it's ... to tie it back around to like sparks of inspiration and things like that, I think it's also important for us to recognize that. I think one thing that I worry about is people being scared of making m-- ... like the way that we as humans grow is by fucking up and learning our lesson.

Like the way that, whenever somebody is oh, how do you get better at knitting? I'm like, you fuck up a bunch of times. You have to fix the fuck up and that's going to teach you about the construction and then you'll be better next time. That's literally how you fix it and how you get better.

And I worry about like holding, especially like teens and young adults to levels of expectation, with the fact that there is now with social media, then there's documentation of their fuck ups and the things that they are learning. And like also to bring it up 20 years later, if somebody did something when they're like 13 or 14, and to bring it up when they're in their thirties or their forties, it like, in some cases, yeah, like basic right or wrong, we should know those things, but there's other stuff where it's like, that's a reasonable mistake to make at that age, or that was language that at that time was used broadly and was considered okay and we recognize now that it is not.

And they don't use it anymore and they did learn. And, like when I think of what I was like in my like late teens, early twenties, I'm like 18-year-old Ash was a mess. I am glad that there's not that much content out there that shows me at that time because I was a mess.

jen russell: [Laughs.] Oh, yeah.

ash alberg: And like, not in a completely chaotic way, but certainly in a way where I'm glad that I'm not like that anymore. And that I have grown in that I've learned, and I hope ...

jen russell: Yes. I'm glad there's, there's no evidence left of my ... [Both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: Totally, like ... yeah, exactly. And like, I hope that we learn to give one another a little bit more grace in that.

And I think that extends also to the way that we see inspiration and what it can turn into creatively online. Like the preciousness that I see that is, and preciousness in like not a good way, but by the kind of preciousness that comes out of scarcity mindset and the needing to like hoard ideas and feeling threatened every time somebody has a similar idea is, it's something that I don't think is helpful at all. [Laughs.]

And that's also why I, with the challenge I'm like, okay, I'm going to give all of you the same content. And there's a lot of content. You can go through that challenge a bajillion times and come up with something different every single time.

But even if each time we did it, you got, everybody got the exact same image and it was like, okay, go, everybody would come up with something different because everybody would like ...

jen russell: Oh yeah.

ash alberg: ... like we don't live in vacuums. And to assume that one person is solely inspired by one other person or one other thing or one other source of inspiration is ignoring the fact that even if that thing that they are making was technically inspired by a single source of inspiration, one leaf made your brain go, okay. The further directions that your brain goes have been wired by every other experience that you have had.

jen russell: Exactly, yeah.

ash alberg: And every single one of those things is going to impact the way that you then continue along your creative process. And at the end of it, maybe it looks similar to what some somebody else has made, but the way that you both got there is entirely different. And I think that's the key portion of our creativity is like, what's the process?

jen russell: I don't know how many years you've been doing this challenge, but think of it this way. How many times have you had people come up with the exact same design?

ash alberg: Literally never.
jen russell: Probably never. Yeah. So that's so true because everyone brings all

kinds of things from their backgrounds into it, from philosophies.

Everyone's going to interpret something a little bit different. Even if it's similar, like you said, the way you got there is going to be a bit different. And, in the, I think we may have had this discussion at a different time, but we were talking about knitting and stitches and how like your basic stitches, your basic stitch patterns have been around for a long time, and you can take those stitches and create different patterns with them, combine them differently and things like that.

And I think we were talking about this in the context of fashion in general, how fashion is a circular thing. Fashions come back around after so many years with slight variations. It's oh, House of Alexander McQueen came out with this new thing. You've seen that pattern somewhere before, or it's inspired by something from the past.

And I think you have to let go of oh, am I, am I, is my pattern, is my design going to be similar to someone else's? ‘Cause if you look long enough, you're probably gonna find something very similar.

ash alberg: Hundred percent.

jen russell: I have, even just doing a Ravelry search. There's several people that have similar things out there, but, I think, I think it's fun too, to tell a story of how you got to your pattern. Every pattern has a story. Incorporating that, your story is going to be different from someone else's story.

So you can keep it fresh and original by what you bring to it as an individual and add your story to it. Yeah.

ash alberg: That's lovely. And I think probably a good spot for us to stop. That's like, that's yeah, that kind of brings everything back full circle. [Laugh-snorts.]

jen russell: Oooh, yeah.

ash alberg: We’re so good. We totally planned that. [Joking.] [Both laugh.] jen russell: Yeah.

ash alberg: So Jen, if folks want to find you, where are you comfortable letting them find you right now?

jen russell: I am on Instagram @waterwitch87. And you can find me there. And I find that I like Instagram because I can pick and choose, and it's pretty pictures and that's like the place I like to be right now, looking at pretty pictures.

So yeah, that's where you can find me.

ash alberg: Perfect. And when you’ve got some patterns happening, then people will be able to find them on there as well. And ...

jen russell: Yeah. And certainly I can, I will probably post whatever on Instagram, but then if there's a place where they will be for purchase I will provide information on there. And my goal is to, I'm not setting it impossibly high, but my goal is to publish at least one pattern by the end of 2022.

And if there's more then, then great, but I'm taking this slow and deliberately and thoughtfully. Yeah, that's where I'm at for now.

ash alberg: That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Jen. This has been delightful. jen russell: Thank you so much for having me. It's been really fun.

ash alberg: I am here right now with Carolee, and Carolee is a knitter, gardener, bookbinder, librarian, amateur historian and witch living in Portland, Oregon. She loves summertime, swimming, growing pumpkins, bitter greens, hand dyed yarn, very old paper. Oh, I'm with you on that one. Black coffee, rose quartz, pine trees, journaling, and cake.

Some bright sides to having a lot of alone time during the pandemic have been leveling up knitting skills and finding comradery in the Creative Coven community.

Hi Carolee. Thanks for joining me.
carolee harrison: Thanks so much for interviewing me.

ash alberg: This is delightful. So you are, have been, I think basically right from the get-go part of the Creative Coven community which is just delightful, and also recently did the Creative Coven challenge when we did our live round. So can you tell me what that experience has been for you, and then also just broader where you find inspiration for your knitting? You do some really stunning knitting.

carolee harrison: Thanks. Yeah, So I'll say before doing the challenge, I was not a swatcher [Ash snickers.] And I really disliked doing ... I really did not like swatching. And one of my, one of my knit, inspirations for knitting online is an account on Instagram called @ghoulnextdoor. And she really shared with me that validated my dislike of swatching.

And I think I didn't like it because I love the joy of casting something new. I get really excited to get rolling on it. And I have this, I have two obsessive moments in knitting where one is right at cast on when I want to start seeing the pattern emerge and right at bind off when you're getting close to the end and you want to be done so you're racing to the finish and people will spend way too much time and stay up way too late knitting in both of the, both ends of the project.

So swatching to me always seemed ... I understand I need to do this for garments that need to fit. But for pat-- for lace, for shawls, the thing I knit very ... most of my knitting has been in shawls and things like that, I think, oh ... or once I get gauged and then I do it once I feel like, okay, I know about what my tension is.

I know what this is going to look like, so I don't need to spend time to spend an hour or more figuring out this, the pattern on a piece of fabric that I'm not going to use for the final project. Seemed a little bit like trying to get myself to go for a bike ride without a destination. [Ash laughs.] I've just never been that kind of person.

ash alberg: Totally.
carolee harrison: And like, yeah.

So anyway, so I didn't love doing it. And I was, I only really ever did swatches when I knew that I was going to make a garment in a type of lace or a type of stitch that I didn't wasn't sure if it was going to fit. And this after making a sweater that did not fit me. [Both laugh.]

Having like a critical failure. So yeah. So one of the reasons I wanted to do the challenge was because I wanted to open my mind to doing swatches. I've really, I've admired seeing the images that you post on swatches that you've done that to me, not only make it look fun, but make it look like it has an artistic outcome.

Like to have samples of your own knitting in different types of stitches is an art in itself.

ash alberg: Totally.

carolee harrison: And so I really, instead of just being a thing you do that, this is a throwaway, this is just a test. So I wanted to have that experience and to do it with others is really important.

I really, I don't know. As I mentioned I spent a lot of time alone, particularly during COVID, and one of the reasons I love knitting is that it's a creative way to spend that time. I can absorb a book on tape or a movie or a podcast or what have you, and it feels not necessarily productive, but it feels creative.

So it's meant a lot to me to connect with others for knitting or for working with fiber in some way. So yeah, I as I think I wandered off the path there a little bit but yeah. So that, that experience with working with others and doing swatches really did change my mind about doing that.

I still feel a little resistance towards it, but ... and it also encouraged me to get a stitch dictionary.

ash alberg: Ooh, yes. Those are, they are invaluable. Even for designers, I'm like, you need a good library of stitch dictionaries, but even just for like knitters, who just want to, even if you just want to swap something out every once in a while, maybe you're like, okay, I kinda like this, or I love this pattern, but it's got this one panel that I'm not super in love with.

Or if you're feeling a little bit bored, like just swapping out the stitches can be, it can completely change an entire piece. Yeah, I'm always like, get more stitch dictionaries out into people's hands. But yeah, it's funny. I totally resonate with you in terms of the swatching.

Until I started doing the challenge, like the two things that kind of shifted it for me, I would do it purely because I had to work as a designer in order to get gauge. Specifically when I'd be designing garments, I was like, okay, in order to design this garment, I have to know the math ahead of time, which means I have

to know my gauge, which means I have to cast this thing on. This is annoying, fine, whatever.

And I would kinda begrudgingly do it and then just be cursing the whole time that I was trying to read my stitches to count them out. And so, the like two things that shifted for me was when I started getting square gauge rulers made. Literally the reason that I added that to the shop was because I was like, I hate reading stitches. I'm not good at it. I want just a nice orange square that I can plop down on my knitting. Makes my life exponentially easier and I'm sure other people also find it easy.

Yeah. So like that. And then the Creative Coven challenge, like doing it myself, I was like, okay, I don't always love swatching. I know that it has some validity. And, but it wasn't until after the first time that I ran it in its first iteration and did it alongside people that I was like, oh, wait a second. This has so much potential.

And it was at that point that I also realized that, especially because I tend to have way too many ideas and I will never have time to knit all of them, but even if I want to knit some of them, it's still, I've got the next five years’ worth of collections planned out at this point. And I know that I can't just cast on all of them right now, but I also don't want to lose the idea of them.

And so swatching has become this really useful way for me to collect an idea in a shorter period of time, feel like I've accomplished something so I can tick it off in my brain so that it stops cluttering my brain and also have basically a headstart whenever I've got time to turn back to it because I know, oh, okay, this was the stitch I was planning on using. Yes, it looks good in this kind of yarn or this color or whatever.

I've already got gauged, so I can start doing the math right away. And it just helps me to troubleshoot all of the areas where I tend to trip myself up as a designer. Yeah. It's funny because the, like what you say about, it's not going to be something that is used in the final project.

You can, every once in a while, I'll see people make like really cute patch pockets that they make out of their stitches.

carolee harrison: Mhmm, yeah.

ash alberg: And I know some folks who do colorwork, like Alexa from Tin Can Knits. She, her swatches, when she's working on a colorwork sweater, frequently start off as hats. Like a hat becomes her swatch.

I don't necessarily want to commit to a whole hat most of the time. So yeah, I definitely, I work up a lot of just like square swatches and I haven't necessarily figured out what I'm going to do with them, but definitely with Swatching the Tarot, just having that growing stack of swatches feels like something that at some point will become something more than just a pile of swatches.

I have no idea what. carolee harrison: Yeah.

ash alberg: Yeah, I did, but I definitely, like there does come a point where, what do you do with the swatches? I personally haven't quite figured it out yet. I just have piles of them scattered around my house.

carolee harrison: This is reminding me, of that, the next thing that I ... it was a discovery for me with the Creative Coven, which was associating the different types of stitches with different other types of creative expression. It is linking in other forms of, other inspiration besides like just a stitch to that you like, into ... or a yarn that you like, or a shape that you like, into the process of knitting.

Specifically, like thinking about the playlists that you posted, the using Pinterest as a way of collecting images of other things besides knitting to inspire the pattern and to help you choose. Like you say, like there's hundreds of different stitches and possibilities for where to go with the design so to land on one or even a small grouping of them is difficult, especially when you're attracted to a lot of different stuff or, you have a mind that's really interested in a lot of different expressions.

And so I really loved thinking about that. I also just like the idea of integrating knitting as a, as a creative activity with other forms of art, like music or images, photography, and painting, and that type of thing. I don't really think about like fine art, like photography or painting with what I think of as craft, like knitting.

For myself, I've always thought of myself, and this is going back to even like in high school and junior high school, when I was taking art classes, painting and drawing, that I was ... that I had skill but not talent. That I had technical skill, but I didn't have design talent. And I believe that, I believe this, I went into knitting sort of feeling the same.

I have technical skill. I'm good at math. I'm good as a book binder. I'm really good at tension and form, precision of form, but I'm not good at designing. My imagination is dead. Like I could take someone else's design and make something really lovely out of it, but as far as my own, I've run into this wall where I don't know, I don't, I, I don't know. Is there something about that then I just feel like I'm technically skilled, but I don't have creativity?

And this process of using things like music or drawings or paintings or photography, or just things outside of knitting as inspiration for knitting was just, was like, oh, I could use other things that sparked my imagination. Even if I'm not the author or the painter or the what have you, I can use these other things to help me do my own design, like to come up with my own thing.

Even if I'm using a stitch that is in a book, I'm not inventing the stitch, which thank goodness, the trial and error involved in that, but all that, that, work’s all been done for us. There's, but to be able to take that and then use the technical skills of being, having the math and having ... and having the tension and having the practice, to be able to add that into thinking about how to turn this into my own design was something I just didn't even really believe I could do.

So that was a breakthrough, which is great, which feels really nice. It's not something I ever think I might make money off of, but it sure is nice to think about ... I dunno, the only one time ever that I had attempted to, I had attempted to modify another person's pattern by adding a stitch into it that wasn't part of the pattern, and it was a disaster. It was not, it was, it was a learning experience we’ll say. But I just, I felt like instead of letting that experience be a set back, think about that as learning experience.

ash alberg: Yes.

carolee harrison: And to ... this Creative Coven experience, I think gave me some tools or how to use that as learning experience, that it's fine to take a break, swatch the thing ... [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Yes.

carolee harrison: And it helped me make choices, like what is, what's magic to me, outside of knitting? And going to let that be inspiration. So yeah. So those things were really, I don't know, breakthroughs for me.

ash alberg: I feel like you bring up so many good points that I think, like frequently gets in our way collectively. And certainly like societally, when it

comes to creative expression and one of them is this feeling like you have to be completely innovative and something needs to be completely brand new, never thought of before, and realistically like that, I would honestly almost venture to say that never happens.

Maybe not never, but like 99% of the time, it does not happen. Like when we think of what are the, what are our favorite stories? And no matter where they come from in the world, like we can root them back further and further, like they are the same theme. They are dealing with the same large and mundane problems that we face as humans and they have familiar tropes.

And there is comfort and beauty in the familiarity as well. And it's, like Romeo and Juliet was not unique. It took a story that has been told in many other parts of the globe for many hundreds of years prior made a new version of it and it has itself had many other versions come as a result of it too. And that doesn't make any of them any less valid.

Some of them may not have been as influential, widely. And sometimes they just fall flat on their face, but I think that's also something that is useful in the creative process, is that the ... in order for us to get better at anything, definitely creatively, but also just anything in life is we have to fuck up and we have to learn why we fucked up and then we can go from there.

Like whenever I have people asking like, oh, how do you get so good at knitting? I'm like, I've done it for years. And part of that has involved me fucking up many times, and needing to take it back and figure out, like why did I fuck up? And then reconstructing it from there.

But it involves needing to tink yourself back to understand what is it? And like, sometimes we don't always want to, right? Like sometimes we get discouraged or we get pissed off with it and sometimes it's not actually worth like fully redoing. But there is also learning that comes from being like, you know what? That was not like, that wasn't worth me investing more time in.

It's okay for me to decide to put my energy somewhere else as well. But I think, I've always been a creative kid, like right from the get-go. My earliest memories are of doing arts and crafts projects and running around playing in puddles. But even when I was playing in puddles, I was making like mud cakes. Like I was literally always making.

And so the idea of not being creative is something that is foreign to me because I've always been creative and I've always been told that I am creative, but there

are many people in my life who were not told that and they had other skills that were encouraged from childhood. And as a result, the creative side of things, it wasn't encouraged by others and so eventually it drops off and we start doing other things.

Like I did shop's class. I was pretty good at woodworking. I would not say that I am good at woodworking at this particular point in time and if I think about doing woodworking, the thing that is exciting to me is the idea of like hand-carving a spoon, not of technically perfectly making a set of stairs, right? I'm like, that's a skill that in order for me to get really good at it, I need to invest a lot of time. I'm not actually interested in growing that particular muscle.

But I think what is important for us to be encouraging more, no matter what stage of life somebody is at, is that everybody has the capacity to be creative. It's a question of whether or not it's a muscle that's been worked out regularly, but everybody's got the ability to do it. And it just might be a little bit rustier for some than for others.

But, and also that creativity can look like very different things. Like it's, you know, how art and science or art and craft are frequently looked at as being very different things and people can value a real ... like even when we think of craftsmanship, there's an artistry to it. And there's this like idea of, you're at a different level of skill. And that's what pushes it into art.

It's not that the making of this thing that is beautiful. The fact that it is practical now means that it is like less valid artistically for whatever reason and same where we're like, oh, science and art are diametrically opposed. It's no, they're actually like, all of them are intensely creative.

It's just a question of how are we approaching them and how are we viewing them? And how are we allowing ourselves and others to view them as well? I think there's a lot of, a lot more potential that could come and a lot more innovation that could come. Are things going to be like absolutely brand new? Probably not.

That being said, if more scientists were being encouraged to think of things as like an artistic exercise, then they might be able to look at a problem that by staring at it in one way, isn't working and they're getting stuck on and coming at it from a completely different direction. All of a sudden the solution seems really easy.

I don't, yeah. I don't know. That, sorry, that just took me on like a whole bunch of different little tangents.

carolee harrison: It's really interesting to think about. I've been, I was reading a book lately that is about, it's a collection of essays on the author perceived convergences between like ... coincidences, but convergences between things he’s observed in say popular culture and world politics and art, different ... and art from different time periods and so on.

Replicating patterns of not only visual patterns, although sometimes visual patterns, but also patterns of the story, like you're saying about Romeo and Juliet being an archetypal play of, that's a story that's been told many times and maybe we only remember certain versions of it, but that it's a familiar story.

And that there's a reason why we respond to archetypes in narratives. And in this book I've been reading, there's a, there's an argument in it about, there's a reason why we respond to particular patterns. The case in point that he was making was about ... this is how I got into reading it was ... there, this is really a convergence of science and art too ... I'm sorry, this is a total tangent, but it's ...

ash alberg: I'm loving it. [Laughs.]

carolee harrison: So there's and I don't know much about this, so I'm sorry for sounding like a blunderer, but there's a type of decoration called a Lichtenberg fractal or reaction.

Basically, it's a way of sparking electricity through wood and it creates a fractal pattern. The electric current creates a fractal pattern like the lightning bolt. But it's used artistically to decorate wood, for things like musical instruments or what have you. And so this is kind of how I got reading about this was this author was speculating that the reason that we are attracted to patterns like fractals, we think that they're beautiful or the image of a tree with a branching on one and the roots on the bottom, that those are actually the patterns that are physically in our brains ...

ash alberg: Yes!

carolee harrison: ... that scientifically speaking those branching of our nerves, your nervous system, or our circulatory system or in our brains.

So anyway, all this is to say that the convergence of science and art and pattern and, I don't know all of the, and story, it's real. That's, it's all, it's happening around us and there's a certain joy in letting that in which I didn't even really think about the process of working with fiber or the process of knitting and creating patterns as to be inspired by those types of things really until recently.

So yeah, it's been exciting. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: This is so interesting to me, especially because I think of you as being a very creative person and perhaps that's because the way that we interact is always through our knitting, but like bookbinding, to me, I, it's so interesting to me that you think of it as first being a very technical practice, because to me I'm like, oh, bookbinding, that's making books.

That's like very like hands, like heavy. Like it's very creative to me. I'm like, oh yeah. But I also, yeah, I don't know. It's, I don't even think that my brain, even when I think of oh, lining up the pages really well, and like doing, being very specific about like how you're putting it together and what the right materials are, like that is all to me just feels like an extension of the creative practice rather than being like a really methodical technical practice.

And perhaps that's just because it all circles itself back around. Like it is all both methodical and creative, like the ritual in making something new, even when it feels chaotic does have like pattern and reasoning behind it.

I can't remember what the study was or what it was specifically related to, but it was like humans ... It might've actually been like a true crime thing possibly, but like where we think that we are being tricksy by trying to hide something ... actually it might've even been like Criminal Minds BAU or something like that [laughs.] But like they were talking about how as humans, we think that we're doing something different, we think that we're throwing somebody off of our trail, but in reality, we have patterns that subconsciously we just, we’re attracted to and we repeat. And so we're not actually being as chaotic as we think we are.

If the right eyes look at what we're doing, there's a very clear pattern of behavior. And we are repeating ourselves in the same way even if we think, oh yeah, I dodged this. And I went that way and dah dah. Like we end up actually doing the exact same steps that we would normally do. We just think that we're, we're doing something unique this particular time.

carolee harrison: And that's, I get, I think that's, that's a big reason why working in community has been important for me too.

I learned to knit only about five years ago. And this is, not to out myself, but in my late forties, over 40 by the time I learned to knit. And even though my mom knitted and never taught me how ... I think maybe I didn't express interest at the time.

ash alberg: Yeah, that’s fair.

carolee harrison: But at any rate I learned late in my life and I was, it was pretty solitary for me. Outside of the one knitting class that I took to set me off, my community has been on Instagram when I’ve been in community.

I have some friends in local to me who knit, but because of the pandemic we haven't really had an opportunity to get together, form craft circles. Sometimes I go across the street and I knit with my neighbor, which is really lovely.

ash alberg: I love that.
carolee harrison: She crochets actually, I should say. ash alberg: Oh, there we go. [Laughs.]

carolee harrison: I would not crochet. I realized too, there's quite a ... people who knit and people who crochet. If they don't share the thing, it's a thing, like ...

ash alberg: Yeah, it's very different. And like skillset-wise, it's not, like I can not crochet for shit. I've tried, it’s hard.

carolee harrison: Yeah, I never learned. I'd like to, I have friends who are very good at it and I love the results.

ash alberg: Yes.

carolee harrison: The patterns are very beautiful. But at any rate it's meant a lot to me to find a community online too. It's been really interesting, even on days when I show up in the group and don't really talk to folks and just sit and knit that, just hear ... the person ... hear, hearing the experiences and perspectives of folks who, you know, who live elsewhere.

We have an international, it's an international group, so really enjoyed that. Just see what people are working on. I thought it was really funny, one day it turned out that myself and another person in the group were both knitting a ghanzi.

ash alberg: Yes. [Both laugh.] I loved that. That was so, especially cause it's like, ghanzis are like such very particular technical pieces and you both were, and you had both chosen dark yarn. And I was like, why are you both doing that to yourselves? [Laughs.]

carolee harrison: Yeah, it's been ... I'm still working on it by the way, but I’m making the sleeves now.

ash alberg: I don't blame you.
carolee harrison: Yeah.
ash alberg: That's so exciting. Oh, sleeve island. There we go.

carolee harrison: Yep. And now I know why it's called sleeve island. First, it's not the first time I'm knitting a sweater, but it is, it does feel like I'm on sleeve island. So yeah, but yeah, it's just been, it's been really fun to see what other folks are doing, you know, to talk to people about the process and everything.

[Audio cut out] ... lot to me. It's made me look forward to reaching out to folks in person and seeing if I can get into a craft circle here and just get me to reach out a little bit, just been very important during these last few years.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah. It's ...

carolee harrison: Especially being isolated.

ash alberg: Yeah, absolutely. It's so tricky when, especially when you live alone during the pandemic. I think for the folks that have lived with others through the pandemic, that proves a different kind of tricky. But yeah, like definitely, even as things are loosening and we're figuring out like, how do we move about in this new version of normal in a way that feels like safe and good to us and to the humans in our lives and all of that, there's been some like seriously long periods of forced isolation where that wasn't an option.

And yeah, it's, it's been ... I think like for me, it was really good. I did a lot of shadow work in the first half of the pandemic, and now this last while it's that shadow work was messy and not very pretty, but it like got me to a point where

then when I added my therapist into the mix, I was able to deal with things and now come out feeling like a more capable human, which is also an interesting kind of shift.

But it's, yeah, it's hard. And we're forced to look at parts of ourselves and the way that we've been in community historically and what we value. Even as introverts, right? Like it's one thing to choose to bail last minute for an event and another thing to be told you don't get to go to the event period.

Like I think that's been an interesting thing for me is realizing that I don't necessarily have that much capacity to be in like large groups with people or to be regularly interacting in social spaces, but I also do need a certain level of socializing that's very intentional and that's maintained and to be in complete isolation is really unhealthy for me and I think for the vast majority of us.

carolee harrison: Yeah, we need each other. That’s, it's the truth. I, even if it's getting together online, we need each other. And yeah, that's one thing I've really learned. Having some structure like that too, of making a commitment not just to myself but to others has helped me to maintain some routines.

ash alberg: Mmm, yes.

carolee harrison: And those, that's been really important. I feel, I know for myself, I had my routines, daily routines looked very different before pandemic than they do now. And I don't necessarily think that all of that's a good thing, although I'm just kinda trying to work with that, you know? [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah.
carolee harrison: And allow for that change to happen and maybe allow for

change to go back and, I don't know.

But I do feel like having that, having some contact with the outside world has meant a lot to me and it's, it's put me in it's also given me, it's put me back into that place where I feel, like you were saying, we get into these places where we feel like what we're doing is completely unique or different than what we normally do. And/or that it's off the rails and we think we're ...

And I think similar to that, I have maybe not felt that what I'm doing is unique, but that I feel really isolated. I feel a lot more isolated than I really am. And so having community to touch base with has made me realize oh, you know, what a great thing that is that I'm not really this isolated, or that what I'm doing is not

that weird. This is, this is a way of life that is, a completely good one, it's completely fine.

ash alberg: Yeeaah.
carolee harrison: Yeah. So that's meant a lot to me, too. That's gone a long

way. [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Yeah. It's so funny you say that and my brain immediately goes, oh yeah, especially a single person living at home with fur babies and spending your days knitting, that it brings up a really specific kind of an image that also I'm like, okay, let's like pick it apart historically and let's go into that whole thing.

That's where my brain wants to go. But also like it's, there's nice things about it. And also, yeah, the isolation and feeling like you're not part of community is not something that like ... humans are meant to be social creatures. Maybe not to the extent that we are these days in terms of like being connected 24/7 all over the place.

That's maybe a little overwhelming to the nervous system, but we are creatures that like evolutionary-wise have grown and evolved to be reliant on one another. And also that when we are, when our sense of belonging and sense of community is threatened, our body literally feels like that is a life or death situation.

And I think we frequently forget about the part where we are mammals and we have evolved over millennia and that we live in a certain kind of a timeframe but also we've been evolving very slowly and there's still that, like that lizard part of our brain, that's, “This is your, you're not actually running from a tiger right now, but your body thinks that you are,” and it can't differentiate and learning how to regulate according ... it’s, yeah.

carolee harrison: Yeah. Yeah. And keep that in perspective ... ash alberg: Yeah. Totally.
carolee harrison: ... is something else. Yeah. Yeah. [Chuckles.]

There was something else I was going to mention that ... oh, so outside of the creative, outside of the challenge but within the community, I wanted to mention the library that you have collected there and the wheel of the year.

ash alberg: Mmm, yeah.
carolee harrison: Because I have found both of those resources to be really

wonderful ones.
ash alberg: Oh good!

carolee harrison: Yeah, I've gotten some great reading material out of that. Particularly on the witchcraft and the topics of plants and witchcraft, which are two things that I'm interested in too. And the seasonal, particularly the Lammas bread and that I've really,

ash alberg: Mmm, yeah, that’s a good recipe.

carolee harrison: Yeah, it's really good. I've used it actually more, more than just on the holiday. So yeah, so I feel like the book too, to say the word in Welsh please, because I'll mess it up.

ash alberg: Cwtch.

carolee harrison: Cwtch. [Ash giggles.] Yeah. I, that too. I have really, that's been a great resource too for recipes as well as for knitting patterns. But I've just enjoyed those resources and I wanted to bring those up because I hope that others in the community are getting some mileage out of those too, because yeah, those have been really nice to have.

ash alberg: That's so good to hear. It's so funny ‘cause I, I mean I've intentionally built the community to, because I know what my capacity is, which is to not be 24/7 attached to a Facebook group, and so the, we get face time. [Carolee says something indistinguishable.] Oh my god, I fucking, I can't.

carolee harrison: I saw your comment about that, about why can't people separate from having Facebook, having a Facebook group being an essential part of your content. And I am totally seconding that. I just do not want to have to be on Facebook in order to do that. And we have so many other ways of connecting that don't include being tracked on Facebook. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yeah, yes. Yeah. That, oh my god. But it's also just it's, for me, I'm like, unless I've got somebody hired in every possible time zone whose literal job is to be online monitoring stuff, it feels ... not, like I can have boundaries on other platforms and make it really clear. This is how I'm going to be on this platform.

This is what I expect when I am online. This is, if you're being an asshole, I'm going to block you, dah. And I think accordingly, like we built this audience like that. And I feel like probably if I were to build an online community, then that would probably also be the case where we've got primarily like-minded folks, but like you said, we're an international group.

We're like-minded for sure but also everybody has different experiences, different backgrounds, and to be like, at least with Instagram and Facebook, I can be like, I'm not actually responsible for y'all. This is a shit show of a platform. And this is how I'm choosing to engage.

But if I'm the one actually building the platform, I feel an additional sense of responsibility that, and so accordingly I'm like, okay, if I can't guarantee that, no matter what time of day you show up that if somebody has shown up in a way that's like super dysregulated and not cool that somebody has been able to very proactively be a check-in, then I'm not gonna, I'm not going to offer a space where we're all just like chatting back and forth.

Like it's just, I can't. And we have our check-ins on Zoom. Everybody's lovely. If people don't want to talk, they don't talk. If they want to talk, they talk. People are pretty good about being like, okay, Ash, let's change the topic from COVID. We’re pretty good at doing that.

carolee harrison: Yeah. It's been so important to do that though. I realize that we do need to talk about other things, but besides the pandemic, but it's been so important to me to do that because we're all experiencing it ...

ash alberg: Yes.

carolee harrison: ... in a really unusual way of being that like globally, everyone facing the situation. That's been, that to me was almost like, wow, it's true. It's everywhere. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yeah. Literally.
carolee harrison: Yeah. But yeah, there is a certain amount of moderation that's

happening there.
ash alberg: Yeah. And not, and not in an ... carolee harrison: ... conversation going on.

ash alberg: Yeah. And it's not in a rude way or in a harsh way, but like we, we're able to read the virtual room together collectively and people for the most part are really good at either stating their own boundaries or like supporting one another's boundaries.

And I do feel like that is because with Zoom, we are able to be with one another live for a set period of time and that's it. But then as a result of it, I, all of the other things that exist in the community, I'm like, I have no clue how people feel about this.

I get a read on the folks who come for our Zoom meetings each month, but beyond that, like there are people who've been in the community from day one who have literally never come to a Zoom meeting and that's, I'm like, I love that you're still here. I don't know what you're getting out of this and I would like to know, but I'm also happy that you're here.

But yeah, sometimes I'm just, I would like more access to these things, so I'll just pop them in the community in case somebody else wants it.

carolee harrison: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's been really great. I’ve really appreciated having that.

ash alberg: That makes me feel good. I'm also really excited about our someday bingo cards. [Laughs.] I don't know how we're going to play live bingo, but we're going to play bingo.

carolee harrison: Yeah. I’m excited about that too! [Ash chuckles.] Yeah and it was also a great place to get book recommendations. You know, the other day we were talking about books. And that was really, that was really exciting to me ‘cause I, that's a thing I also spend a lot of time doing, is reading. Yeah, that was really nice.

ash alberg: That's so good to hear. So what do you envision for your creative practice in the next little while?

carolee harrison: Let's see. Really the very first thing I'm going to do is finish sewing this or finish knitting this sweater. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: That's a good goal.

carolee harrison: Which is going to take me awhile. [Ash laughs.] But I do feel like, okay, so something else I've been doing now when I've been taking a break

from sleeve island, and this is directly connected to the challenge we did, is that I've been going through my stitch dictionary and I've been finding others swatches to make.

ash alberg: Yay!

carolee harrison: And I, in particular, picked ones that I like, I didn't have a lot of experience knitting cables. In fact I, last year I embarked on this two years ago now, I embarked on this project where I wanted to knit a, one of, one of your, one of your shawls from, and I can't remember the name of the collection, but it's about the moon signs, the Zodiac moon signs.

ash alberg: Yeah, yeah.

carolee harrison: And I wanted to knit one moon sign shawl for a whole lot of beloved folks in my life. So I whoever's moon sign I knew, I knitted, so I ended up knitting seven or so of those designs. And I had never knitted cables before encountering them in some of those patterns. Particularly the one for Leo that is larger.

ash alberg: Yes, with that like center cable. Yeah. Yeah.

carolee harrison: And I had decided after doing a couple of those patterns that had included cables and a sock pattern that included cables, I thought, I am not a fan of this. [Ash cackles.] Like I love knitting lace, I thought it was really, I love making lace knits, and I made a ton of lace knit shawls. Loved doing that, but I thought, gosh, cables, what a drag.

I cannot. This is too fussy.
ash alberg: Are you still using a cable needle?

carolee harrison: And this is the thing, with one of those, I actually completely discontinued using the cable needle because it was so frustrating and fussy to use. Yeah. So I thought, in the process of swatching and trying different things, I thought, I'm going to pick some cables and just try this out, and that's been also frustrating and difficult, not going to lie there. [Ash cackles.]

It's not going to ... but the outcomes have been that I've learned, been learning how to do it. Trying to improve my skills. And I think really, where I'm at in that part in my process, as it were, is doing things like knitting the ghanzi or doing things like choosing swatches that look complex, look like complicated

cables and figuring out how to do that, just practicing with trying to level up when I, what I can do and add to my skillset.

I'm not quite sure if I'm ready to design my own garments necessarily, but I am interested in finding ways to modify some patterns that I have made in the past or garments that I've made that I was like, ah, I'm not totally happy with this. Feel free to frog that and start over.

ash alberg: Yes.

carolee harrison: And so that's where I'm at right now, is I still feel like I'm in the learning stage. I recently, and I don't know if I'm going to end up doing it, but I actually offered, volunteered to be a test knitter for a knitwear designer. And I don't know if I'm actually going to do that yet, but it was a leap to volunteer, to test at something, to have the thing I was going to be knitting, not just be, giving it to someone else, which is definitely one, one thing.

But doing it for not only to share it with someone else, but to offer feedback on the pattern. So to knit something and then to be able to take photographs of it and share the result, the person who designed it was a thing, so I feel like, I hope I get a chance to do that too.

If not this time, then I will try again, and do another one. ash alberg: That's so exciting. I'm so proud of you.

carolee harrison: Thanks! [Ash giggles.] Yeah. It's something I wanted to mention actually though, is the person who taught me how to knit is the one who was doing the call for test knits. Their name’s Angela and they run a business called Morph Knitwear.

So they design their own sweaters and tops and hats and gloves and what have you and do like a limited run of handmade knits. I think their shop’s open about once a month and they do this. Anyway, I'm really proud to knit something for Angela.

ash alberg: That's so cool. And I love that like cyclical, reciprocal relationship of yeah, I've definitely, I've found that for myself over the years of like, my career started because of a, because of a contest that Manitoba Fiber Fest and Wolseley Wool will partnered with. And now I've been working with both organizations for years now and it's just, it's so nice to see that kind of come full circle.

And it's not necessarily always going to be the case with everything, but it's really lovely when someone who, or some group who helps you get started on something, that you're able to like pay it back in some way or get engaged at a different level in the future as your skills grow.

carolee harrison: Yeah, that makes me think of another thing too, which is, and I perceive this in the work that you do, which is keeping it local. Local sources for fiber, hand dyeing and working within your fibershed. And that's not a concept that I have been in, been too into.

At the start of knitting particularly when I was just starting and I was just working with whatever yarn I could get my hands on. But I feel like I'm also at this point, I'm looking too at how can I keep it local? And what resources are available for me that are coming out of the Pacific Northwest, where I live?

And doing that. So yeah, I do, I also feel like there's a shift happening there. There, there last year, when I started getting the moon sign shawls, I was definitely making higher end choices as far as yarns were going, because I wanted these to be gifts. And then once I crossed that threshold, I was already there.

I was on my way to like, not only finding better yarns, natural yarns, but also looking more locally for yarns.

ash alberg: Yeah. Oh, that's so exciting. Yeah. It's a fun, it's a fun shift. And it's funny too, like when you make that shift consciously and then you look back and you realize, like there were moments that you were maybe doing it and you just didn't even realize it.

Like I remember, I, my life, these days is fibershed and when I had picked my needles back up as an 18-year-old, I was just buying yarn at the farmer's market in Halifax because it was like, it was there and it was relatively affordable ‘cause it was spun in the Causelands and like it was, I knit so many things with this yarn that I did not realize was a fibershed yarn for me.

And then I moved to the UK and I worked at this yarn store and we carried all of these beautiful wools from all over. And I remember one of the wools that excited me the most, and yet I didn't buy because I didn't appreciate it enough to realize like why I should buy it, but it was from these sheep that eat ... it was the North Ronaldsay sheep that eat seaweed and that seaweed gives their fleeces a natural color that is just so special.

And we had this like beautiful, small batch that arrived in the shop. And I remember in that moment, just being like, knowing how special this was, but not quite realizing yet just like how impactful it was that we were offering this in the middle of London.

carolee harrison: How cool! That's really neat. And I love that about the diet of the sheep effecting ...

ash alberg: Yes, they literally just like crawl along eating seaweed off of rocks. carolee harrison: That is cool. I don't know. I like stuff like that. I like knowing

about it.

ash alberg: Yeah, I’m like one of these days I need to go see these sheep. This is my goal.

carolee harrison: Yeah, that too. That's also, I think a sort of creative path is following the story back to the, to put yourself there. I realize that's not always an option, but it's nice to imagine it too.

ash alberg: Totally. And I think that's also a really cool, if you can actually go in person and see things firsthand and learn from people firsthand, that's amazing, but we also do live in a time where we have access to knowledge and access to sharing of that knowledge and education that is unparalleled.

carolee harrison: Thank goodness.

ash alberg: Compared to the rest of the, of time. And there's something so incredible about learning about the intimacies of a place or a culture by becoming intimate with their textile history and traditions. And there's something really fucking cool about that.

This has been absolutely delightful. Thanks so much, Carolee.

carolee harrison: It's been such a joy. It's been such a joy to talk to you, Ash. I really appreciate your time and getting the folks who are in the challenge interviewed, I really love that too. I'm looking forward to hearing what other folks have to say.

ash alberg: Yeah! So where can people find you if you want them to find you?

carolee harrison: I have a homey little Instagram, but otherwise, I'm not really online, as such but my Instagram is @curatrix111, C-U-R-A-T-R-I-X 111, so if folks want to connect on the ‘gram that's a good place to start, I guess.

ash alberg: Cool. That's delightful. And they can come and join us in the community because you are always there.

carolee harrison: Oh!
ash alberg: It's delightful. And so that’s ...

carolee harrison: Yeah. [Laughs.] Yeah. I hope to. I hope to get the cat, at least more than one cat on screen at some point. Right now, I'm looking at the other one over the top of my computer and he's laying out on the deck in the back because it's not raining today. Like paws up.

ash alberg: Solar charging his tummy. [Laughs.]
carolee harrison: Yeah, it looks just like a big Orca. [Both laugh.]

ash alberg: Cuute. Oh man, I love fur babies of the coven, it’s delightful. [Laughs.]

carolee harrison: Yeah. It's been fun to see that. ash alberg: Awesome. Thank you. And ah ... carolee harrison: Yeah, thank you.

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] You can find full episode recordings and transcripts at snortandcackle.com. Just click on podcast in the main menu. Follow Snort and Cackle on Instagram @snortandcackle and join our seasonal book club with @SnortandCackleBookClub. Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast by your favorite podcasting platform.

Editing provided by Noah Gilroy, recording and mixing by Ash Alberg, music by Yesable.