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Intro

This week we’re joined by the wonderful Nic Rudd of Yarns From The Plain, purveyor of lovely British hand dyed yarns and voice of the Yarns From The Plain podcast.

Before we dive into the interview, I invite you to join us at our Virtual Knit Night as a Patron of the podcast. Becoming a patron allows you to support the production of the podcast (and associated costs) as well as have some fun having out with all the other patrons (and me!) at our monthly online knit night. The next on is on Monday 14th March at 2000 GMT and a replay is available afterwards. To become a patron of the show, head over to Patreon.

Also, I will be hosting a free session at Edinburgh Yarn Festival on creating a content calendar for your blog or podcast in the Podcast Lounge on Friday 18th March at 2pm. Come and see me to get sweeties there, as it’s my birthday. If you’re not going, but would like to attend the free replay of this session, along with the Q&A I am running on Saturday at 2pm, they will be taking place the week after Edinburgh Yarn Festival. To receive your invite to these free online webinars, join this mailing list.

Interview

Nic joins us today for the interview to tell us about her journey into dyeing, having previously been an industrial chemist and a primary school teacher. She came back to knitting after attending a maths workshop for school and now does pretty much anything you can do with wool. She made the decision to go and study at Bradford part-time for an HNC in Contemporary Constructed Textiles.

A typical day for Nic varies depending upon which area of the business she is working on, or whether she is attending college and studying for that.

Her best learning experience was trying a new dye style for The Golden Skein and despite working out how long she would need and adding 20%, she still had to enlist the help of three other people to have the shipment out on time. The lesson here is that you always need longer than you think!

Her high point has been seeing her yarn on the front cover of Inside Crochet magazine, in a design by Agrarian Artisan. They are now working together to produce crochet kits, three of which will be available at Fluph in Dundee, when Nic returns for another trunk show in May.

Things you should know when you start knitting is the importance of a gauge swatch. It’s not big or clever, just do the prep work or you’ll end up disappointed with the result. Her advice to those wanting to get into the industry is to not underestimate the amount of time you will spend marketing. Also she advocates getting out and about as much as possible to avoid long lonely periods.

DISCOUNT!

Nic has very kindly offered listeners of the podcast a massive 15% off with the code SHINY15 until the end of May 2016. To claim your discount, head over to the newly restocked shop!

Wrap-up

That’s all from me this week. As always, thank you for listening. Feedback is always appreciated, and you can email me or message me via Ravelry or social media. If you enjoyed listening today, please consider leaving an iTunes review, to help others find the podcast too. Happy crafting!