Hello there and welcome to The Crochet Circle Podcast and the show notes for Episode 40 – When in Barcelona.
 
My name is Fay and this is my audio and video podcast for those that love fibre crafts, particularly crochet.  It’s a community for people that like to support their fellow humans regardless of race, gender, sexuality, ability, size or age. I hope you feel the welcome embrace and love of the Crochet Clan.  Come on in and stay awhile. 
 
In this episode, I cover: Inclusivity; Final Destination; En Route; Designs in Progress; Feeding the habit; Quick News Beats and Big Up.
 
This podcast is sponsored by my online crafting company, Provenance Craft Co. 


Thanks to everyone who tunes into the podcast whether it is through Stitcher, Podbean, Spotify, iTunes or the YouTube Channel. Your support and engagement are really appreciated and makes running a podcast very special and worthwhile.   
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1 – Inclusivity
Following on from last month’s podcast and the actions I said I was going to take to increase inclusivity within our fibre community, here is what I have been working on: 
Claudia from the Crochet Luna Vlogcast has been putting in the hard miles, pulling together a list of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) crochet designers. She has created a permanent list in her Instagram ‘BIPOC Crochet Designers’ Highlights.  From that list, I have created a ‘BIPOC Crochet Designers’ blog post giving you the designers names, Instagram handles, Ravelry Designer names and other selling platforms.  If the designers have a podcast, website or Etsy shop, these have also been listed.
If you are looking for a decent article on the topic of inclusivity in the fibre community, I encourage you to read this one: The Knitting Community is Reckoning with Racism by Jay Saxena.  If for whatever reason, you have been in the fringe of the conversation or come to it late, this article gives a very good breakdown of what has been going on.  I meant to talk about this article in the podcast and through lack of organisation on my part, it slipped through the net. 
You will notice from the show notes below and video podcast (if you watch rather than listen) that I have started to show the makers behind the goods that I am buying. My intention is to create a greater connection between the makers and those watching the podcast and/or reading the show notes.  I want to showcase the faces that put all the hard work into the fibre community whether they are designers, spinners, dyers or yarn shop owners. 
I continue to use ALT text on my Instagram posts and within the show notes. My intention is to also expand this out to my website photos and blog posts (which I have started the process of). 

 
2 – Old Dog New Tricks
I want to touch briefly on gut instinct and using that to shape your colour choices and pattern following. 
 
You know that feeling when you have pulled colours together for a project, but your gut is bubbling, telling you that something isn’t quite right?  I have had that quite a bit recently.  I tend to think I am pretty good at choosing colours but of late, I have been asking for second opinions, mainly because I knew they weren’t right. 
 
The same can be said for a part of the pattern design within my Esja jumper.  I could see that the short row shaping was creating a different look within my jumper but I persevered with the pattern.  My gut told me I was wrong to do so but I ignored it – I won’t do that again.
 
Here’s a quick trick for testing your gut feeling on something.  Using colour choice as an example; you have two choices, grey and yellow or grey and pink.  You assign each choice with a side of the coin.  Toss the coin high in the air and before you move your hand to reveal which choice has been made, listen to the voice that is telling you which one you are actually hoping for.  That is your gut reaction and the one you should actually liste