Best Long Thread Media Podcasts (2024)

1
Allan Brown, The Nettle Dress (classic) 57:17

3d ago57:17

57:17

The Nettle Dress is available to stream online from November 15–December 2, 2024. Most of us avoid nettles, thinking of them as weeds whose little stinging hairs can inject a painful toxin into the unexpecting walker. But strolling through the woods near his home in England, Allan Brown was captivated by the tall native plants. Knowing that textile…

1
Melvenea Hodges, Traditions in Cloth (classic) 52:24

14d ago52:24

52:24

Melvenea Hodges nurtures a small crop of cotton in her back yard in South Bend, Indiana. Besides beautiful foliage and some of her favorite fiber to spin, she tends her plants to celebrate what she can create with her own hands—not just beautiful textiles but a connection to her heritage and a source of peace. As a primary school teacher, her worki…

1
Anita Osterhaug, Nordic Hands 53:51

28d ago53:51

53:51

Exploring the textile traditions of her Scandinavian ancestors, supporting Indigenous Andean weavers in preserving their traditions, or producing material for contemporary fiber artists, Anita finds connection between makers. From hygge to the trendy Scandi Style, the design influence of Scandiavian countries has never been more popular. But beneat…

1
Elena Kanagy-Loux, Lacemaker & Historian 53:45

1M ago53:45

53:45

When you picture lace, what comes to mind: an old-fashioned once-white piece of Victorian embellishment? The elegant, possibly itchy decoration on a wedding gown? If you are a needleworker, you might picture an array of bobbins leashed to a cluster of pins and arrayed on a pillow, or a tatting shuttle, or a steel crochet hook. All of these images w…

1
Nanne Kennedy, Polwarth Shepherd & Seawater Dyer 1:01:52

2M ago1:01:52

1:01:52

Nanne Kennedy has her feet firmly planted in the soil of midcoast Maine. Growing up on a farm near the ocean, she could smell the salt air and small local factories, and she started saving in her “future farm fund” when she was 12. Eminently practical, she looked for ways that her farm could make her a living. “I'm a New England Yankee, and self re…

1
Spotlight Episode: Knit Picks 55:18

2M ago55:18

55:18

When Knit Picks was founded by husband and wife team Kelly and Bob Petkun in 2002, the company began with a mail-order catalog and soon added online purchasing. Buying yarn online seemed both strange and inevitable: knitters began choosing yarns that they could only see onscreen, in the early days of functional search engines, at a time when many p…

1
Laverne Waddington, Backstrap Weaver 53:15

2M ago53:15

53:15

Laverne Waddington discovered weaving by accident—bike accident, to be precise. Recuperating from a mountain biking crash in Utah, she discovered a book on Navajo weaving and was immediately intrigued. A local exhibit of Diné textiles enthralled her, and she set about learning to weave in the Navajo style. Returning to Patagonia, where she had been…

1
Gale Zucker, Photographer 44:35

3M ago44:35

44:35

Embrace the potential of your phone’s camera, choose indirect lighting (not a flash) to show texture, and get your knits off the ground—these are just a few pieces of Gale Zucker’s advice for how to take knitting photos you love. Whether she’s shooting in a studio or a barnyard, Gale uses her camera to bring her subjects to life. Gale grew up in a …

1
Emily Lymm, Wool & Palette 58:08

3M ago58:08

58:08

Have you ever opened a book or seen a photograph and thought to yourself, “I have to learn to do that”? When Emily Lymm first fell in love with knitting, she wondered casually if she could turn her passion for fiber arts into a profession. Not seeing many successful pathways to a career in knitting, she continued as a graphic designer. She loved th…

1
Tommye McClure Scanlin, Tapestry Artist 53:56

4M ago53:56

53:56

Tommye McClure Scanlin had a choice. To make the images she wanted to create with weaving, she could either pursue complex forms of weaving that rely on dobby, jacquard, and draw-loom technology—or she could go the other way and place every color and pick by hand using tapestry techniques and a very simple loom. Preferring a drawing pencil to a cal…

1
Rowland & Chinami Ricketts, Indigo Artists 35:44

4M ago35:44

35:44

Indigo is a unique dyestuff, no less so for being found in so many different plants. Coaxing the blue hue out of green leaves and onto yarn or cloth requires a combination of chemistry and skill that has arisen across the globe. Rowland and Chinami Ricketts each found their own way to indigo in Tokushima, Japan: Rowland was looking for a sustainabl…

1
Spotlight Episode: Brown Sheep Company 51:54

4M ago51:54

51:54

Andrew Wells is the third generation of the iconic American yarn manufacturer Brown Sheep Company. Living near the family business outside Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, he grew up giving tours and sweeping the floors when his parents, Peggy and Robert Wells, ran the business. His grandfather, Harlan Brown, had been a sheep and lamb farmer before deciding…

1
Kate Gagnon Osborn & Courtney Kelley, Kelbourne Woolens 1:00:21

5M ago1:00:21

1:00:21

Working together in a Philadelphia yarn store, Kate Gagnon Osborn and Courtney Kelley learned how to help customers choose the right yarn for a project, welcome in timid new knitters, and create samples to help move yarn out the door. They learned what didn’t work (donut-shaped balls of yarn that hopped off the shelves and tangled, patterns that us…

1
Jess Zafarris, Author & Etymologist 39:11

5M ago39:11

39:11

If you knit, spin, sew, weave, or follow any crafty pursuit, you will not be surprised that many of our most common metaphors come from textiles. They are interwoven in our vocabulary, and whether you like to spin a yarn from words or fibers, you will recognize many of them. But then there are the words whose textile roots are less obvious: Rocket.…

1
Masey Kaplan & Jen Simonic, Loose Ends Project 59:56

6M ago59:56

59:56

When Jen Simonic and Masey Kaplan’s friend lost her mother, she had the challenge of going through her mother’s things while grieving her loss. Among her posessions was something almost every crafter has at least one of: a work in progress. Jen and Masey had each finished projects for bereaved family members before, but neither of them could take o…

1
Eileen Lee: From Quilts to Jeans to Painted Warps (classic) 42:52

6M ago42:52

42:52

A career professional at Levi Strauss & Company, Eileen Lee learned about dyeing, weaving, and sewing on an international scale: giant factories full of loud looms weaving 2/2 twill, pattern pieces cut out of four-foot-high stacks of cloth, and no possibility of adding a tuck here or a dart there without retooling. During her years in the industry,…

1
Lilly Marsh, Custom Weaver 55:22

7M ago55:22

55:22

Lilly Marsh creates blankets, shawls, and other cloth, almost exclusively from local wool. Working closely with farmers and the nearby Battenkill Fiber Mill, she gets to know not only her neighbors but the fibers they grow: the surprisingly lovely wool from East Friesian sheep raised to produce milk, the springy Dorset crosses that are popular in t…

1
Annie MacHale, Inkle Artist 53:55

7M ago53:55

53:55

The call of complexity draws some weavers to more shafts, more structures, more hand-manipulated techniques. For Annie MacHale, refining the techniques and celebrating the artistry of very simple bands has been a lifelong fascination. Starting when she first picked up a shuttle and inkle loom in her teens, Annie has worked in wool, cotton, and hemp…

1
Alissa Allen, Mycopigments 54:31

8M ago54:31

54:31

“Rule number one: Never drink the dye bath.” Indigo and cochineal may be the most widely recognized natural dyes for many fiber artists, and there’s little temptation of sampling an indigo vat or pot of ground insects. But a simmering kettle of dye mushrooms or lichens? That might smell delicious, but if you’re in a class with Alissa Allen, it’s no…

1
Sally Fox, Colored Cotton Breeder 57:41

8M ago57:41

57:41

In a period when agriculture moved toward chemicals, genetic engineering, and monoculture, Sally Fox decided to explore what could happen if she collaborated with nature instead of fighting it. With an academic background in entomology, she studied ways to minimize the amount of pesticides needed to grow crops, and the more she saw the effects of t…

1
Spotlight Episode: Yarn Barn of Kansas 59:37

8M ago59:37

59:37

When Susan Bateman first opened Yarn Barn of Kansas in 1971, a woman starting a small business couldn’t get a credit card in her own name. Weavers like her had a hard time finding yarns, tools, and other supplies, some of which were only available from overseas, and she thought there must be an opportunity to bring fiber artists more of what they n…

1
Rebecca Mezoff (classic) 38:00

8M ago38:00

38:00

There may be no other type of textile that is more art and craft at the same time than tapestry weaving. Tapestry allows the weaver to create images with simple tools, but the skills and materials in tapestry are generally hard-wearing. You might find a tapestry on the floor as a rug as often as on a wall as a piece of art. Rebecca Mezoff became a …

1
Hannah Thiessen Howard, Slow Knitting 56:11

9M ago56:11

56:11

For Hannah Thiessen Howard, slow knitting isn’t about the speed of making stitches or finishing projects. Swift and leisurely knitters alike can embrace the purpose and experience of knitting and how it connects crafter to community. Selecting materials, choosing projects, and approaching your work with an open mind all contribute to a meaningful k…

1
Keisha Cameron, High Hog Farm 49:26

9M ago49:26

49:26

Although she grew up in the freezing winters of New York, Keisha Cameron and her husband decided to move their young family to a peri-urban spot outside Atlanta, Georgia, to set down roots and rebuild their connection to the land. They began with raising what their family needed for food and other daily necessities, but over the past decade, High H…

1
Justin Squizzero, The Burroughs Garret 42:08

10M ago42:08

42:08

Justin Squizzero loves exploring the frontiers of technology, seeing how he can tune a piece of equipment to produce a complex textile. The technology that fascinates him reached its peak before the 20th century. Weaving on an old loom doesn’t mean trying to turn back time, though—it means choosing the most refined technology to create the handwove…

1
Kaffe Fassett, Artist & Color Master 30:00

10M ago30:00

30:00

Kaffe Fassett doesn’t play favorites in his work—he doesn’t have a favorite medium, and he definitely doesn’t have a favorite color. What he has is a powerful delight in combining the simple elements of color, line, and image, and a passion for helping other people share in that joy. For someone whose career is inextricably linked to stitching, his…

1
Stephany Wilkes, Shearer, Wool Classer & Author 50:42

11M ago50:42

50:42

Between the sheep in the field and the lovely yarn in your hands lies the complex network of the wool industry. Fiber must be scoured, spun, and maybe dyed, and it all starts with shearing. Attending a Fibershed symposium in 2012, Stephany Wilkes was surprised to learn that one of the barriers to local fiber production was a lack of trained shearer…

1
Lisa Chamoff, Indie Untangled 56:42

11M ago56:42

56:42

What do you get when a crafter who loves colorful hand-dyed yarns (and hates stalking shop updates) crosses paths with a fresh, new yarn producer? Like many of her knitter friends in 2013, Lisa Chamoff was enchanted by the artful and expressive work of the independent dyers whose skeins were cropping up around the yarn world. Shoppers found new fav…

1
Spotlight Episode: Suri Network 50:44

11M ago50:44

50:44

[Sponsored Content] If you’ve been weaving, knitting, or playing with fiber for long—or if you’ve passed some fiber animals in a field—you probably think you know what an alpaca looks like: a fluffy creature with a long neck and spade-shaped ears. But you may not know that there’s a different kind of alpaca, one whose coat grows in long, silky ring…

1
Sarah Neubert, Fiber Art & Radical Repair 44:31

12M ago44:31

44:31

The scale of Sarah Neubert’s work varies from miniature to monumental, from small pieces such as earrings to room-sized installations. She dreams of creating entire woven environments that are sensory and tactile, like cocoons or sanctuaries of fiber. Working on a large scale allows her to explore new techniques and push the boundaries of her art. …

1
Jane Cooper, The Lost Flock 1:13:51

12M ago1:13:51

1:13:51

The picture of a flock of primitive-breed sheep, the last of their kind, living on an island off the northeast coast of Scotland, has a certain romance to it. Plenty of knitters, spinners, fiber artists, and citizens of the modern world might idly dream of living on such an island and tending such a flock. With no background as a farmer and only a …

1
Felicia Lo, Unapologetic Colorist 43:59

1y ago43:59

43:59

Felicia Lo spent most of her college years wearing a lot of black. The bright, happy color combinations that she loved as a child—lime green and hot pink, pink and yellow—didn’t fit other people’s idea of what colors went together, so she avoided wearing colors altogether. It took years to begin introducing color into her wardrobe again. As handdye…

1
Mary Jeanne Packer, Battenkill Fibers Carding & Spinning Mill 50:12

1y ago50:12

50:12

In 2009, Mary Jeanne Packer founded Battenkill Fibers Carding & Spinning Mill to work with small farms, yarn companies, and even individual handspinners who wanted great yarn. The partnerships built around the mill are helping revitalize the regional wool economy and sustain shepherds and shops alike. We are far from the days when 13 water-powered …

1
Deb Essen, Weaving Omnivore 58:17

1y ago58:17

58:17

Many weavers find their inspiration by asking, “What if...” Since she first sat down at a loom, Deb Essen has pushed the limits of her weaving by asking, “Why can’t I?” Deb has followed that question since childhood, right through her career as a weaving teacher and author. Since she first neglected her table-clearing duties to watch a weaving demo…

1
Allan Brown, The Nettle Dress 56:01

1y ago56:01

56:01

Most of us avoid nettles, thinking of them as weeds whose little stinging hairs can inject a painful toxin into the unexpecting walker. But strolling through the woods near his home in England, Allan Brown was captivated by the tall native plants. Knowing that textile cultures across the world have produced cloth from nettles, he wanted to learn mo…

1
Kristin Nicholas: Knitter, Artist, Farmer, Author 56:15

1y ago56:15

56:15

Kristin Nicholas lives in an idyllic historic New England home at the end of a dirt road, the interior handpainted in whimsical, vivid motifs. In neighboring fields, her family's hundreds of sheep graze in historic pastures. “From the outside looking in, it looks like a very romantic life,” she says. “But it is a ton of work. Most sane people would…

1
Anita Luvera Mayer, Weaver of Creative Coverings (classic) 1:04:08

1y ago1:04:08

1:04:08

When she married her husband, "polyester kid" Anita Luvera Mayer received an extraordinary wedding gift from her mother-in-law: a loom and weaving lessons. A weaving store owner, Marcelle Mayer gave the same gift to each of her daughters-in-law. The others didn't take to it, but for Anita it was the beginning of a whole new life. Although she prefe…

1
Susan Druding, Straw into Gold (classic) 54:57

1+ y ago54:57

54:57

Susan Druding was a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley when she first learned to spin and weave. In the Bay Area of the 1960s, fiber interest and social tensions both ran high. Without a business plan but with a lease on a small storefront, Susan and a business partner opened Straw Into Gold, a store devoted mostly to spinnin…

1
Daryl Lancaster, Fearless Weaver 1:12:38

1+ y ago1:12:38

1:12:38

After you finish weaving fabric that you love and are proud of, cutting it up can be an unappealing thought. What if it falls apart? What if you make the wrong cut? What if the finished piece doesn't turn out like you picture it? For Daryl Lancaster, the challenges of transforming a handwoven fabric into a wearable garment are the real pleasure—and…

1
PieceWork Turns 30 44:47

1+ y ago44:47

44:47

"All This by Hand"—that's the promise of PieceWork magazine, which was first published in 1993 to honor the handwork created through the ages, mostly by women, mostly with little fanfare. "Handwork reflects peoples history, daily lives, and cultures. In this issue's stories, handwork means physical survival, personal hope, and cultural identity," s…

1
Sarah Swett, Fiber Artist & Adventurer 1:05:22

1+ y ago1:05:22

1:05:22

Don't try to put Sarah Swett in a box—if you do, she might just weave a bag on it. Growing up on the East Coast, Sarah found herself more enchanted with knitting sweaters from farm yarn than the traditional college track. She spent her young adulthood as a ranch hand and cook in Montana and Idaho, where she brought her yarn in by pack mule. She fel…

1
Clara Parkes, Bestselling Author and Wool Promoter 48:58

1+ y ago48:58

48:58

Clara Parkes became many knitters' guiding light and best friend when she launched Knitter's Review in 2000. One of the early standouts in the early online knitting landscape, the site developed a devoted following for its in-depth, objective yarn reviews and lively forums. Several years after the site's inception, she began writing books, starting…

1
Lisa Mitchell Lives a Fiber Life—with Guanacos 45:50

1+ y ago45:50

45:50

After decades as an art therapist in suburban Sacramento, Lisa Mitchell and her husband, Greg Hudson, were ready for a radical life change. In her rewarding but exhausting career, Lisa spent her days harnessing the power of art and handwork to heal others, but she had little time to do it herself. Their concrete-jungle surroundings felt stifling. I…

1
Rangina Hamidi, Kandahar Treasure 1:18:29

1+ y ago1:18:29

1:18:29

Wanting to help the women in her native country called Rangina Hamidi back to Afghanistan. Through the khamak embroidery they have practiced for generations, Kandahar Treasure supports women making a living with their needles. Rangina Hamidi's parents and sisters left Afghanistan whe she was a child in the early 1980s, during the war with the Sovie…

1
Josefin Waltin: Swedish Spinning Revival 38:41

1+ y ago38:41

38:41

Venturing to a frozen lake in mid-winter, Josefin Waltin does something remarkable: She breaks the ice with a hatchet and climbs into the frigid water. And unlike an ice-bucket-challenge or polar bear dip, she does this every morning. With her head, feet, and hands covered in handspun wool knitwear, she looks pretty happy doing it, too. Although no…

1
Mary Zicafoose, Ikat Fiber Artist 47:16

1+ y ago47:16

47:16

The resist-dye technique known as ikat involves wrapping individual threads in careful patterns, dyeing them, and then using the dyed threads as warp, weft, or both. With care and what Mary Zicafoose describes as a lot of fussing, the woven fabric displays a pre-planned design—geometric or figurative, crisp or feathery, multicolored or two-tone. Th…

1
Melanie Falick, Making a Life 48:45

1+ y ago48:45

48:45

The treasure in a handmade life isn’t just mastering skills and making goods, Melanie Falick says—it’s the power in creation, connection, and expression along the way. When Melanie Falick started to knit as a young adult, she fell in love with everything about it: the creative potential of yarn and color, the meditative process, the useful finished…

1
Kerstin Neumüller Carves, Weaves, Spins, and Mends 49:01

1+ y ago49:01

49:01

Admiring the simplicity of traditional bandweaving, Kerstin Neumüller took her love of weaving a step further and learned to carve small, sweet rigid heddles. She was startled to find a big demand for her handmade, handpainted heddles, which sell out as soon as she posts a new batch. With formal training as an apprentice in menswear tailoring, Kers…

1
Using AI and Blockchain to Store and Monetize Your Brain with Bill Inman 34:00

1+ y ago34:00

34:00

Today on the Web3 Show audio podcast we chat with Singularity Studio's CEO/Co Founder Bill Inman on the uniquely important and beautiful marriage between personal AI with decentralized marketplaces and identity, blockchain, and knowledge transfer. We bond over a mutual shared appreciation for great thinkers and philosophers like Napoleon Hill and d…

1
The Future of Music and Web3 with Kelli Richards 35:50

1+ y ago35:50

35:50

Welcome to the Web3 Show, the podcast that explores the latest trends and innovations in the world of Web3. In today's episode 004, co-hosted by Chris J Snook and Travis Wright, we are thrilled to have Kelli Richards as our guest. Kelli is a technology and entertainment veteran, a top strategist in the music and media industries, and the CEO of The…

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