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PODCAST

The Long Thread Podcast

Long Thread Media

The artists and artisans of the fiber world come to you in The Long Thread Podcast. Each episode features interviews with your favorite spinners, weavers, needleworkers, and fiber artists from across the globe. Get the inspiration, practical advice, and personal stories of experts as we follow the long thread.

leisure crafts

All Episodes

58:37

Tom Knisely, Generational Weaver

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/05/17

When Tom Knisely decided to buy his first item in an antique shop, he had two strokes of luck: the spinning wheel that he chose included all the parts needed to make yarn, and he lived not far from the landmark weaving store The Mannings. There, he learned to spin and eventually to weave. Enamored with the crafts, he got a job at the store there as a teenager and eventually built a career there over 37 years. That love of antiques led Tom to accumulate a collection of historic coverlets and rag

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56:52

Susan Strawn, Knitting Historian

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/05/03

A lifelong lover of fiber arts, Susan Strawn’s career in textiles began in an unexpected corner: with training as a biomedical illustrator. She found cloth far more exciting than biology, so she turned her eye for detail to illustrating PieceWork magazine. She added photostyling to her duties, bringing textile stories to life and demonstrating the steps of various needlework techniques. After a decade on the staff of the magazine, she decided to devote herself to studying and writing about textiles,

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1:00:41

Sissal Kjartansdóttir Kristiansen on Faroese Knitting

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/04/19

Knitting and wool are so essential in the Faroe Islands that in the early 1800s, exports of sweaters and socks made up about half of the economy. Today, the nation of about 55,000 people has 8+ knitwear brands, 2 active spinning mills, and 70,000 ewes. Sissal Kristiansen, the owner of knitwear company Shisa Brand, started an initiative called The Wool Islands to celebrate the heritage and potential of Faroese fiber. “We owe it to our past and our future to utilise the natural resources that we have,

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22:06

Shay Pendray, Stitcher, Entrepreneur, Cowgirl (classic)

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/04/05

When young Shay Pendray told the head of her school that she wanted to learn to sew, he had a prerequisite: He would give her a lamb, and she would learn to process the wool, spin it into yarn, and weave it into cloth, and then she could learn to sew. It was an extraordinary home ec class, but the administrator in question was Henry Ford. Shay was one of the students in Greenfield Village, a living museum on the grounds of what is now the Henry Ford Museum. Shay has combined curiosity, hard work,

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55:42

Robin Lynde, Meridian Jacobs

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/03/22

Some shepherds research extensively and choose the breed that best matches their needs. Others come across an animal or a whole flock and everything falls into place—it becomes clear that these are the sheep they’ve been waiting for. Robin Lynde had a farm with a few sheep in the mix, but when a local shepherd decided to sell her Jacob sheep, Robin jumped at the opportunity to own a flock of black-and-white-spotted, two-to-four-horned heritage-breed sheep. Although the flock lives full-time

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46:29

Laura Nelkin Knits for Food

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/03/08

Listening to her college-aged daughter making calls for AmeriCorps in 2020, Laura Nelkin was surprised at how many people in her community faced food insecurity and hunger every day. A problem that had seemed far away suddenly felt much closer to home, and Laura wanted to find a way to help. She had a feeling that other knitters would want to help, too, so she dreamed up a group effort: the Knit for Food Knit-a-Thon (http://www.knitforfood.com/). In its first 4 years, the effort has raised over

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48:33

Gabi van Tassell, Turtle Looms

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/02/22

One day, while waiting outside her daughter’s weaving class, Gabi van Tassell became fascinated with an old-fashioned quilt. The Grandmother’s Flower Garden pattern combines groups of paper-pieced hexagons, and Gabi found herself wondering how she could weave the shapes. An active and curious crafter, she had explored a variety of fiber crafts, though she wasn’t yet a weaver. She experimented with different approaches to the pin loom, eventually realizing that she needed a combination of plain and

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49:48

Lily M. Chin, Knitting & Crochet Rock Star

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/02/08

In the early 2000’s, one episode of the Late Show with David Letterman boasted that a crocheter would make Dave a sweater over the course of the show. It sounded impossible, but their special guest backstage was Lily M. Chin, who held the title of World’s Fastest Crocheter. When the closing music played, Lily presented Letterman with his sweater—it was a bit short, but Dave pulled it over his head. By that point, Lily was no stranger to either deadlines or high-profile clients, having created

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1:03:10

Jennifer B. Williams, Inkled Pink

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/01/25

A lifelong crafter, Jennifer B. Williams had tried a wide variety of fiber techniques, but she felt something fall into place the first time she sat down to a lesson at an inkle loom. “It was the strangest thing to me. When I started inkle weaving, I started thinking through inkle,” she says. Delicate bracelets, origami fish, flip-flop straps? Absolutely! Joining bands edge to edge, folding strips into new shapes, and exploring drape and density, the formal confines of narrow warp-faced bands just

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59:11

Louie García, Pueblo Weaver (classic)

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2025/01/11

Visiting museums and archaeological sites in the American Southwest, Louie García finds inspiration to revive the fiber techniques of the past. He has participated in creating several recreations of ancient textiles, including a replica of the 800-year-old Arizona Openwork Shirt, and is a member of the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project, which studies artifacts including baskets, plaited and twined yucca sandals, and most importantly cotton textile fragments that date back as much as two thousand years

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55:53

Charan Sachar, Creative with Clay

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/12/28

Like many spinners, Charan Sachar discovered fiber crafts without realizing that they would transform his life. While studying for a masters degree in computer science, he began working with clay, making functional and decorative pieces. He loved the cool, slick texture of clay and the pleasure of working with his hands, eventually making pottery his full-time career. During down times in the pottery studio and at home, he began knitting. The soft texture and warmth of knitting proved a perfect

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46:49

Julia Gomez: Colcha Embroidery

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/12/14

When colonists first left Spain for what became Mexico and the American Southwest in 1598, they came with the continent’s first wool sheep. These weren’t the famed finewool Spanish Merinos—export of those was punishable by death—but rougher multipurpose Churra sheep. With simple tools, men sheared the sheep, women spindle-spun wool yarn, and men wove plain cloth called sabanilla. In their few spare moments, women embroidered on scraps of fabric with naturally dyed yarn and a simple couching

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1:04:57

Irene Waggener, Knitting Researcher

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/11/30

As a knitter in a new place, Irene Waggener looks for knitting as she explores. Not all of the countries where she finds herself have robust yarn-shop networks and textile tourism, so sometimes she needs to get creative in her search.During a three-year stint in Morocco, her first glimpse of knitting was in the back of a local museum, where a striking pair of black-and-white knitted pants hung among other traditional craft objects. Although the staff at the museum couldn’t tell her much about them,

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53:53

Spotlight Episode: Louët

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/11/23

In 1974, two young industrial designers in the Netherlands started a company making spinning wheels. Beginning in a family member’s chicken coop, they built a modern wheel featuring an upright castle-style format, a then-uncommon bobbin-lead drive system, and a drive wheel without spokes. Jan Louët Feisser and Clemens Claessen named their company Louët and began building the now-iconic S10 spinning wheel. The company soon moved out of the chicken coop and brought on other employees. By 1982, they

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57:17

Allan Brown, The Nettle Dress (classic)

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/11/16

The Nettle Dress is available to stream online (https://watch.eventive.org/nettledressfilm/play/66fd50e5edab64004eb9dd5f) 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 cultures across the world have produced cloth from nettles, he wanted to learn

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52:24

Melvenea Hodges, Traditions in Cloth (classic)

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/11/02

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 working days are hectic, but she and a friend have a pact to save some creativity for themselves. Although her spinning and weaving projects are ambitious, she

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53:51

Anita Osterhaug, Nordic Hands

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/10/19

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 beneath the graphic lines and bright colors, what is the fiber art and culture of Nordic countries? Anita Osterhaug was raised in a family whose pride in

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53:45

Elena Kanagy-Loux, Lacemaker & Historian

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/10/05

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 would be correct—but capture the tiniest slice of the world’s laces. As a PhD student, Elena Kanagy-Loux considers lace through the lenses of history,

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1:01:52

Nanne Kennedy, Polwarth Shepherd & Seawater Dyer

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/09/21

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 reliance is really important,” she says. “So it’s always been a critical theme to me that, yes, you do the right thing, but it sure as heck has to make

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55:18

Spotlight Episode: Knit Picks

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2024/09/14

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 people had internet only at the office if at all. But for crafters who lacked easy access to a local yarn store or even a big-box craft store, being able

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136 results

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