Hello yarn lovers -

I’m delighted to bring you this second episode of the podcast with very special guest, Rachel Brown. Rachel was more or less the first knitter I met when I moved to London and she became my BKFF in short order.

Always a good sport, Rach is the knitter you want in your corner when you’re coming up with crazy ideas like creating a yarn crawl in London, or yarn road trip events, or just maybe an independent yarn show (ours was called Yarnporium!).

After eight awesome years collaborating on Yarn in the City, Rachel and her family moved back to the States and we folded the business, but of course we’ve stayed in touch. Rachel was recently in London and we were able to have a catch up that took us from East London and Stratford to Richmond in the west (although you can trust two expats to debate whether or not Richmond actually still counts as part of London!).

On this episode we chat through our various spots that we visited during the day including:

* V&A East Storehouse

* Wahaca Islington - their classic margarita recipe is one of the best

Loop London - celebrating their 20th anniversary this year!

* Liberty - where we saw the patchwork house by the Patchwork Collective which celebrates 150 years of Liberty (and also took a mini detour through Sostrene Grene)

* Knit With Me - one of London’s newest yarn shops, located in Richmond

* before finishing the day with a G&T admiring the view from The Roebuck

It felt weird for both of us to be chatting again podcast-style but we did chat about what we were working on. Rach is working up a cowl from the leftovers of the (latest) sweater she knit for me, which was the Polina Pullover by Teri Lutsak in G-uld yarn that was a kit from Loop.

I‘m working on the Stripe Hype sweater by Veronica Lindberg but in some bold, bright colour - and which my mother has fallen in love with since I’ve been in Canada on holiday. Guess who’ll be getting it when it’s finished?

It was a fantastic day out. Huge thanks to Susan at Loop who let us sneak in to say hi and make a cheeky purchase, and also to Carol and Coral at Knit With Me who likewise allowed us in for a quick peek at the shop! Apologies to Wool Decanted who I refer to as Yarn Decanted on the episode and who don’t have sheep on an island in the Thames near Twickenham but who DO have a gorgeous, local yarn with traceable provenance of the wool coming from small producers in Devon and Wales.

Big, HUGE thanks again to Rachel for humouring another of my ideas and agreeing to be a guest on my new podcast. You can find Rachel on Instagram, which is also a great way to reach her if you wanted to enquire about her tech editing services…

We talked so long there’s not really an “outro” for this episode but I can say that next week’s guest on the podcast is another friend who was recently passing through London! Jacqueline Sava from Soak and I talk about making, and making a living at it. Stay tuned for that one next week.

And of course, do let me know what you think about the podcast, and if there are things you’d like to hear me chat about with future guests.

Thanks for listening,

Allison x

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit champagneqiviut.substack.com