We continue our coverage of the Game of Wool, addressing Gordon's response, the catwalk of doggy costumes, and some unapologetically 80s mohair creations. Will we have any hot takes on crochet vs. knitting, or engage in intellectual chats about skill acquisition? You bet.
Adam (00:00): ...which just says, our relationship is with Channel 4, blah blah blah.
Georgia (00:04): Ughhhhhhh...
Adam (00:05): So I did include the slightly endangered knitting craft of... crochet.
Georgia (00:08): We're not gonna enough space to talk about doggy outfits!
Adam (00:17): Welcome to the podcast. This week we– in fact we'll start that again.
Georgia (00:21): I mean, we're all feeling like friends now, aren't we? In a way. Do we need a formal intro? That's the question.
Adam (00:26): I don't think we need an introduction. We need for no further introduction. We're now in the presence of greatness, Georgia. You have suddenly taken to Instagram and your account has blown up and now the world...
Georgia (00:36): I didn't know if we were gonna talk about this, or what–
Adam (00:38): I don't think there are many people in the world that go from a couple of hundred followers to 20,000 followers in four days. So I think some congratulations–
Georgia (00:46): Two days, unfortunately. It's been a steep learning curve. You'll all have to bear with me. Well, for those of you who haven't seen my video that I think Adam kindly reposted the other day, I made a reel the other day just about craft studies. I don't see this as any special reflection of me as an individual, but more that everyone was completely ready to absorb that information. I think it was just testament to the community being really ready for a video like that. So–
Adam (01:15): It's brilliant. I think it's also exciting that everyone is interested for this podcast because the comments on that video that people talking about the wanting to understand more about craft and hear some of the actual research that goes on behind it. I think the hunger for that is exactly why we wanted to create a podcast. Why I wanted to do it specifically with you, Georgia, because you have that wealth of knowledge, which I know about and I know that the rest of the world– that's vindicated now, the rest of the world I'm sure wants to hear about it too. So we're trying to record two episodes a week, which to me and Georgia, this is the most exciting thing ever. I've absolutely, I've loved recording this last week and I'm so excited to be doing it again this week. And we're doing them in pairs so that we can time that with Game of Wool and get on with recording what we really want to talk about as well, which is craft and knitting more generally. But how can we not talk about the Game of Wool and– Last night I felt like that was a such an exciting episode to get into.
Georgia (02:10): We're into the rhythm now and I'm seeing the format starting to come through. It's shining through now. I think last week, the sofa challenge, all of us just thought that maybe this group challenge is going to be a bit of a disaster and how is it going to come together in a way that actually feels like it's a legit thing, whereas I really liked when Di and Sheila said, "we do this all the time, if we need to get something ready for catwalk, then we'll split up the garment". We are cantering, cantering straight through to second challenge anyway. We promise you all listeners that we did in fact write a list before starting recording this episode. The timeline of what we were going to talk about and I've just, [baaa] it straight away.
Adam (02:52): in the spirit of having written it down, is now something that I am constantly referring back to–
Georgia (02:57): Yes, I will pass over to Adam who will neatly and assuredly walk us through the next few sections.
Adam (03:02): So next on the agenda–
Georgia (03:03): Agenda, that's the word. Thank you, Mr Cleevely.
Adam (03:06): Our first agendum, if you will, we're going to get very proper about it. So yeah, let's do it in order. So I think the first thing we need to do is there is so much has happened online since we recorded last week that we're going to have to recap about a little bit of about some new information that came to light after we recorded. So I should say this episode absolutely is going to include spoilers and the stuff that came out since last week– So the big thing I need to apologize for is I misunderstood, and I feel really misled actually, by the steeking fiasco because the program led us to believe that the failure of Gordon's garment was entirely down to the steeks, or the cuts, as he referred to them. And that wasn't true. That wasn't true at all. What came to light, Gordon posted a video on social media afterwards and came out and said that the reason that his garment didn't get finished, was because actually part way through, he decided to rip back 20 rows of knitting. And having ripped back 20 rows of knitting, he then didn't have time to finish what he otherwise had. On his video (Man-Knitted in Scotland, 2025), which you can go and find on Instagram, he actually shows that his steeks are still holding, I guess that's nine, 10 months after recording. As a piece of documentary footage, I feel very much let down that actually I wasn't shown the real reason there. And I was left trying to invent the reason myself.
Georgia (04:31): To be fair, I don't think you should dob yourself in too much because when we had that discussion, it was also, I think I'd said that maybe they've hyped the drama and it's sad that they've shown steeking in this way because I don't think that's the whole picture. And if you're steeking on episode one of a knitting show, a knitting competition, that's somebody who's confident enough doing this and knows it's gonna work. So I had these suspicions that it wasn't the whole picture and it had been hyped for editing, but for them to actually mislead, to that degree. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of things we want to talk about there and things that have come out, statements, really important information. And it connects very much with a whole larger issue around heritage crafts and preserving histories. And so we want to talk about that in a separate episode, not least because we also want to give episode two of Game of Wool, its own dews. And we're not going to have enough space to talk about doggy outfits! AAHH!
Adam (05:29): Well, we're gonna come to the doggy outfits, but the other thing that I want to mention that happened since the last episode, last week Rowan released their patterns and there was instant furore about whether or not the designers had been paid and credited for the designs. And Rowan said they gave a quite PRish statement. Now since then, as I said last week, I wrote to Game of Wool as a program and they haven't come back to me. But the combination of that plus this week, we immediately, I think it was 9:03, 9:04, Wool and the Gang last night immediately issued another pattern from the show and – obviously it was going to happen – someone has instantly said, "have you paid the designers for this?" And they have said they have given a textbook, absolutely dry PR statement, which just says, no, our relationship is with Channel 4, blah, blah. So I am, I am absolutely certain that at this point that if the designers were getting paid, someone would have come out and said, no, designers getting paid for this by now and they're not. Now, one other pattern designer has come forward to me and said, well, it could be that the designs are exclusive with these people for a month or so or until the show finishes. And that is often how pattern designers sell, that they'll sell into a magazine and then they'll be exclusive with a magazine for a month. And then the designer can publish them themselves, but that is not the vibe I'm getting. If there was a positive news spin to put on it, it would have been done. The fact that there are two PR statements now saying the same–
Georgia (07:00): Also, in that context of magazines and designers giving them to magazines, there's all kinds of exploitation that can happen with that. We don't need to get into that, but that is still a decision that is from the designer. The picture that is being painted here is, ah, to be on the show, you had to sign the rights away to your design. And now Channel 4, Game of Wool, can sell those to whoever they want to, to generate revenue and advertising hype and these other companies are making a lot of money off it and that doesn't sit well.
Adam (07:36): It doesn't say well at all, no. In an industry where it's notoriously difficult to make money anyway, there is not a lucrative industry, and one of the few ways that some people do make money is by selling their patterns. So yeah, it just feels very insensitive that that is going on, if that is what's happening, but as I say, I strongly suspect it is.
Georgia (07:57): But if, you know, taking all that into consideration, I understand that some people might want to then say, well, I'm not watching Game of Wool or I want to boycott it or not watch it. And of course we are still for that here, continuing to watch each week. And I wonder if there is a way that we can contextualize all this and going, I want to watch the show, not in support of these companies, not necessarily even in support of Game of Wool producers, especially given all of the latest stuff around Fair Isle that's come out, but We'll get to that in the next episode. I want to watch Game of Wool in support of the knitters on this show.
Adam (08:32): We don't mean the letters, we mean Holger, don't we?
Georgia (08:34): Yeah we do! That man, that man!
Adam (08:38): He is going places, I Holger. I'm just, I'm prepared to call it early.
Georgia (08:42): I can't wait till he has his own spin-off.
Adam (08:45): Yes, and all the things. I mean, he's just absolutely magnificent. Yeah.
Georgia (08:49): I buy Holger's patterns. I'd buy anything from Holger.
Adam (08:53): Holger if you're listening. Shall we come on and talk about last night's show?
Georgia (08:56): Yes, absolutely. We've got a lot of international listeners who might not get to see the show on TV. So for context, they needed to make a costume for a dog and it was an Italian greyhound and were two of them. There was either Dana or Dobby.
Adam (09:12): Yeah, we assumed they were the same size dog.
Georgia (09:14): They were pretty gorgey pretty gorgey little dogs.
Adam (09:17): If you like that sort of dog.
Georgia (09:18): Why do you not like that? I mean you are a Rufus labrador man, so –
Adam (09:22): That's not my sort of dog, I'm afraid.
Georgia (09:33): I see okay. Well nice little dog. It was not a big ambitious– You know you've not got a dress up a great Dane. Imagine if the dog breeds were like lucky dip and that was like, that was the wild card parameter. People keep complaining that this is about reality TV really and it's not actually set up to find Britain's greatest knitter, it's just reality TV. Speaking of someone who watches reality TV here and there, there are so many more things that they could have done to make this chaotic and dishing out dog breeds could be one of them.
Adam (09:52): You pick the pug or the doberman. Anyway, back to the rules. You had to create this doggy outfit and it had to be iconic to you, either by way of connecting to a person or a place. And the two-piece outfit, so it was basically a jumper for the dog to wear plus a hat, had to be practical and they had 12 hours to do it. It had to contain – and we're gonna get the contentious bit now – it had to contain one knitted element and one crocheted.
Georgia (10:19): Just to clarify, I thought it was just that it needed to include knitting and crochet in some capacity. I just want to clarify that you've got to make a hat and a body piece and at least one of those needs to be crocheted, one of those needs to be knitted. Some knitters did incorporate crochet within a certain garment or knitting within another garment.
Adam (10:35): No, you're absolutely right to me up on that. Yes, I to include both elements. I loved last night's show. I was super, I'm not a fan of knitting for animals, largely because as many people know, my animal Rufus is a very charming and handsome dog when I take pictures of him, but that's the only time
Georgia (10:50): So you're not a fan of knitting for animals because of your own personal biases?
Adam (10:54): Yes, I think that's absolutely...
Georgia (10:56): Lydia did say, you UK don't hate me, I'm not a dog person.
Adam (10:59): I'm very clearly a dog person, it's just that my dog would eat anything I knitted for him.
Georgia (11:03): I have seen it in real time, listeners, that is very true.
Adam (11:06): So aside from that, a dog is a fantastic shape to give knitters because most knitters won't be familiar with it. I think it's a magnificent challenge because we're saying you've got to create something in this difficult shape on your own. There are some other design aesthetics you've got to apply to it. Off you go. I think that's a fantastic challenge. And then matching hat, brilliant.
Georgia (11:29): And the shape doesn't necessarily behave as we wanted to.
Adam (11:33): Should we talk about dogs? Because we have to get back to, like, I don't really care which doggy costumes we care about, because I just want to talk about Holger. Can you tell that I'm a fan yet?
Georgia (11:43): I'm such a big fan of pink. The pink-white combination. Ahh!
Adam (11:47): Fabulous. So I mean the contestants created these these fabulous costumes. There were a couple that had problems with them They weren't massive problems, but you know, there were definitely ways of telling them apart and this week we got much more insight from the judges as to why they were saying something was good and why something was bad. They were much more picky about well, this seam isn't sewn up well enough and I was pleased by that. That's the–
Georgia (12:12): Did we get close shot of that seam though because I don't actually think we got to see I was thinking wait what class is a bad seam but if you don't actually show us the seam then–
Adam (12:20): Yeah, I- well-
Georgia (12:13): I think it's great that they're giving more detailed feedback but just as a little footnote to that is that we're getting this more detailed feedback but if I want to see the goods I want the juicy details–
Adam (12:29): I don't agree because I think this is one of my frustrations with the Bake Off that you know get to you know the final this year
Georgia (12:39): I've not watched it yet!
Adam (12:40): I'm not gonna give you a spoiler but but they talk about you know two cakes being absolutely exemplary and tasting delicious and that's all you then have to go on but actually you never get to genuinely experience the taste of those as an audience and you don't get the full contact with what is being judged and you have to take the judges word for some of it.
Georgia (12:57): But you get to see it, you got to see those cakes. And my point with the knitting is that the knitting is right in front of them with a camera and they didn't show– We're not talking about like, what did the wool taste of? It's not what the yarn tasted of. I want to see the things that you can see.
Adam (13:15): Been on the underside of a dog at that point, so...
Georgia (13:18): I mean, I'd eat Holgers.
Adam (13:19): There's the sound bite we're looking for.
Georgia (13:21): It's like a little ice cream. Anyway, so.
Adam (13:24): I don't know how you want to describe it, Georgia. But I feel like this clip's gonna do the rounds.
Georgia (13:33): Okay, well, oh gosh, I just put tea on my face and it looks like I'm crying. I mean, I am crying. So Isaac, I think, especially if you're in the US and you're listening to this, you'll understand how big sports stuff is. And in Philadelphia especially, they're into their sports, whether it's the Flyers or the Eagles. My brother lives in the US and is now a US citizen. And I just loved that Isaac was bringing his love of ice hockey and the Flyers to that situation. So for context, he went to university out in Philadelphia and he did the mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers team, Gritty. And it was fun. It wasn't necessarily couture excellence, but it was fun and it had a cool ice rink on the back. When the dogs shook their heads and then the hats fell off, maybe it was just editing, but the judges did not consistently call out the knitters for that. And so this is why I wanted to talk about Isaac, right? So when we saw Isaac's, I think we saw Dipti's first and Dipti's came out, Dipti got lovely feedback because they were acknowledging the fact that she hadn't done much knitting before, that this was a really successful thing for her. I'm gonna be honest, if you put up a horn on something, vaguely sparkly, of course you're gonna think it's a unicorn. I don't think that that costume was really speaking to me that much.
Adam (14:58): Yeah so it was a striped, it was– she made it in sparkly yarn, like sort of tinsel type.
Georgia (15:04): Is that comfy for dogs?
Adam (15:06): I mean, wouldn't wear it.
Georgia (15:05): Comfort was one of the parameters!
Adam (15:10): Yeah. And aesthetically it worked, but it was, it was a much more simple construction and knit than, than the other, than the other knitters.
Georgia (15:16): But she got really good feedback and then the dog came out, shook its head and the hat came straight off. No mention of the hat. When we see Isaac's, the one thing that they said to him was "one good shake", I think was what they said. One good shake and the hat will come off. And that was a negative thing, but Dipti, wasn't pulled up on it. And there was someone else, it was Stephanie, that the hat wasn't engineered. And whilst I did think that the hat could have looked more like a Chelsea pensioners hat – she did a Chelsea pensioner outfit for a dog, it was excellent. What is this podcast? She did a Chelsea pensioners outfit for the dog and the hat came off again when the dog shook its head and that was, the hat's not been engineered and isn't gonna be very comfortable for the dog. I don't think the unicorn horn was very comfortable or, you know, strapped on the head very well. And I felt like it was a little bit of inconsistency along the way.
Adam (15:50): Yeah, I wonder about this and that comes down to– I suspect what we never get to know is the editorial style of the show because that is– and I'll come on to talk more about that because I think there's a lot going on in the show that we don't get to see properly. You know, go back to Gordon ripping back 20 rows, that was cut from the show or wasn't ever filmed in the first place. I don't know which, but this comes down to, presumably, them wanting to give a brief overview of the judging because they've got to get that judging done in three or four minutes of television. And I guess they, you know, maybe they don't want to have the same comments every time from the judges. But yeah, I agree. It looked, it looked very inconsistent. Poor Isaac being pulled up on a headpiece that didn't– I mean, that was the only thing they criticised it for. Whereas, you know, they didn't criticise the others.
Adam (17:21): The crochet stitchuation.
Georgia (17:22): The crochet situation. If I'm really being really pedantic, the bell on top of the head. Bell foundry is an endangered craft in the UK. Bells, generally speaking, in like big cathedrals and stuff, aren't that kind of shiny golden colour. It's a different kind of metal, right? You're not gonna get like a shiny gold bell unless it's maybe a handbell, for example. And I say this all because – ladies and gentlemen, I am a social member of the Cambridge University Guild of Change Ringers because my husband is a bell ringer and rang bells on the morning of our wedding and I'm around lots of bell ringers and that hat was not an accurate representation of a cathedral bell, I do not feel.
Adam (18:05): Well, I mean, in terms of niche critics, I'm very sorry, Simon, you're listening, that our in-house campanologist has...
Georgia (18:14): A campanologist, again, is not the accurate term because that is, it's not a bell ringer, it's someone who studies bells. So yeah, slightly pedantic, but I just wanted to throw that in there. But really I'm not, it's not actually a criticism. It's just my very specific neurodivergent brain was thinking that's not actually the colour of those bells.
Adam (18:32): I'm sorry, I'm gonna defend Simon very briefly, but it was a brand new bell I don't think he was necessarily like it could have been it could have been new gothic and a newly founded bell that might be shiny≠
Georgia (18:42): I won't get into this right now because bell foundry is a really interesting and important craft. Anyway–
Adam (18:49): If you're listening and you can't see, Georgia has given me some, "I'm triggered" signs. So we're going to move on.
Georgia (18:54): Ailsa, another cool thing, just like personal connection. Really, I want to talk about these ones because I want to talk about myself. So Ailsa, the traffic cone on the Duke of Wellington. I had a friend who went to study at Glasgow University and she was a couple of years older than me. So I used to go and visit her and camp out on her floor when I was doing my A-levels and things. And she was a climber in the city and was connected with the group of people who consistently put that traffic cone on the head of the Duke of Wellington. Yeah, so when that happened, I thought of my little inside knowledge of having years ago, passed the statute of limitations, put the traffic cone on that head.
Adam (19:34): Well, the thing that really impressed me about Ailsa's, so Ailsa's costume for the dog was inspired by this beautiful statue, but she wanted to recreate graffiti writing on the back of the dog's jumper. And this, for me, was possibly the most spectacular use of a new craft technique for me that I saw on the show to date. Because what she did is she picked out the lettering with a, I think, a combination of intarsia and stranded colourwork, and then after she'd done that, so that was pink on grey, she then used a brush to brush it downwards to make it look as though it had been spray painted and then the paint had run down. And the effect was absolutely magical. I was so impressed with how good that looked. And then she picked out sort of the shading on it in black. And if you can go and have a look at the picture online, it was such artistry and craft or whatever, you want to describe it, at work there. It was, that was a thing of real beauty and I was so impressed with what Ailsa did there. That was really, really wonderful to see.
Georgia (20:40): It was a real clarity of concept and I think the most successful things we're seeing across all of the challenges is when there is a clarity of concept and it doesn't necessarily mean simplicity but it just means there's a intentionality. There's a clarity of concept.
Adam (20:55): So I think we're have to move on to talk about the second half of the show.
Georgia (20:57): Holger?
Adam (20:58): Oh we have to talk about Holger.
Georgia (20:59): We have to talk about Holger!
Adam (21:00): Holger's was show-winning. I mean, it was incredible.
Georgia (21:03): I know. I want to be that dog. it does make I'm actually I'm currently knitting a beautiful jumper (Gehrisch, 2024) with the technique that Lydia used – feather and fan. It's waves. And I'm really sorry because I can't remember the name of the designer off the top of my head, but it's been doing the rounds really gorgeous waves. I'm knitting my one in that same white and pink combination of stripes. And it is just so darling, like so sweet and I think also just the tying in of like 18th century Italian theatre.
Adam (21:39): What's your icon that inspires you? I just go back to 18th century Italian theatre.
Georgia (21:43): Pretty flawless. That was the feedback from the judges. Pretty flawless. And that it was.
Adam (21:48): It was such a beautiful execution. Again, I mean, it was a single-minded concept. It wasn't straightforward. That wasn't, you know– I look at a lot of the other knits on Game of Wool and I think, "do know what? I'd have a fair crack at that". In terms of coming up with a concept like Holger had done there and knitting that within the time, that for me was something where I really would swallow hard at.
Georgia (22:08): It's clarity. It's everything he touches, be it the sofa in last week, be it this challenge with the dog, be it the 80s challenge that we're going to get to. He has such a natural strength of clarity of concept that doesn't translate through to simplicity or oversimplicity. It's just clarity. And that's it's demonstrating the skill that he has as an experienced tailor.
Adam (22:30): Yeah, yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
Adam (22:36): So I just want to take a quick break from the rest of what we've been talking about and just point out what we are speaking into. These are genuinely microphones that have been slightly modified to incorporate these beautiful balls of wool.
Georgia (22:48): Notice we've got cakes this week.
Adam (22:50): Yes, following an incident last week, if you saw online, you will have seen that I was accidentally talking into a [baaa] which I hadn't intended, but it-
Georgia (22:57): We're a family friendly podcast.
Adam (22:59): It was a beautiful skein of yarn from James Makes Things. If you want to sponsor a podcast, we are delighted to offer these sponsorship slots to anyone that wants to send us money and yarn. We love both of those things.
Georgia (23:12): do a little spot where we, you know, it's a nice opportunity to showcase smaller independent dyers as well as we've got some Malabrigo here. I've kept the Sea Slug again this week because I have a couple of hanks of Sea Slug that have been sat there. I'm waiting to figure out what I want to make with them. I think I've figured it out now.
Adam (23:25): But I'm featuring this week a fantastic yarn made by Bilum and they make incredible fades. In a single skein they have fades which go over 500 meters or even 800 meters sometimes which are just in a single skein to do that. They come pre-wound and I'm ready to go and I absolutely love Bilum yarns.
Georgia (23:45): And yeah, they haven't sponsored this but we both really love them. I mean you've actually knitted with it before I just love them because they're basically the only Hungarian yarn producer– So and my husband's Hungarian. So yeah big big love for Bilum
Adam (23:59): So there we go. If you want to be in this spot, then just get in touch with us. You can definitely contact me, adam@cambridgeyarn.com or reach out to either one of us on Instagram.
Adam (24:09): So the group challenge, you alluded to that, the 80s challenge. I loved this challenge. It was much more exciting for me than the sofa. So again, to recap for audiences that may not have seen the show, the nine remaining contestants were divided into three groups of three and were each challenged to produce an 80s sweater or jumper or whatever you want to call it in your local region. And they were given sort of an 80s pattern and then they had to make it in mohair. So it had to be 80s style, motifs and patterns and it had to incorporate intarsia. For those that don't know, intarsia is a way of having a picture of colour or block of colour within a background of other knitting.
Georgia (24:52): Where you don't have to carry the floats all the way around. You sort of twist the yarn as you're coming from one colour to another and you leave that little pod there. And then when you come back to it, because you're doubling back, you can knit intarsia in the round, but it's generally in a flat piece of fabric. So you keep picking up the colour and you knit the rows. So there's a lot of careful planning, which we got to see a little bit of in the show. We saw different results with that intarsia.
Adam (25:17): Well, I mean, the first thing that happened is that they told you who the teams were going to be and then basically cut to these little interviews with each of the contestants. And Meadow came out with first, "I'm not too experienced in colour. This is my first time doing intarsia." And at that moment, my heart sunk. And I either thought we are about to see a truly remarkable knitter.
Georgia (25:39): A miracle.
Adam (25:40): A miracle. A miracle to be able to produce intarsia. Or not. It is a– intarsia is something that, I mean, I've done it a few times. I haven't knitted for long enough to be experienced in anything, but intarsia is not straightforward. There is always something to catch you out. Consistent tension between the two colours that you're working with, like being mindful of the holes that you can create, all the rest of it. It is a–
Georgia (26:07): I really felt for her because I've always been a bit of a daredevil knitter in the sense that often when you don't have a context for what's dare-ish and what's not, you just go for things you like. And I knitted an intarsia jumper pretty early on in knitting for me when it wasn't a place for the skills involved to be comfortable, both in actually making the jumper itself and doing the intarsia. And was a lovely zebra. It's the one that I had to redo the collar on three times. And then my niece never got it and I'm basically saving it for you know when I maybe have a child in the future or find a child that can can wear it because I did so much to make this happen because knitting intarsia for the first time in a garment like that I've done it I didn't have to do it in timed conditions and I certainly wasn't doing it with mohair and so it felt like the beginning of the end.
Adam (26:57): Yeah, it was just very, very difficult to watch then, I mean for me because that was trying to do something for the first time as a competition–
Georgia (27:05): I think also the thing we didn't mention as well about the dog challenge was the twisted stitches. Just to recap, in the dog challenge, she was knitting away and the judges came over and said, oh, you've used a twisted stitch here. Is there a reason for that? And she said, no, no, no, that's just the way I've always knitted. The voiceover was interesting. It said, this happens when you unintentionally put the needle through the back of the stitch. And it's not always unintentional because you do sometimes use it for a certain reason. saying that it's always a mistake, I think again is one of those producing decisions that wasn't quite accurate. But anyway, it was one of these funny examples where actually you can be all the way into a knitting show, kind of like with Dipti in the, I've never knitted stranded colour work before. You can be all the way into a knitting show and then find out something.
Adam (27:55): So I'm gonna go on a massive segue here because this is something I was gonna try and save till the end so it wasn't such of a detour. But let's cover it now because, so my initial reaction was how on earth has this happened? Because I know that there were thousands of people that applied for the show, getting on for 100 that were actually auditioned. I know that there were timed tests and so on. So all of their knitting would have been observed before getting on the competition. So it will have been a known thing that she, knitted with twisted stitches. That won't have been a surprise. And it was also commented by people spotted that in episode one. I saw comments online that her panel that she knitted of the sofa was knitted with twisted stitches. So yes, some of you have got exceptional eyes to have picked that out, but well done. So it was a known factor. And then we come on to, well, if she's going to get thrown off for that, then she has been then selected for the purpose of having a reason. I'm not going that far. But it made me question also about, well, what experience level would you expect to be at the point where you find out that you've knitted with twisted stitches? And I've got a little anecdote here, which goes back to when I took a knitting class in New York, I was at Vogue Knitting Live, and I really enjoyed taking classes and learning new things, but I wanted to really challenge myself. So I filtered all the classes available for expert level. There were four levels. Don't spill your tea. There were four levels of knitting competence that you could be, beginner, intermediate, advanced or expert.
Georgia (29:29): I think we'd make a lot of money if we could just sell Adam's confidence in a little tablet form.
Adam (29:34): So I went into all of the expert level classes and what was fascinating in there, so obviously you're surrounded by extraordinarily competent knitters and one of those knitters, it turned out in a class of doing some advanced level brioche– expert level, sorry.
Georgia (29:51): Some advanced level brioche. (flicks hair)
Adam (29:54): I'm not just advanced, I'm expert level brioche. But one of the people there twisted their stitches and just couldn't get back out of it. I would say I don't know for certain for that person, but most of the people in the room had knitted for 30 or 40 years. You know, I think you can go for most of your life without ever knowing that you twist stitches and know why it's a problem.
Georgia (30:15): And also she had learnt to knit from her grandmother and I can totally see how, you I learnt to knit from my grandmother. I can totally see how if that's just how her grandmother knitted and everyone else knitted and you just kept doing it. I think I've heard other people talk about it on podcasts. I mean, you just, there was something we said last week about, it was about Dipti and the stranded colourwork. Like how do you get to a knitting show not having done the strands of colourwork? You don't know what you don't know until you find out that you do not know it. And looking at craft practices, observing people, observing how they build skills, knowledge, how skill acquisition works, how learning works. There's a sort of an idea, it's not unique to craft, but it comes up a lot about tacit knowledge and not necessarily recognizing certain things when you're in the midst of your practice. So if, think about when you're, if you've ever taught somebody to knit or you've tried to help someone with a certain skill or a technique and you try to describe it, but you're so used to doing it yourself that you can't articulate it. And you know you've got that knowledge, it's sort of embodied, but it's so close to you. It's so proximal, which is another kind of concept that's connected. It's a proximal knowledge, a proximal awareness that you don't know how to explain it. And I think that all of that gets really tangled up when you start to think about this twisted stitch thing, because you just don't know what you don't know. And if you look at someone's work, it's so hard when you've got a craft that you've learned intergenerationally that's been passed down, that the way that it's embedded and you could say woven into your making your physical movement the craft, you're just not necessarily going to perceive that thing.
Adam (31:53): So then the other thing about poor Meadow, we're leaning into just talking about Meadow to start with, but she realised that she'd screwed something up with how she was knitting the pattern. And I think I would have done exactly the same as her at that point. I could not have sat there any longer and she walked out and I would have had to walk out for air as well because that would have just been... The pain of having this is something wrong is tremendous.
Georgia (32:21): Especially in a group project. This was back in the group project.
Adam (32:24): Exactly. And I suppose also knowing that Gordon made a mistake, which was potentially something that he had to rip back last week, you know, knowing that your options are going to rip it back and you're not going to finish. Or- basically she'd made the shoulder on the wrong side of the panel. I just think that was a heartbreaking moment. But then the group pulled it back so well! I was excited by that. I thought, you know, how are they going to create straps and all the rest of it? And unfortunately it was only pinned in the end. It wasn't, they didn't manage to knit it into a garment. It's relatively a straightforward mistake to make. My heart really went out to Meadow at that point.
Georgia (33:06): And I like how no one turned on her. Oh, of course it's a group of knitters, no one's gonna turn on her, but no one turned on her. And also I think the editing also put it to be as Ailsa has knitted it this way, Meadow's knitted it this way, and they're not gonna join up in the middle. So the onus wasn't put on Meadow specifically. That's kind of the reading we got.
Adam (33:23): Yeah, I mean, it was very much how it was portrayed because I don't know whether it was her or that it may have been Ailsa who made the mistake, but they very clearly made it out to be Meadow.
Georgia (33:32): Yeah. But I think because Meadow did bring it up in the previous episode, Meadow is the only person who in the show has come out and said she was autistic. For someone who I have ADHD and was diagnosed as an adult and needing to step out and actually kind of the overwhelmed, the heightened emotions that you can experience with neurodiversity as a fellow neurodivergent person was kind of reading that situation and thinking, I'm really glad that she was able to do that. And then she didn't force herself through, through that situation. Yeah, I think generally knitters tend to be very understanding kind people. And I think about when I've had my own frustrations or overwhelms and I've been with knitting friends.
Adam (34:12): They're normally very good. I will say that I think there are going to be fireworks because Tracy and Holger together, that was a magical combination, which I cannot wait to see more of. Those are two.
Georgia (34:24): They're gonna keep putting them back together, aren't they?
Adam (34:26): I think they have to because the dynamics of those two are so different and they have such different goals in knitting in terms of how they want to work and what they want to achieve. Tracy and Holger just are like they're just in a way polar opposites and just–
Georgia (34:43): Shall we have podcast merch that just says "Team Holger"?
Adam (34:48): It could be available by the end of the week. I might try that. But I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Tracy's way of doing it, but it was just the fact that she wanted to put glitter on everything.
Georgia (34:59): Embellishments.
Adam (35:00): Embellishments and sequins and all the rest of it.
Georgia (35:03): So for context, they're knitting this jumper, they're coming up with the design. And Holger again, basically anything that Holger seems to be touching is giving clarity of concept, it's giving excellence, it's giving beauty. And he comes up with this great design, he comes up with a way to do intarsia, like a checkerboard intarsia that is straightforward, it's not going to be a big complex image motif like the other ones with the curves. It was, you know, it's great. You know, thanks Holger. And we've got Lydia there also contributing, we've got Tracy there and Tracy's like, "yeah, we can add embellishments". And Holger's just like, "umm, no." And there's a bit of back and forth where Holger's really kind of trying to ground them in, think just having a clean look, clarity, and maybe with some silver down there. And ribbons, I've got lots of ribbons. And it reminded me of when I was in school, and bear in mind, I went on to be a composer. I think there was a specific moment where I was having to work in a pair – emphasis on the having to – working a pair in my music lesson and I was working with a person who kept saying, "we should do this and yeah, I want to, why don't we use this?" And for me, even though I didn't play an instrument, didn't have that kind of, I didn't read music or anything, but I just had such a sense, an innate sense of where the music fit, where it went and got put down on the screen in these different blocks. And I was just having such strong reactions to this boy saying, oh yeah, let's just put an embellishment, put an embellishment there and a bit of silver. And I went and asked the teacher if I could work on my own. And then I became a composer, everyone. So it was an awkward...
Adam (36:44): So unfortunately, the guitar jumper which Meadow's team was working on, that was the one that didn't work the most. That was that they placed that in third out of the three designs. Really, it was absolutely fair that it was in third place because the intarsia, as done by someone who had never done intarsia before, it was a very valid first attempt. But there were, as you would always seeing someone's first intarsia, there were very substantial holes where you have the joins between the two yarns. That is, you have to do it, you have to get it wrong before you understand how to do it right. And unfortunately that was then part of why that one just didn't work out.
Georgia (37:29): And I think kind of going back to the sofa challenge before where you had that one strong concept of the strips and then you also had the sunset challenge. I feel like we were kind of watching the same thing happen. So there was Isaac Simon and Dipti's group who did this, you know, balloons jumper, which is a bit more successful in intarsia-wise and in design, but they still didn't get those kind of curves in the intarsia when you choose a curved design.
Adam (37:55): Just to defend them there, I mean, they weren't given an opportunity to block it to shape, so...
Georgia (38:03): Blocking can't save everything. So I feel like both of those groups were led by an idea as opposed to making an idea that was embedded and embodied within material constraints, time constraints, skill constraints within the practicalities. And again, we have Holger's group going for something, a design that took those material considerations into account. And these are the two groups kind of similar to the sunset thing, we're like, let's do a guitar, let's do balloons. And then everything backwards from that is a process of compromise towards simplicity. Whereas with Holger and Tracy and Lydia, particularly that the back and forth between Holger and Tracy over the embellishments, it was a question of, do we add more? But it was a group, it's like, we've got to take out stuff.
Adam (38:53): Well, I mean, the other thing I would say from a team dynamics point of view, again, we don't get into all of the rules. I don't know if there had to be intarsia on every panel, but I personally, I'd, so if I'd been on that team, Stephanie, Meadow and Ailsa, I would have said to Meadow, well, why don't you do a sleeve? Why didn't you do the sleeves? And let's put another feature on that and not have any intarsia just because it was too much of a risk.
Georgia (39:18): The two people that she had working with her were lovely Ailsa who's never going to challenge her and a life coach who wants you to be empowered!
Adam (39:24): Yeah, but I'm sorry. I mean, that's just where you have to work with a team that what they can do and that.
Georgia (39:30): Of course Stephanie's going to empower you towards your dream. She's a life coach.
Adam (39:35): Well, let's just... bah. Shall we wrap up with some feelings on the show? I mean, overall... So at the end of that, Holger came out on top. I mean, he was massively celebrated as the– We've still got the Big Knitter. He was Big Knitter of the week and the...
Georgia (39:49): You came up with on, to be fair, last week I had a big go at Big Knitter, right? And lots of people have said it's supposed to be Big Hitter. And I actually meant to look up like origins of Big Hitter as a phrase to see which side of the pond in terms of the UK or the US that it became more of a thing. I don't think it's as much of a common phrase here. So it's not been immediately obvious to me.
Adam (40:10): I will say a lot of you got in touch with me to talk about the podcast and I would say the biggest piece of feedback that resonated with you is that you agreed that Big Knitter was not a suitable name. So I'm just gonna reiterate that it's not the right thing to call it.
Georgia (40:28): But then I haven't been able to actually think of a better one.
Adam (40:31): You know what, I'm really cross with myself because I have got several nominations from people and I'm not going to read them out.
Georgia (40:36): So that was what I was going to suggest is actually if you've got any ideas please write into us or– write into us and we don't quite have a PO box just yet.
Adam (40:47): No, we're working on one. We should have an email by the end of the week, but probably we just don't have it yet.
Georgia (40:51): But send us comments, messages. We want to know, we want to come up with another name for Big Knitter. And there's got to be one out there that is actually like, you know, catchy and punny and yeah.
Adam (41:05): I mean, we can absolutely do better than that. So Holger was Big Knitter. And then in terms of the person that left, that was Meadow. It was very sad to see her go. I felt terribly sorry for her. And that was the show.
Adam (41:20): Can we talk about the show overall, please? Because, this is, listeners might want to remember that this is a knitting competition, but the enormous point of contention is that... What are you doing, including crochet in a show where you're describing it as Britain's best knitter? What does crocheting have to do with being a knitter?
Georgia (41:42): I've been reminded by some comments recently, and this kind of recontextualizes Dipti's involvement a little bit maybe. The original listing for the show was calling for knitters and crocheters.
Adam (41:54): Well, it's interesting you say that, Georgia.
Georgia (41:56): Was it? Because that's what I saw in a comment recently, and I remember when they were recruiting for it, and I remember reading it. I can't quite remember, don't quote me on this, but as someone got through, like Dipti, who's an experienced crocheter, and then they're like, mm, yeah, so actually we're gonna take the show in a different direction.
Adam (42:12): No, I'm sorry to correct you. I went back and I looked at all of their original PR statements, all of their official calls to find contestants.
Georgia (42:22): With the Wayback Machine?
Adam (42:23): With the Wayback Machine and I know that they only referenced knitting and it was only– so the initial call was only knitting, which makes me confused because Dipti makes the comment, "I'm a massive fan of crochet, but I'm not that good at knitting." And you were right last week, like she is a crocheter, but I don't have a problem with this being a general fibre arts competition, but I have a massive issue with it being called Britain's Best Knitter, and then it's got elements of crochet.
Georgia (42:54): Sometimes if you were putting that out there, it could be sounding like we're trying to privilege knitting over crochet. If anything for me, it's about each of those two crafts having their own distinct terminology, their own respect, their own narrative, their own community. And of course those two communities are very much connected, but there's also a great deal of history and culture within these respective disciplines and mixing them up willy-nilly–
Adam (43:19): I think the difficulty for me is that if you conflate the two, you confuse people coming into the craft for the first time.
Georgia (43:27): Yes, this is what I mean.
Adam (43:28): And it's such a great opportunity to bring people into the craft. And having a TV show is an amazing opportunity for the craft to increase its reach.
Georgia (43:36): Well, that's it. I think people wanted it to be, they wanted it to be something different. It's like recently there was that video, we're really hitting the controversies today, the video, the Hank Science video (Vike, 2025). And I think it was Wool Needles Hands (2025), maybe, but sorry if I'm misquoting someone else. She suggested that actually one of the reasons that people were particularly upset about it, alongside all of the horrible tone in the way that he delivered the information. There were all kinds of mistakes in it. But actually there was a genuine, truthful heartache almost that an opportunity for knitting to have that kind of platform, that kind of outreach, and it was not better than it was. And they had such an opportunity with that Hank video to really share some very, very cool stuff about knitting's relationship to physics, about knowledge of women. And the video didn't hit that mark. And that was a big upset that it could have been so much better. So was a grief for something that wasn't– For me in this Game of Wool situation, I'm kind of feeling that a bit as well, that like it had the opportunity to be so much better.
Adam (44:43): I mean, this is the thing that, in a way, think the show, if you look at it overall, is probably made more for non-crafters than for crafters. And that is its broad appeal. And it's brilliant that it is trying to do that. I just think it's absolutely tragic that they're calling it Britain's Best Knitter when actually, you know, it is a test of crochet as well. And I want to say some of the crochet that was done last night was absolutely phenomenal. I'm getting hung up on terminology and I don't want to spend more time talking about it.
Georgia (45:12): We're gonna talk more about terminology I think in the next episode because terminology is super important when you're dealing with crafts because you need to preserve meaning of things. I think the point we're trying to make or that I'm trying to make and I think you're also trying to make is that when you've got a show that's going to have a lot of people watching it, that could be their only connection, a passing connection to knitting, to crochet. You've got to be very careful. It's a responsibility to share a craft. It's a responsibility to share these people's joy and culture and if you do that carelessly in the sort of a bite size inaccurate way, that's all that people will think now about crochet and knitting and you don't get another chance to correct that.
Adam (45:49): I completely agree. I, know, as everyone probably knows, I'm a knitter, not a crocheter. That's how I describe myself. Although I technically can be bistitchual, but– thanks for the snigger, Georgia. Georgia's seen my crochet, I guess.
Georgia (46:03): No, bistitchual. I just forgot about that term. In rowing, they do a similar thing where if you can row on both sides of the boat, they call it being bisweptual. And bistitchual. That's what I was sniggering at. Not at your crochet ability.
Adam (46:16): Which is also laughable. How did you feel about Episode 2 versus Episode 1?
Georgia (46:20): Ahh night and day.
Adam (46:21): It was very much. I mean Episode 2 was kind of as you expect and I find the same with Bake Off and another whittle shows.
Georgia (46:30): A whittle show? A whittle down show?
Adam (46:32): A whittle format show doesn't lend itself well to both showing all of the competition that you have to do in the first episode and being able to give background on everyone. And that's the problem with it. And so yeah, there's big fuss about the first show not being great and lo and behold, second show comes storming through with a blinder. It fantastic episode.
Georgia (46:53): Yeah, they found their rhythm I think. We mentioned this a little bit earlier but I think we got into a bit of a rhythm. Thankfully they didn't, they weren't including any kind of endangered crafts this week, so any endangered knitting practices.
Adam (47:05): The but well, I'll just correct you there Georgia because they did include the slightly endangered knitting craft of crochet.
Georgia (47:13): The knitting craft of crochet.
Adam (47:15): Well that's what the call it, it's the search for the country's best knitter isn't it? And they're using crochet. So, I don't know how they're going to square that one.
Georgia (47:24): I do get that they're sort of adjacent skills in the sense that you the crochet needles are next to the knitting needles– the crochet hooks are next to the knitting hooks– knitting needles in the knitting shops in the yarn shops
Adam (47:36): If we're go back to the very origins of the craft though, then crochet was the first-
Georgia (47:44): I don't- I'm not- I'm not comfortable to go into these details without doing my due diligence to make sure that we are communicating accurate information when it comes to the history of textile craft. I'm just gonna defer this conversation and kick it down the road.
Adam (48:01): That's fair enough, but I just got that from a book that you told me to read.
Georgia (48:05): Which one?
Adam (48:06): I have got no idea which one.
Georgia (48:08): Look who can't deliver their referencing now!
Adam (48:11): Yeah, there's a very good reason I didn't take a PhD, Georgia. But so from what I understood from the excellent book that you recommended that I can't remember the author name or year it was published, was that–
Georgia (48:26): The publisher location as well. The city of the publisher.
Adam (48:28): Are we supposed to quote ISBN numbers these days? Goodness knows...
Georgia (48:30): The DOI quite often, the DOI for online source.
Adam (48:33): You're talking another language at this point. The origin of crochet is believed to be, or at least this source that I read that you put me onto. So it was used to form fishing nets and then they used a hook to bring together stitches to make fishing nets. And that's where crochet originated from.
Georgia (48:51): Oh, I think I know which book you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. There is also, so it's something I wanted to bring up on the crochet front. I had a lovely message from someone who is doing a research project, just starting out looking at regional crochet techniques and trying to, I think, account for them, write them down, preserve them. It sparked a memory for me. I just came back from a trip to Dublin, which reminded me that a while ago on a podcast, a knitting podcast, I heard somebody talk about the stigma around crochet had some origins in stigma and prejudice towards Irish people because of Irish lace work. But– okay, I don't want you to quote me on this story. I'm putting this out as a sharing thing because I want to try and find the podcast episode and there's a whole, there are all kinds of reasons that it's difficult to find craft resources and often those unfortunately get attributed to, oh they're not accurate, they're not peer-reviewed, they're not legit enough, they're not published enough. If memory serves, this was someone talking about a legit source of information and I can't for the life of me know or remember or I don't know what that source was. So if you do know and if that's ringing a bell, please, please let me know because I'm fascinated by that and I think it's something that we really need to talk about when we think about this kind of hierarchy of knitting and crochet that actually if you start to unpack these kinds of views or perceptions of things from the historical precedent and the historical connections with them, it gives you a very, very different perspective on things. So again, please don't quote me on that story. I am putting it out there. I wanna find that original source and I wanna figure out if I was actually just dreaming it, which I have a lot of craft dreams. So maybe that is the case.
Adam (50:47): Hopefully someone out there is going to connect with us and help you find that Georgia. Can we talk about what we're looking forward to in the upcoming episode?
Georgia (50:55): What are we looking forward to? Because I forgotten. I've actually completely forgotten what's in the next challenges.
Adam (51:01): One of the things that I'm looking forward to as part of a whittle series is...
Georgia (51:05): I just can't... "A whittle down!"–
Adam (51:08): My whittle series is that we went through ten... Initially in the team challenges there were ten people divided into two teams. Nine divides by three, eight divides by two. We have two teams of four. That's what will happen next week. But then we get to seven. How are they going to divide seven contestants? That's what I'm... That's what I'm... The mathematician in me and...
Georgia (51:26): Prime numbers!
Adam (51:27): And five. I'm sure when we get to only three left there won't be... Surely can't be a team. I don't know.
Adam (51:33): Maybe they'll all have to do something as part of the seven and the five. I bet I'm fascinated to see that. In terms of what we're going to see next week, we've got swimsuits for Team GB
Georgia (51:43): Oh my goodness yes! YES! So what will we see?
Adam (51:45): So what we've seen already, other than the bare flesh, is– we've seen crochet in that as well knit. So crochet is definitely back on the scene again. And the team challenge is crochet a deck chair. So I think that looked like it was just the material lining, the rest of the deck chair, the wooden frame was still wood. I mean, I'm excited to see that. I've also seen a clip online where I think Tom Daley falls through the crochet deck chair. So I think I'm looking forward to seeing that unravel. But that I'm definitely looking forward to. I can't wait for Episode 3 coming out this Sunday, 8 o'clock, Channel 4.
Georgia (52:23): I feel like we're into a new rhythm. I think we're starting to get into the fun cheeky rhythm and also seeing Tom Daley around other athletes, aquatic athletes no less, in aquatic wears will be quite the, yes well it certainly beats the Simplicity Cremations vibe of last week. I mean there were so many problems of last week but we're looking forward to future challenges.
Adam (52:45): It will certainly be titillating. And in terms of adverts, yes, for those of you who want to know and who didn't get to watch the show but are keen to hear about the adverts, we had one menopause advert, we had one funeral advert.
Georgia (52:58): Tampax as well. Yes, there was Tampax. Yeah, so we are hitting the demographics, but at least it was a little bit broader. And I feel like the Co-op funeral care advert was not as in your face. You could blink and not even realize it was a funeral care advert. So they're learning. They're learning. That's all we can say.
Adam (53:11): Maybe, maybe they've heard our feedback. Who knows? Thank you so much for listening to this week's podcast of Yarn Library, where we talked about Game of World. I've been Adam Cleevely of CleevelyKnits.
Georgia (53:29): And I've been Georgia Denham of Tulipurl.
Adam (53:32): Speak again soon!