Cast On

A culture of one sounds grand until it becomes a spreadsheet. Twenty garments, five categories, six with a date or a next step, and a lot of honest blank space. That is not failure. It is the handmade wardrobe becoming visible before it becomes finished: a map, not a shopping basket. The camp iron is funny because it is excessive; the spreadsheet is moving because it is exact, and exactness is a kind of hope, for once.

The proof is already in the room. The Pocket Skirt is a triumph, Cottage Core Fabric not withstanding.

Further back on the same road, the Billy Trousers, and the Mitchell.

Coming soon, Folkwear 263 Frockcoat, in the wool that has waited since 2012.

This is not a haul. You do not open a parcel and find your identity neatly folded inside. You name what you want, make one piece, learn from it, and make the next. The timeline is yours; the fabric does not expire. A handmade wardrobe containing what you need for the rest of your life is closer than it sounds, because closer does not mean complete. It means underway.

MUSIC

* Ripple, by Lane King

* Make You Mine, by Handsome and Gretyl

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Everyone has worn something that felt like them. In this episode, that feeling starts with a teenage pantsuit made by Brenda’s mother, and widens into the question Claire McCardell asked in What Shall I Wear?: what happens when a woman dresses from self-knowledge instead of trend? The pantsuit is not nostalgia. It is the first proof that clothes can give you yourself back, when someone made them with you in mind.

The stakes rise with Carol Tulloch, whose essay in The Culture of Sewing documents home dressmaking in the Jamaican community in Britain. The Windrush generation arrived dressed for the future they had been invited to build — handmade suits, dresses, skill, colour, intention — and met a country already deciding who belonged. Making clothes was not hobby there. It was self-definition under pressure.

Which brings the argument back to one length of coat-weight wool and camel hair bought at Mood in 2012, and the Folkwear 263 Frock Coat that finally knows what it wants to become. Thirteen years of waiting deserves the right pattern, not just any pattern. Making matters because the industry cannot sell you the version of yourself that only your own hands can build, properly and finally.

FURTHER READING

* Claire McCarddel, What Shall I Wear

* Carol Tulloch, The Culture of Sewing

* Einav Rabinovitch-Fox,Dressed for Freedom

MUSIC

* Let’s Get Lost — Instrumental, by WAX OWLS

* Long Way Home, by Prince of Spain

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The mirror didn’t care what I thought should be there. Steroids, weight, a body that changed without permission — none of that was the real difficulty. The difficulty was the gap: the distance between what the mirror showed and what I expected to see by now. That gap is where getting dressed stops being getting dressed and starts being negotiation.

Lakyn Carlton calls it expertise — knowing to the millimetre what hides and what shows, and choosing. The fitted answer is the Leo from Bella Loves Patterns, cut in a red cross-grain pinstripe cotton lawn from SR Harris: stand collar, full placket, a shirt that reads as authority. Narrow shoulders shift the armscye out of place — Sandra Betzina’s Fast Fit fixes it at the shoulder line. One alteration. Everything else follows.

The unfitted answer is the Jenna in autumn-coloured linen — volume as architecture, not surrender. Three trousers handle the lower half: the Mitchell for the long line, the Billy in grey crinkle linen from Misan for the days that want movement, the Pegs from episode two, nearly finished, for the proof of concept. On top, the Olya from Paper Theory in mustard geometric — the coordination layer. Big Love, the teal cardigan, tones with everything. The charcoal sweater’s replacement is coming; knitters do that.

Knowing exactly what you need is not denial — it’s craft applied to the specific problem of getting dressed in a body that changed.

MUSIC

* Evergreen — Instrumental, by UPPLAND

* Is What It Is, by Judah & the Lion

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Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy. It’s a joke until you do the maths. Eight complete sweaters-worths of yarn in DK and fingering weight alone, not counting the oddballs, the luxury fibre, or the container of 2-ply jumper weight — one 25g ball of every single colour Jamieson & Smith make. (Shut up. That was for research.)

The stash stopped being weight when it got a job. Three questions — what do I need, what do I want to wear, what do I want to make — and a capsule of twenty garments across five categories. Ghost in the Apple Orchard, the red tweed vest from Episode 1, is done. Big Love, the soft teal cardigan, needs its bind off. Gilliatt is on the last ball. The next knit — a December-not-Christmas jumper in claret Shepherd’s Wool Worsted — came from the stash, not the shop, because the plan said claret and the stash had claret.

Enough is not a number. It’s a relationship between what you have and what you’re making.

To Be of Use, the audio piece from A Knitter’s Manifesto, is what a garment’s full life sounds like — from the making through the wearing to the mending. Sound design by Dr Felicity Ford.

FURTHER READING

* Max Weber on consumerism / acquisition as virtue

* Glenn Adamson, Fewer, Better Things

* Moral licensing as the mechanism by which an ethical act becomes permission for more consumption

* Yanagi / mingei and the beauty of use

MUSIC

* Drop of Rain (Acoustic) — Instrumentalby sød ven

* Fly by Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors

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The quest for trousers that actually fit involved eBay-stalking vintage pattern drafting books - Flat Pattern Cutting and Modelling for Fashion (Helen Stanley, 1972), Pattern Drafting and Dressmaking (Dorothy Moore, 1971), Dress Pattern Designing (Natalie Bray, 1961) - a Craftsy class, and sixty hours of work that produced a toile so catastrophically wrong I couldn’t bend my knees to climb the stairs.

Cal Patch has spent years solving this from her studio in upstate New York - flat pattern drafting that starts with the body, not the size chart. This episode is a conversation with her about where the lightbulb turns on.

The other revolution arrives by YouTube: top-down-centre-out, originated by Ruth Collins and taught in Stacey Taylor’s free tutorial series, starts with the one thing every well-fitting pair of pants hangs on: the waistband.

The Pegs from Merchant & Mills are the making project - 1950s cut, high waist, narrowing to a turned-up cuff. The trousers aren’t finished. The method is sound.

FURTHER READING

* The 1958 US commercial sizing standard

* Ruth O’Brien & William Shelton’s 1941 WPA study on women’s body measurements

* The finding that approximately 8% of women have the hourglass proportions commercial patterns are graded for, Joy Spanabel Emery, A History of the Paper Pattern Industry

* The 2025 plus-size runway representation collapse

* Butterick’s 1863 graded tissue paper pattern - the first commercial sewing pattern

Music: Story of Our Lives by Tim Halperin

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Vinted used to feel like the internet version of a Naked Lady party: somebody else’s wrong thing becoming exactly what you needed, for a fiver and postage. Then the pro sellers arrived, the charity-shop stock moved online, and resale started to look less like an exit from fast fashion than another room inside it. A 2025 Yale study found the catch: people who buy second hand frequently also buy more new clothing.

So low impact gets practical. Ghost in the Apple Orchard, Brenda’s red vest, is yarn on its third life. Two cream Vinted blouses become responsibility rather than regret, with Portia Lawrie’sRe:Fashion Wardrobe as permission to look harder at what is already here: one blouse pointing toward the Reed Skirt, the other rescued with £3.20 of Fyberspates Gleem and a willingness to outwit bad quality control.

The larger cost is still there. Rana Plaza is not the hook, but it is the floor under the argument. Low impact is not purity, and it is not an escape route. It is attention: what do I need, what do I want to wear, what do I want to make — where did this come from, and who paid for it?

FURTHER READING

* Laura Edwards,Only the Clothes on Her Back

Music: Story, by Abigail Osborn

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Ghost in the Orchard. Four inches from done. I’d stare at the cable chart and the tiny squares would dance. Close my eyes. Open them. Over and over. The hands that made those cables could not remember how cables worked.

Endel Tulving‘s encoding specificity principle. Godden and Baddeley’s divers learning words underwater. Jonathan Spence‘s memory palace. And 60% of the total surface of our brains committed to our hands.

My second sweater - bricky red, carnelian buttons, the physical therapist who inadvertently retired it - became the Gaia Jacket from Jean Moss’s Sculptured Knits. Which became the red cabled vest I’m knitting now. Thirty years of memory in the same wool.

Serotonin stripped the filters. Melatonin locked the repair. Dopamine lit the paths. Norepinephrine broke the bridge. Memory is where it all comes home.

Music: Rore, Arrival; Waveshaper, Our Time (Instrumental)

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can do so via Ko-fi or Patreon, or by spreading the word to a fellow knitter.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://brendadayne.substack.com/subscribe

Tears in the kitchen. Three bananas on the counter and a recipe I know by heart but cannot, for the life of me, turn into a sequence of actions.

Seven ingredients. Too many decisions. My brain could not do seven. So I broke it down. Dry ingredients in one bowl. Wet in the other. Three and four. Manageable. The bread was good. I ate it in bed and felt unreasonably proud of myself.

The locus coeruleus is the brain’s attention control room. When norepinephrine depletes, everything arrives at equal volume. A dog barking becomes as important as the eggs.

An old friend helps out in the kitchen. And the moment when I realised the invisible labour I’d been doing for decades had only become visible because I could no longer do it.

Music: Jude Cosmo, Queen of Angeles; Waveshaper, Our Time (Instrumental)

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An Eye for an Eye - would the animals we eat, eat us? Impossible Hats. Box Hill Picnic, from Jane Austen’s Emma. Dangerous Questions, where the danger is yours, not your opponent’s. This is what insomniacs get up to at 3am while you are sleeping.

Kent Berridge coined the term incentive salience. When dopamine runs hot, everything arrives pre-lit with significance. The creativity wasn’t a symptom - it was genuine creative product on the “this matters” signal.

A desire path is a trail worn into the landscape by human feet. Not planned. Just walked so many times it becomes permanent. Some of mine are still here.

Also: the duck question has a better answer than you think. And the horses are not going to like it.

Music: Tony Anderson, One Perfect Sunset; Waveshaper, Our Time (Instrumental)

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can do so via Ko-fi or Patreon, or by spreading the word to a fellow knitter.

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From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, Nighthawk n. a recurring thought that only strikes you late at night. Mine struck every night for eight weeks.

Zopiclone is a sledgehammer. Daridorexant is a key. One imposes sleep. The other removes the obstacle to it. There’s a big difference, and finding it changed everything.

Also: Jasper as Big Spoon. An AI health czar who suggested I should just pour ethanol directly on my brain to save time. And the thing I found at 3am that stayed.

Music: Christopher Wohrle, Dust; Waveshaper, Our Time (Instrumental)

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Trimethoprim for a UTI. Seven days. By day three, everything was hysterically funny. By day five, I could hear things that weren’t there. By week two, I couldn’t track yarn overs in garter stitch. Garter stitch.

The projects on my needles when my brain broke Bradford Road, Dark Days, Ghost in the Orchard were beyond me for the next four months. The only thing that still worked was drop spindling. Hands remembered what the brain forgot. So I made yarn.

The weird pantry. Lexical-gustatory synaesthesia from folate antagonism - undocumented, as far as I can tell. There might be a paper in it. Hit me up if you want to write it. I documented everything.

This is the first episode of Your Brain on Knitting - five short episodes, designed to be listened to back to back. One broken brain. Four neurotransmitters. And the knitting woven through it all.

Music: Hannah Parrott, The Feeling; Waveshaper, Our Time (Instrumental)

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can do so via Ko-fi or Patreon, or by spreading the word to a fellow knitter.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://brendadayne.substack.com/subscribe

Zabava Shorties disasters. The signs were there. Sometimes, you need to break up with a sock pattern. “It’s not you, it’s me. I don’t like you anymore.” Meanwhile, the Peppermint Pocket Skirt delivers enormous pockets perfect for sock projects, and Ruth Collins’ Top Down Centre Out method might revolutionize trouser fitting.

The Bradford Road wrap progresses through garter rectangles. Big Love Cardigan waits for cooler weather. But sewing succeeded where knitting failed—the Peppermint Pocket Skirt (free collaboration between Peppermint Magazine and Paper Theory) paired beautifully with the Block Tee, with right angle sewing tutorial making construction straightforward.

The revelation: Ruth Collins’ Top Down Centre Out trouser fitting method. Begin with fitted waistband, construct single-leg toile, achieve proper fit without body-shaming adjustments. Demonstrated through Stacey Taylor’s free YouTube series at The Crooked Hem.

Beyond practical successes and failures: Robert Pirsig’s concept of Quality from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Through memories of 4-H sewing club and Claire Schaeffer’s couture techniques, we consider how sustained attention gets woven into handmade items’ structure. What happens when we show up fully present—whether adjusting carburetors or setting sleeves.

Music: Jim Fidler, Merrigan’s Reel; The Wilder Road, The Light the Heat; The National Parks, Who Knows

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It's been a week of finishes and new beginnings. Off the needles, I've completed a Malabrigo hat and love the color pooling. You don’t hear me say that very often.

I've finally finished my Amande socks—though I must say I rather hated working both the nupps and wrapped stitches techniques. Sometimes you have to try things to understand what you decidedly do not enjoy.

My new obsession is Big Love by ANKESTRIK, a top-down cardigan with fascinating construction that I'm knitting in gorgeous Gilliat yarn. The pattern begins with a provisional cast-on at the shawl collar, and I minimised the inevitable ribbing alignment issues by using a Turkish cast-on and knitting across the first row rather than working the ribbing pattern.

For the shoulders, I chose Chinese Waitress cast-on, which creates a lovely firm yet stretchy edge perfect for shoulder seams. The Ravelry community provided essential modifications—working the fronts two inches longer than the back prevents the sleeves from rotating forward due to the unusual construction.

Many knitters went up a size or two for the sleeves, so I did my own spot-checking for sleeve pickup. Remember: Your measurement x gauge (stitches per inch) = Number of stitches you need for your desired size.

This sweater connects to larger work I'm doing on a capsule collection based on my Changing Clothes manifesto. I've been thinking more intentionally about getting dressed—not for others' gazes but for my own comfort in what I call "Secret Pyjamas." The goal is creating sustainable, perfectly fitting garments made by hand, including finally tackling my Everest of well-fitted trousers.

Behind the scenes, I've moved podcast hosting to Substack after twenty years with Libsyn. Yes indeed, I’ve been podcasting since 2005. Where has the time gone?

Music: "Who Knows" by The National Parks

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can do so via Ko-fi or Patreon, or by spreading the word to a fellow knitter.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://brendadayne.substack.com/subscribe

Finishing socks, saving the yarn, new projects from old, planning the perfect colourwork sweater, plus a bit of theoretical physics to prove what knitters already know: knitting is magic.

Links and references:

* Admiral Hanf yarn by Schoppel Wolle

* Lang Jawoll sock yarn

* Chessmaster, by Christian Mattausch

* Amande, by Josephine and the Seeds

* Sophie Shawl by PetiteKnit

* Bradford Road Wrap, by Kristen Kapur

* Fox Paws, by Xandy Peters

* Soft Spot sweater by Elina Maaria

* ke21’s Soft Spot on Ravelry is one of the good ones

* Knitogami: Mechanics of knitted fabric as a curved surface(PNAS, April 2024)

* Dynamic Folding Knits: An exploration into self-folding and self-forming textiles, by Victoria Salmon

* Characterizing and predicting the self-folding behavior of weft-knit fabrics

* Handmade Lampshades, by Natalia Price-Cabrera

Music in this episode:

* Merrigan’s Reel – Jim Fidler

* That Thing That You Do – Cody Fry

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can do so via Ko-fi or Patreon, or by spreading the word to a fellow knitter.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://brendadayne.substack.com/subscribe

We travel from Iron Age fire-pits to mid-century homemaking manuals, consider the joys of stash organisation, and muse on the performative aspects of home decorating. There’s a deep dive into the ancient tradition of human-centred design through textiles, from spindle whorls to soft furnishings, a detour through the joys of vacuum bags and organza, a nod to Swedish Death Cleaning, and a look inside the Granny Cranny.

Books & Patterns

* Bojagi: Design and Techniques in Korean Textile Art by Sara CookA richly illustrated exploration of Korean wrapping cloths (bojagi), covering both traditional and contemporary piecing techniques used to create these beautifully translucent textiles.

* Knitting Fabric Rugs by Karen TiedeA practical guide to turning old clothing and fabric into sturdy, beautiful knitted rugs.

* Döstädning: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta MagnussonA wise and witty guide to decluttering, legacy, and letting go.

* Sophie Shawl by PetitKnitA minimalist garter stitch wrap that’s elegant, meditative, and endlessly wearable.

* Bradford Road Wrap by Louise TilbrookA cozy rectangular colour block shawl.

* Homerun Hat by Jonathon SuttonA clever design knit from the reclaimed yarn of a single baseball.

Check out Suzygirl’s Homerun Hat Huge thanks to her for allowing me to use her images.

Elsewhere

* Flash your stash in the comments, or tag me on BlueSky

* Granny Cranny Thread on Reddit

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Replenishing the sock drawer with Priory Socks (project page).

My Secret Circles, below.

Porthos (project page), below.

I moved my decreases to the back of the heel, and the result is similar to Basic Biarritz and the Kite Heel, yet is uniquely mine and oh, is it ever sexy. The joy of a well-fitting heel cannot be overstated.

The short row method used in Zabava Shorties is still, hands down, the best method I have found for toes. You'll find the method for Jeny's Square Peg Heel here.

Cat Bordhi's gusset lessons may be found in her book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters.

You can read my notes on Kiba Light on my project page.

Knit to The Dress Diary of Miss Ann Sykes, by Kate Strasdin (Bsky)

Music in this podcast:

* Merrigan's Reel, Jim Fidler

* Coming Home, Dalton Day

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In which an American Thanksgiving is celebrated in the UK, albeit a day late and a pumpkin pie short.

One of the first pieces of writing I recorded for Cast On in 2005, this has become one of my most popular podcasts. This particular version was rerecorded in 2011 for A Knitter’s Manifesto, and features sound design by artist, Felicity Ford.

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It’s autumn. Time for finishing projects, knitting socks and celebrating the impending winter by taking the sweaters out of storage. This one is all knitting, and I make no apologies.

I'm channelling my grief in the time-honoured tradition: by knitting all the things.

I am filling the sock drawer starting with a riff on Winter's Gift, by Amy Snell, using Autumn Leaves and Tarmac colours and a traditional Scandinavian motif. Followed by Follow the Fleet, by Don Yarmon; and Priory Socks, by Louise Tilbrook.

Riff Socks, by Lise Brackbill and Toe-up Socks with Fleegle Heel, by Nitro Knitters, are waiting in the wings. Yes, that's a lot of socks on the go, but they're all necessary.

It's time to add twin stitch and triple stitch to your bag of knitting tricks. (The method is also known as Shadow Wrap Short rows.) Here's how you make twin stitches on the knit side andon the purl side.

There is still time this year to knit your own Clapotis '24 and participate in the massive ClapotisFest Contest (which I somehow forgot to mention while recording). I'm knitting my latest in handspun Shetland yarn made from Fellview Fibres gradient rolags.

My Kiba Waistcoat is on the back burner while I hunt for another skein of the discontinued yarn or choose an alternative in which to work the side panels. Do check out the project gallery. I wasn't kidding when I said this garment looks great on everybody.

Lastly, my new main project is Ghost in the Orchard by Thea Colman. I used Tillybuddy cast on for this one, and I'll have much to say about that in the next podcast. Once it became my main project, I worked this vest to the underarms in about a week. The yarn is Donegal Tweed, which was many other things before it became this vest.

Music in this podcast:

Jim Fidler, Merrigan’s Reel

Layup, Who You Share it With

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Off the needles and on; Tour de Fleece wrap up; notes from the production line; a new bag; a new spindle; good materials; and Bennet’s Boiled Potatoes.

Compared to some, mine was a paltry Tour de fleece output, still... I made time for fibre, and it did kickstart my spinning, which had been dormant since the move. I talked about Fellview Fibre rolags and my new spalted Beech drop spindle from Raven's Flight UK (the shop is empty at present, but the seller is worth a follow); rolags and batts from Etsy seller ReaderArts (currently on holiday); a half a bobbin's worth of Llanwenog; Cheers! You'll find Scintillation and Christmas Lights on Ravelry.

Noodlehead bags are awesome. I'm using the Making Backpack pattern, but they're all good, according to my sister, Pam. And Pam knows.

When I'm done with the backpack, I get to paint my kitchen in Farrow and Ball Dorset Cream. I'm looking forward to it.

Get your own Bennet Family Excellent Boiled Potatoes Tote

Music in this podcast by:

Jim Fidler, Merrigan's Reel

Sofia, Good Times

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Knitting the slowest sock in the history of sock knitting. Tour de Fleece. The merits of taking small steps vaguely in the direction a goal. I’m thinking about style again, and looking for systems.

David Kibbe’s Metamorphosis: Discover Your Image Identity and Dazzle as Only You Can is one of the worst titles ever. And, yes, the price of this book is insane. Fortunately, there’s not long to wait until his book comes out. The publication date is 7 January 2025.

If you can’t wait to start your style journey, you can download a scanned copy of Metamorphasis here.

Obstinate, headstrong girls can get their Tees from The Spark Company

Music in this podcast:

Merrigan’s Reel, Jim Fidler

Right Where I Belong, Atlantic Runway

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://brendadayne.substack.com/subscribe