#100 - This is how one person, a mic, and a messy creative mind made it to 100 episodes 🥳

SUMMARY

It’s a special one—episode 100! In this celebratory and cozy episode, I take you behind the scenes of how Pattern Shift came to be, how it has evolved, and what I’ve learned over five years of podcasting. From awkward beginnings and unexpected pivots to heartfelt listener stories and slow growth reflections, this episode is full of gratitude, reflection, and a few eclairs.

If you’ve ever wondered how a small podcast like this gets made—and what keeps it going—this one’s for you.

FULL SHOW NOTES WITH TAKEAWAYS + LINKS: patternshift.fm

BEST QUOTE FROM THE EPISODE

“I wanted to make a podcast that actually helps people… and I felt like interviews with famous knitters is great and entertaining and also can be very helpful… but there were already podcasts doing that.” 

⚡︎

You know me as a guide, mentor and teacher, but I've also set off on a new adventure, coaching. Coaching, when it's done right, it can be really transformational. As part of my coaching education, I'll soon need to do real coaching sessions. And it could be a really great opportunity for you to experience this at low cost. If you've ever been curious about working with me in this way, now's the time. Just send me an email: info@ja-wol.com

This episode was sponsored by Ja, Wol. I promote my o

 You know me as a guide, mentor and teacher, but I've also set off on a new adventure, coaching. Coaching gets a bad rep sometimes, but when it's done right, it can be really transformational. As part of my coaching education, I'll soon need to do real coaching sessions. And it could be a really great opportunity for you to experience it at no or low cost. If you've ever been curious about working with me in this way, now's the time. Just send me an email: info@ja-wol.com

This summer, I'm hosting a playful and peaceful journaling challenge. I've called BuJo By The Sea. 

This is for you. You'll get six weeks of gentle prompts plus a cozy space to share and reflect with fellow creatives in the Ja, Wol Community – if you choose so– you can also get these prompts just in your email box. It starts July 19th, and you can sign up through jawol.myflodesk.com/bujobythesea 

Chapters

• 0:00 Celebrating 100 Episodes
• 5:14 The Evolution of Pattern Shift
• 9:36 Podcasting Behind the Scenes
• 19:55 Building a Community of Makers
• 28:51 From Interviews to Valuable Content
• 38:06 Looking Forward and Giving Thanks
• 47:05 Special Thanks to Long-Time Supporters

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Yay, it's the 100th episode. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. I can't believe I got here 100 produced episodes of my podcast. It was called A Smaller Life Before. It's called Pattern Shift Now, but the fact of the matter is I managed to get 100 episodes out there. I'm so excited to celebrate this with you. It's just going to be a very chill celebrational episode. Have fun.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Hey and welcome to Pattern Shift, the podcast for fiber-loving business owners shaping a slower, more sustainable world. I'm Saskia, a creative business coach and support guide for makers, teachers, designers and indie shop owners in the needle and fiber arts. I help you way, find your next step, organize your business to fit your life and launch ideas with joy and action. Let's untangle the yucky bits like branding, marketing and sales and build something sustainable, soulful and truly you. So grab your favorite brew tea, coffee or, you know, brujhlarich and let's shift the pattern one stitch at a time.

Speaker 1: 1:15

So it's wild 100 episodes together, you and me whether you've been listening since the very first episode, any of you out there. Is there anyone who has listened to all the episodes? I'm so curious. Please let me know. Perhaps this is the first ever episode for you. It's going to be a little bit different, so you can either hang in here and celebrate with me, with us, or go to another episode that's more like regular. I'm gonna kind of wing it. I've written down some things. I am just so grateful that you've been part of this creative journey. It's awesome.

Speaker 1: 2:01

So I wanted to start out by thanking you to just say how amazing it is to know that you've been here listening, or you are here now listening, and I know that my podcast is is. It's not tiny, it does well, but it's also not a big podcast. But if I imagine the size of the room where the stage is and how many people fit in there and how many people are listening, and then imagining myself on that stage for that amount of people is just really giving me stage fright. And the great thing about podcasting is you don't need to have stage fright because there's actually no stage. Well, there is, but I cannot see all of you, which is great, but it's also it can get really lonely sometimes because you don't get direct feedback but also not a lot of emails, like I would have thought more people would be interested in, I don't know reaching out, asking questions, saying things like having feedback positive or negative but surprisingly that doesn't really happen. And when it happens, people will say things like I didn't want to bother you because I imagine you have so many emails to answer. Well, people I keep saying I don't and I don't. I'm not ashamed of it, I just want to. I want to really ask you to do that kind of thing, cause I mean, if you're listening and I'm making this, we have a connection. So you are welcome in my mailbox, just putting it out there. So thank you so much for being here and I've been thinking I should have perhaps maybe recorded this on video and made a YouTube video about it, but I'm not ready. I'm not ready. It feels so cozy just to be here in front of my computer with my mic and I can tell you after a 100 episodes it doesn't feel that weird anymore. It did in the beginning. Oh my God, like the first, I don't know, the first 20 something episodes. I felt so weird just talking into air, into nothing. I don't feel that weird anymore. It kind of feels natural now. So all that just to say that all these things that are weird at first can become natural. It's a muscle you flex. You just practice, practice, practice and you get better at it.

Speaker 1: 5:21

I don't ever listen back to my episode unless I do the editing. So I record and then, if I have time, I edit it right away. For some reason. That's not annoying because it's very technical. I just decide which ums to leave, which ums to cut out, which double takes to cut out, which weird jokes to leave in, and yeah, it's a kind of it doesn't feel weird.

Speaker 1: 5:54

But it does feel weird to me to go and casually listen back to an old episode. I don't do that at all, so I have no idea what they would sound like and if they're any different. If I've grown as a podcaster, I have no idea. So yeah, wow, I just want to make this episode I don't know cozy. So I guess I'm just going to sit, sit nice and comfortable, and I'm going to ask you to do the same. So I hope you have something in your hands. Okay, that was weird. I hope you have a nice drink and maybe a light snack, or maybe not so light snack. Maybe you have a I don't know an eclair. I love eclairs, they're my favorite.

Speaker 1: 6:49

But, I want the like, the Belgian ones, the ones with the yellow, like yellow filling Okay, drifting off Eclairs. So I hope you have, you're comfortable and you have a project that you're working on, or perhaps you're on your way into work or you're folding your laundry. Let's just imagine that you and I are in a cafe and we're hanging out and we're chatting and I basically do all this hockey about my podcast. Is that weird? No, it's not. I mean, it's been five years, five years of podcasting.

Speaker 1: 7:29

I thought I'd just give it a go and see where it went and I thought it would be a really good way to connect to people and to find new people and, honestly, in the beginning I thought it was the best top of a funnel you could have, if you don't want to be on social media, of course. Then I found out that a podcast isn't the top of a funnel and if you don't know what a funnel is, it's the way you set up your business and like a drip down filter coffee, people come in at the top and then they drip down into your products and eventually they'll become a client from falling into the coffee filter.

Speaker 2: 8:19

Yeah funnel.

Speaker 1: 8:20

So a podcast isn't a great top of a funnel because people need to find you and not a lot of people really search for specific podcasts. I do sometimes. I actually do that quite a lot Like my search engines are podcasts, youtube, yeah, of course, good old Google. Well, old Google Was that my stomach? That's because I'm thinking of the eclairs. So I found out that the podcast doesn't really bring in more people. Consistency kind of does in a way, because people will talk about it, share it with other people, and then it grows.

Speaker 1: 9:07

And my podcast has been very consistent, like super consistent, and I haven't been stressed out about growing it a lot because it was always going to be part of my marketing mix. So I only for a brief moment thought I would be able to make some money with it, to at least pay for the cost. But that really didn't work out because I felt really uncomfortable by the idea of sponsors and I thought I liked it. But then I didn't. And then I really looked at what I wanted to do, what I wanted the podcast to feel like, and I listened to other podcasts and then they started to promote things and stuff that didn't have anything to do with them and then some people promote things that did have something to do with them. But that was a lot and it just never felt right for me to do it that way. So I guess the biggest change has been that I went from interviewing people in the industry to sharing parts of what I do and teach in my community. That was a really conscious decision. At some point I really just wanted to get information out there, to be making a podcast that actually helps people, and I felt like interviews with famous knitters is great and entertaining and also can be very helpful if you talk to them about their business, and it has really proven to be, in a way. But there were already podcasts doing that, youtube channels doing that, and I was thinking about people that couldn't afford my program and still wanted to learn, and that's when I decided I'm just going to use my podcast as the light version of the paid for stuff that I offer, and some of it is the same and some of it is ultra light version, and we go in deeper, of course, in our community memberships and in our program. I say our, but, yeah, our, because we're a community. When I say we, I mean our community, not the Yevvel team, because that's basically me and Kathleen who's really helpful in the community. Kathleen, shout out to you, I don't do that enough. Thank you, kathleen, you've been amazing. And while I'm talking about that because this is hardly scripted I've got some notes, but I'm basically just talking. I just wanted to say that I used to.

Speaker 1: 12:16

I started doing this by myself like super clunky, and then I thought, oh, I'm a growing business. Then I thought, oh, I'm a growing business, I need help. And I found Alison and we worked together for a while. She was the editor and then did a bit of production work as well, but in the end it was sometimes hard to match calendar. She was somewhere else in the world sometimes in the Netherlands, sometimes not and it wasn't flowy enough for me and so I decided to go back to it myself. Then I found another editor who had really great pricing, lovely person as well, and worked with him for a while and then his prices went up like crazy. Worked with him for a while and then his prices went up like crazy. Totally up to him, of course, but then also totally up to me to say, oh, that's no, no, thank you.

Speaker 1: 14:12

So I went back to doing it myself again and it was actually really great because it was a good lesson and good enough. It was a good lesson in good enough Because I'll either go like splitting ends being super, super perfectionistic about it or I'll go very lightly and say, okay, it just needs to go live and it needs to have some point and that's good enough. So, of course, with these days, I basically use AI as my assistant Makes me feel bad in a way, because of the people I used to pay to help me. Oh, and then of course, there was Teresa Teresa. I say it weird, teresa, teresa Teresa. I say it weird, teresa Teresa Teresa why can I say that? Who was more of a VA to me? She did different things but also focused on the podcast production type things, things, and when the business had a little dip, I thought, oh, better just keep the budget as tight as I can and back to me again. So learned a lot about that and it felt very I don't know like I was an actual content creator with editors and VAs, and I actually kind of liked saying that I had that kind of help.

Speaker 1: 15:45

But in reality, the way my mind works and the way my days are and the way I do things. I really love to go with my own flow and I have the opportunity to do so because I work for myself, and when you work with somebody else, there's two flows and I kind of love the luxury of going with my own flow more than the luxury of somebody doing things for me. And part of the editing and the production stuff was I wanted somebody else to do it because it was boring. It was so boring, but now with AI it's so much easier. And I think three episodes ago I talked about how I work with AI.

Speaker 1: 16:42

Now, to keep it, to keep it like transparent and authentic, is to first work on some topics and some bullet points and then, with those bullet points, I go in and write a blog. With that blog that's fully in my wording. I then feed that back into AI to come up with a script. So it's my words, but it's just leaner and less chaotic. And then I sprinkle some chaos while I'm reading the script, and the great thing about reading a script is that there's so much less double takes and ums because I'm just reading it. The only editing that I actually have to do is the parts where I just freestyle it, and there's plenty freestyling there anyway.

Speaker 1: 17:46

But yeah, that's kind of how I evolved from working together with people to back to me, working together back to me and at this moment, I really like just having to have me in my head to think about, because I don't want to disappoint people, I don't want to say I didn't finish it, because and that's all extra energy, extra work and I really like it extra energy, extra work and I really like it the way it's going right now. But it can be quite lonely and I'm so lucky to have the people in the Yevvel community. Yeah, that's just the best thing that's come out of all of the shift from my yarn shop to doing this is a group of people that we have. It's just fun and it makes sense, and we have silly things and serious things and practical, and yeah, it's lovely. And, as I said, kathleen does our craft circle and that's amazing because at night I don't have much energy anymore and so she organizes the craft circle online and I can then just drop in and be, which is amazing. So thank you, kathy. So, yeah, let's get talk a little bit about how it all started. I also I already talked about it, but I got it written down here. So back to that.

Speaker 1: 19:23

So Patents Shift actually evolved out of my first podcast, a Smaller Life. Back then there were two things I loved talking to makers and small business owners and I believed there had to be a more human, joyful and sustainable way to run a business, and actually that idea is still at the heart of everything we do with Yeovil and the Yeovil community. It's about living a life that is true to you, that doesn't burn you out, that brings you joy and also takes into account what's important to you, so your values and then reflecting that back to your clients and kind of shaping a better world. Like it's a big dream, talking about big dreams. When I started a smaller life, I had started also the community and at first the community was aimed at two main groups.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Well, actually the very, very beginning, I built the online community for my actual community. That came with my yarn shop. But COVID happened and we needed to move online. So there were, like in the beginning, hundreds of people there. It was free. Then after a while I thought, okay, I need to pay for this, so I don't have a shop anymore, so I'm going to ask for a small amount. Lots of people left, which was really hard for me, because I thought, oh, I helped a lot of you so much in the shop.

Speaker 1: 21:10

I spent so much time almost teaching while I was selling yarn. It was my heart and soul and I poured it into everything and I was really disappointed by that. But it got worse. So then I started learning about communities and I thought, okay, this could be like the community itself could be a business model for me. I can do workshops here, I can do different things and people pay for me. I can do workshops here, I can do different things and people pay for it. And this is going to be what I do, using all the experience that I have as a craft teacher, a needle craft teacher and a business owner, and it's going to be amazing and glorious. And then I upped the price and, of course, more people left. And then I with the podcast.

Speaker 1: 22:01

When I realized that not a lot of new people would come in through the podcast, I needed to be on social media, but I had also decided I never social media and me I don't know. I've talked about it so much, I'm not going to do it again. If you want to learn more, just scroll the list of episodes and you'll find enough that are about that subject, and I decided to step away from it, and so the podcast was solely responsible for bringing in new people into the community. I also started to realize that it would be really hard for me to build the ultimate dream that I had a place where makers and sellers come together. A place where makers and sellers come together, where the sellers could have a direct contact with a small group of makers and the other way around, so they could work simultaneously to build an industry that was based on values and inclusivity and sustainability and the whole idea that so many and I'm talking specifically knitters, because that is the specific part that I come from in this industry so many knitters knit the next cool thing with the next cool yarn and don't particularly think about how their hobby, the thing that they love doing, could actually step into the whole problem of fast fashion. So they can start making things that they need instead of making things that they just want. So you can make what you need and want it at the same time, right, and you can make it fun and make it with amazing yarns and amazing patterns.

Speaker 1: 24:11

So that was kind of where I wanted to go with all of that, like bringing everybody together, and I saw this community of workshops, in craft workshops, in business but I was just one person and I couldn't do it all. I couldn't focus and give my best self to all of it. So recently not that recently, though, it was a gentle shift it was really gentle, but I shifted more into the business owners and focusing on bringing them in community, especially because a lot of them have to reinvent the wheel. Every single time I can see businesses starting struggling. I talk to them so I know and they could have known all these things if they would talk to other business owners with more experience. So that doesn't really happen, except for, perhaps, festivals and markets, but not everybody attends those and often you're just too tired and too exhausted and too busy to have actual deeper conversations about things. And so I focused on the business side and the business owner as a person how to grow their business with them in mind and build a course with the help of some trusted business owners who are still most of them still are with me, which is great.

Speaker 1: 25:50

And so now I'm slowly growing out this part of the business, working on slow and mindful ways of marketing, which includes visiting markets, talking to people one-on-one and sometimes I turn those conversations into a podcast, with their knowing of course and building the relationships from there. So a constantly evolving thing, with the latest thing that now is happening is me working to become a coach, and that is because I've started to notice that sometimes, especially creative people are so full of ideas that they just need to talk it through and filter it and find their way into everything that's going on in their minds. Sometimes you need a teacher, sometimes you need a consultant who just tells you what to do and how to do it, advises you, but sometimes you just really need somebody to listen and help you figure it out. So I thought that is a great tool to add to my toolkit or not really a tool, a skill.

Speaker 1: 27:14

And from that, from knowing that I am a marketer, a branding specialist, a strategist oh God a teacher, a mentor, a consultant so many hats I can start a hat shop. Oh no, I've done the shop thing but I've got a lot of hats. So I started to call myself a support professional, because I am in the profession of supporting and I can do that in very different ways. I've got a whole bunch of skill sets to help with that and a whole bunch of tools to share with people. So I just basically want our industry to flourish. I would love a world where creatives are more intentional about what they create for themselves and think about fast fashion versus slow fashion, and I want to be a part of that and I can be a part of that because I have the skills, I have the drive, have the knowledge and I live the kind of life where I can be at home and pour my energy into this.

Speaker 1: 28:36

So, yeah, that's a little bit about that. Back to the podcast. So I took some notes to share with you some lessons that I've learned from 100 episodes, and I guess I already shared a bunch. But let's just go through my notes.

Speaker 1: 28:54

One of the biggest things I've noticed is that when you talk about growth, it's really easy to listen to podcasts very meta or YouTube channels and self-help books and stuff and get the idea that you can change things just like that. Put in the energy, do the work and things are changed. But people forget that we have lives that are much more complex than just our business. A lot of us have caregiving roles in one way or another, or we struggle with chronic illnesses. It can be really hard if you're neurodivergent. All these things make it so that a quick change is something that isn't realistic for a lot of us. So with the podcast as well, the growing happens one episode at a time, and not necessarily talking about growing in terms of getting more listeners, but growing as a content maker, which I don't really. I don't think of myself as that. The podcast, as I said, is a tool for me to communicate to my audience, so it's more of a communication tool, marketing tool. Even I am not making money doing this, like not a cent. It's costing me money, but I do have to grow as a content creator, as a maker myself, as a content creator, as a maker myself, because every single time I show up I kind of want to grow. It's embedded into people. It's who we are as a species. We want to do better, and so sometimes it takes a little bit of being brave.

Speaker 1: 30:56

In the beginning it was just going out there and asking people to come on the show. Sometimes it was really nerve-wracking. A lot of the time also, I just talked to people that I knew from having had the yarn shop, people that I've met during festivals. You just connect over all the years, you make friends, and that was really amazing, and I didn't stop because I ran out of friends. It was a conscious choice, as I said before, because I wanted to make a version of what I offer in my program. But you grow by doing things, by putting yourself out there, by being brave, one episode after another, and of course, I have all these thoughts in my head. What will they think when I say this? Is it too chaotic? And lately, how do I do? I sound very differently now that I have more scripted episodes. Do they really miss the interviews with the people? As I said, the podcast has been really steady, and you could say it's been shrinking not necessarily in the amount of downloads and listeners that has stayed the same, but normally I would say that would grow but because I kind of cut out the interviews, that was immediately noticeable in the amount of downloads, but I haven't gone back because I still believe that this is how I want to use the podcast.

Speaker 1: 32:37

Perhaps I'll do an interview here and there, but the thing is, I really, really want to be super honest with people and almost get into some sort of a coaching conversation with them where they can be vulnerable and sharing things, and something like that has to naturally happen in a way, because if you're going to send an email or call somebody and say listen, do you want to come on the podcast and be super, really open and vulnerable. That doesn't really work. The amazing thing, though, is the best episode with the most downloads, with the most listens, is the interview I did with Melody Hoffman, bemangerance, and she was that. She was so open, so honest, and that was such an amazing conversation. Yeah, if I knew that I could have that kind of conversation.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Every time, I would go back into interviewing, but I also don't want to put people on the spot. I've thought about going to the edge of things, like interviewing people who I know are a little bit criticized for their high prices or for, I don't know, working with some sort of brand or doing something or not doing something, and people talk about it, and there's part of me that really wants to go there, but then there's also the part of me that really just wants to offer something that is actually super helpful, practical, valuable, something that you can immediately do something with. So that's how I landed on the helpful type podcasts. But give me feedback if you want something different. And a whole bunch of you are saying the same thing, that means that I got to listen. A whole bunch of you are saying the same thing. That means that I got to listen. Well, no, but you know a little bit.

Speaker 1: 34:44

Another lesson I learned is and it can get really boring to listen to these words coming back, back back but values, I think sustainability, inclusiveness, openness, creativity, all these things, curiosity this is what drives me and this is the only way that I can do my job and I can keep doing it without burning out or without getting bored out of my mind. It has to be close to me, so it's naturally going to be a topic in my episodes, because that's what I do. I talk about how you build a business that connects to who you are. So there you go. Another lesson is that, however much I enjoy making a podcast and however much I love working from home and I need time by myself Working alone can be really lonely, and so the community has been, yeah, the reason for going on. Because if I didn't have the community, if I was just talking to like a void, I wouldn't be able to do this. Because they tell me that what I do is helping them. I can see them progress in their business. I can hear them saying things like I actually enjoy writing my newsletter now and that's why I do it. So if I didn't have that, I wouldn't be doing this. And the other lesson is that be awkward, be weird, be playful. It's yeah, it's my strength, it's who I am. It's hopefully not as destruction to you. It's my strength, it's who I am. It's hopefully not a distraction to you. If I can be myself, then I can keep going. So what does it look like behind the scenes when I record a podcast? I'm in. I'm going to try and describe what I'm seeing. Right now.

Speaker 1: 36:52

I am in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. Rotterdam is a big port city, bombed in the war. Very much a blue-collar, working-class mentality, like we're getting to work, but also a great sense of humor, directness. That's kind of the city I'm in Now. I live in an area with newly built buildings and I'm right now on the oh let me count on the second floor, in my workroom, which could be called a studio, an office space. It's also the oh, that's two alsos. It's also the guest room. I have an air-cold daybed. For those of you who know what that is, it's a mid-century couch that doubles as a bed, which is great, and I have a mid-century desk here. But my computer is actually on one of those IKEA tables that can completely fold down, that has the drawers in the middle. It also holds my serger and my sewing machine and, at this moment, three water bottles. I don't know why I have three and three water bottles. I don't know why I have three and some hand cream because I get dry hands.

Speaker 1: 38:18

A Martha Beck book for my coaching study. Of course I have my microphone in front of me. I'm wearing my headphones, I've got my bullet journal, of course, and my three favorite fountain pens. In a case I'm going to stop so many things here. To the left of me, of course, writer Carol's book, the Bullet Journal Method, and a whole stack of bullet journals that are full, and a bookcase that holds my coaching books and loads and loads and loads of patent books and other stuff. So I've got two desks One is my recording desk and the mid-century desk. I have moved the computer away from that because I love to journal and write, although I don't do enough writing. That kind of gives me a good vibe to do that. So it just feels better to be using a fountain pen and a journal on a mid-century task.

Speaker 1: 39:23

I don't know, I'm weird that way.

Speaker 1: 39:26

What else behind the scenes? Yeah, I've done some weird things. We went to the Faroese Islands and I recorded on the road. I've recorded during festivals and I've done everything out of my head in the moment because I forgot I had to do a podcast, just winging it all the way and meticulously writing scripts. I've done that as well. Done that as well.

Speaker 1: 40:01

I usually am fully dressed when I record an episode, but sometimes it's not really attractive Not that I need to be, but you know it can be like sweats. But I try to dress for the job I want, not the job that I have, although I love my job. So I don't really want another job. But you know, that's what they say. You kind of dress up for showing up for people, even though if they don't see you. So I'm wearing a Lucieniac overalls in green, my hand-knit purple pink socks and wool slippers. I love wearing slippers. I always wear slippers around the house and I've got fresh cut bangs today and makeup because I needed to go out, and then I always do that. So, yeah, not much drama. Honestly, I changed my mic once, like in five years. I upped my game a little bit and got a better mic, which, like in retrospective, I don't know if I really needed it, but I felt like I did at the time. And, yeah, no other weird things. Of course, there's been neighbors that decided that they wanted to drill into the wall when I was recording and I send them a text and can you wait 30 minutes? I'm almost done and like okay, and that was that. So no real behind the scene drama other than sometimes this room is a mess and sometimes it's not drama, other than sometimes this room is a mess and sometimes it's not.

Speaker 1: 41:41

So, looking ahead with this podcast, I don't really make specific plans. I'm just happy to get a new episode out every time that people are expecting one. The last one didn't go live. I don't know what happened. I just checked and it didn't go live. So I sent out the email and I got the show notes and everything was done in live, but the actual episode on the platform it didn't go live and nobody told me. I didn't know. But it's live now. So there's a little bit of it feels perhaps like a little bit of extra during the week, and so there's not much planning.

Speaker 1: 42:22

I would love to do some coaching, I guess, on the podcast. At some point when I feel like I'm ready to do that and when I can find people that actually want to do that with me, that would be really cool. Other than that, I'm just going to keep sharing what I know and hopefully inspiring people to think about things a little bit differently than they would otherwise, to just push them away from doing what everybody else is doing, because you need to be doing what you want and you can and you are made to be doing. So that's hopefully what I can do in the future. So I would say here's to another hundred episodes. Let's see where we go. I just want to invite you finally, at the end of this episode, to get into touch with me.

Speaker 1: 43:21

If this podcast has ever made you think, smile or scribble a note or feel a little bit less alone in what you're doing, I would love it if you would celebrate that with me. You could do multiple things. I love getting emails from you, but leaving a review would be really amazing. What would happen if all of you, like gave me some stars, left me a review, actually taking a minute out to type something? What would that do for the podcast? That would be really cool because in the end, more people will see it on the different podcast platforms. So that does really help.

Speaker 1: 44:04

I don't ask for that enough and I should, because I do a lot of work, and it would be really nice if you would do that for the 100th episode as a little gift.

Speaker 1: 44:15

Leave a review, do some stars for me, send me a message or at least share it with a friend, and so that we can grow and we can find more people and I can help more people with the other services and things that I offer to support our industry. Because that's what I dream of a healthy, happy industry and less of fat fashion, no more fat fashion and a lot of slow fashion. So if you want to keep this conversation going, you are warmly invited to the Yavel community and with that, you also support the podcast. We are a very cozy fiber village on the internet and I'd love to see you there and be in daily touch with you, because I'm there all day, every day. So I'd love to see you there. So here's to the first 100 episodes, to imperfection, to playfulness, to purpose, here's to all the yarns we've spun together and apart, to the weaving we did, the knitting we did, and to whatever comes next. Cheers, friend, and thank you. Thank you so much for being here and don't be stranger sorry, I can't leave without mentioning someone.

Speaker 2: 45:36

When I was listening to this, I felt like something was missing and I have to say.

Speaker 1: 45:42

I started the episode with this, wondering how many of you have followed me from the beginning. And there is at least one person that I know of that has been there from the very, very start 17 years ago, 18 years, no, actually much longer. It must've been like 20 years ago it was before I even had Sky and that is Herma. She's been following me since the very, very beginning and I just wanted to give her a special shout out because through the years she's always been so lovely, so supportive, and we didn't talk much. I met her a couple of times and I wouldn't say that we became close friends, but she has such a special place in my heart.

Speaker 1: 46:36

I needed to pause for a minute there because I became emotional. It's very special to feel the support and I just want to say thank you for that, herma, you know who you are. I don't need to say your last name, wishing you everything you wish for and live your best life. Thank you for being with me, alongside me and following me on this weird journey. And there's more of you, of course. There's more of you. I just wanted to give a name to those people who have followed me from the beginning and, for a fact, I know Herma is definitely one of them, because she reaches out to me every now and then and I just love that.

Speaker 1: 47:27

All right, I'm going to stop it now because I'm going to be really emotional. This is a joyful episode. Thank you, all of you who stepped in onto this path with me, whether this is your first episode or whether you have been with me for almost 20 years, from my first blog that was called Sauce Knits it Again, an acronym of my name, and a little wink to Brittany, if you don't know who Brittany is well. To Brittany, if you don't know who Brittany is well. Anyways, I'm going to celebrate now and I'm recording this when I'm editing this episode, and I know how I'm going to celebrate. I asked my youngest to go with me to the Dutch pen show because I love fountain pens and inks.

Speaker 1: 48:13

I love fountain pens and inks and it's like the second love I have, next to fibers, yarns, things like that. And I'm on a no buy year, but I'm also turning 50 and I'm celebrating this, so I'm just going to be. What's the point in like, not feeling good or what's the point in not being able to celebrate?

Speaker 2: 48:35

I mean, I know you can celebrate without buying something, but this is something I can do with my daughter and she's a teenager and it's not that easy to find something that we both enjoy and she's also really into stationery, so I just went ahead and got myself some tickets for Sunday.

Speaker 1: 48:52

So if you're there as well, if you're like me, then come find me, All right.

Speaker 2: 48:57

I'm going to go now and I'll meet you again in episode 101. Bye.