Podcasts (interim)

I know I promised a second list of podcasters from across the pond, but over the past weekend, I discovered a podcast right in my back yard.  Subway Knits not only podcasts from Astoria, Queens, but she’s a first year 8th grade teacher.  Years and years ago when I got my initial certification, I taught 8th grade, and while kindergarten teachers are a breed way beyond my understanding, I know exactly what’s going on in a middle school classroom.  Maria, the Subway Knits podcaster, has my sympathies!  (How she finds time to knit and podcast during her first year of teaching is beyond me!)

I’m slowly working my way through her archive while knitting a version of the “Sarah Scarf” for myself out of some gorgeously autumn colored Lion Brand Homespun and finishing the hat for my Dad in Steelers’ colors.  The information about American yarn makers and dyers, especially those in the northeast, is quite welcome.  As much as I love learning about Fyberspates and Wollmeise – in the first episode I listened to, Maria mentioned the difficulty of optaining Wollmeise yarns here in the States – I really enjoyed being introduced to Apothecary Yarns and Fresh from the Cauldron, both located in Florida.  She even mentioned the Lion Brand Yarn Studio near Union Square Park, a yarn shop I’ve actually been to as opposed to Purlescense and Loop, shops I can only dream of entering. Here’s hoping there’s at least a mention of Purl Soho in one of the episodes I’ve yet to get to!

UPDATE: I wrote the first draft of this post on Saturday only to wake up Sunday to a new Subway Knits podcast. In the newest episode, Maria describes teaching mitosis with drop spindles – a super teacher in training this one! – and, yes, mentions Purl Soho! …and catching up on the knit.spin.cake podcast, Subway Knits was recommended there as well!

In addition, I’ll just end this short post about audio delights by mentioning Librivox.  If you like audiobooks and enjoy the classics, this is a great resource for free listening.  Volunteers read books in the public domain (i.e. no longer under copyright) either in their entirety or as part of a team of readers.  A number of books like Charles Dickens’ Hard Times are “dramatic readings” with a narrator and a reader for each character.  Isabel of the Fluffy Fibers podcast turned me on to this site this past August, and I began with her recommendation of The Semi-Detached House.  As someone who regularly revisits the works of Jane Austen, this book was a treat, and the reader, Elizabeth Klett, as good or better than any professional recording I’ve purchased on audible.com.  I also enjoyed Klett’s version of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, and I’m currently listening to Belinda by Maria Edgeworth read by a group of volunteers.

Enjoy either or both of this post’s audio suggestions and return for the next installment of Podcasts which will, I promise, contain all kinds of podcasting goodness from the UK, France, and Guernsey!