Jennifer Raymond of Tinking Turtle
Jennifer Raymond of Tinking Turtle was the guest on Yarn Thing podcast with Marly Bird.
Jennifer says she learned to crochet when very young, taught by a helpful occasional caregiver. She says she immediately began to challenge the granny squares she started with ‘What if’s’. She did learn to knit, but was discouraged with dropped stitches and not realizing knitting was harder because it required practice time also. She says she continued to crochet and in College, she credits a yarn store across the street from the campus as helping her get through it. Wanting to knit socks after finding it very difficult to mend crocheted socks, she seems to have become more bi-crafty at that point.
Moving on from college and realizing that office work wasn’t a good fit for her, and not really comin
g from an entrepreneurial background and thinking that crochet is was not something you could live on, when she and her husband moved to Washington, DC, where she discovered the Yarn Spot. Jennifer taught there and designing took off for her.
Tinking Turtle came about in a discussion with her husband. He is a train officiando and they live in a train town. With a bottle of wine, they were putting togther a model train layout which included their love of turtles, and he was naming the bar and ‘…. and there will be a yarn shop named ‘The Tinking Turtle’. Jennifer says he was so knew to her discussions of knitting that he could not have known how perfect that term is to knitters!
Marly met Jennifer at a TNNA while Marly was ‘claiming Laurinda Redding for her own’ at a booksigning. At this point Jennifer had been designing for about four years and really looked forward to finding her place in the industry. Jennifer finds her youthful appearance can make it hard to be taken seriously. Laurinda showing Jennifer around TNNA and being at Marly’s Designer Dinner, became an opportunity to make connections for her.
Jennifer is still enjoying the thrill of seeing her designs in print. The Mercury Top (Ravelry link) appeared in Interweave Crochet Fall 2015 and another will be in the Winter edition. If you heard her discuss this, you can hear the squeal of excitement in her voice when she describes the pieces. Check out her list of designs in Ravelry.
You can follow Jennifer Raymond’s website, she is in Facebook, also on Tinking Turtle where ever you might look for her like Twitter.
Silk … nice podcast show 🙂
Liked hearing Jennifer’s story. Thanks for sharing. I love working with silk, and any other fiber of course.
So enjoyed the show today. Thank you. I really like the fabric silk blend yarns make. So interesting to see behind the curtain, so to speak. Thanks again.
What a great show ladies!! I have a dead brain job and being able to listen to you cures my brain drain!!! Silk, silk, silk, what do cows drink?? Have a great day 🙂
Jennifer spoke to my knitting guild (Creative Knitting Guild) and I’ve been following Tinking Turtle every since. It was interesting to hear how Jennifer wound her way into making her hobby her career — with her husband’s support it was smooth a silk ;). I strive to do what I love so it was inspirational to hear that people do achieve that goal!
A former guest, Nicole from Darn Good Yarn, has some awesome silk yarn created from recycled Saris. Her story is pretty amazing also. Pick up some of Nicole’s yarn and work up one of Jennifer’s patterns. You can support 2 fantastic businesses in the process.
Jennifer, be grateful you look young. When you are celebrating your 60th on a cruise ship, and the person next to you says, “Did you hit the big 4-0?!”, you will be happy. ☺️ Knitting keeps us young and silk makes us glamorous!
Another enjoyable podcast! I have to say that I love knitting with a silk/wool blend. It gives the yarn an elegant sheen.
What a fun story about how you met the other Jennifer Raymond!! I love her patterns of Ravelry. Great interview Marly! I am using a silk blend for the first time in a shawl. I it working up lovely.
Love working with silk blends. So glamorous. Another great show full of information!
I have never crocheted or knit with silk. Would it be too slippery or soft to use? I hope I get to find out using your lovely sounding Spanish silk blend. It was wonderful fun to get to “know” Jennifer a bit. I wish you both the best of luck following your dreams in the industry.
Loved meeting Jennifer! Part of the reason I listen to the podcast is to see what’s going on in the knitting world. Loved listening to your dog snore as well! You’ll have to cover his head with a silk blanket next podcast.
Loved the show as always! So nice to “meet” Jennifer and hear her story. Marly, it took me till the end of the show to realize the low pitched “buzz” I was hearing was your dog snoring. SO CUTE! I’m just starting to venture out into the finer yarns and love it. I signed up for the Jimmy Beans Wool Co Beanie Bag and my first bag included a sample of silk yarn. Can’t wait to try it!
Congratulations on another great show with another great designer! Thank you for introducing us to such a creative and talented designer.
I absolutely LOOOOVE your crochet designs Jennifer! All your designs be they knit or crochet they have such an amazing artistic flare and display of rich fabulous colours.
(A wee word of advice….enjoy looking younger than you are, it is actually a blessing! It must be your beautiful skin that looks as smooth as “SILK”!).
Sincerely,
Rose.
Loved the podcast, the story about the name was funny! I petted tons of silk yarn at Stitches Texas, I need a silk project in my future. Thanks ladies!
Another fun podcast.
Thanks for all you do.
I love to work with silk and I love
wearing silk also.
Thanks for asking Jennifer about the name, thinking turtle. I was wondering about where its origin. I have a skein of sari silk. I’ll have to see if she has any designs that will suit it.
Another great podcast! I just bought some silk blend yarn…still deciding what I want to knit with it!
Silk blends I love love love! Jennifer is adorable and listening to both Marly & Jennifer together makes me smile.
I love learning about new designers and really liked Jennifer’s story. Silk blends are very fun to work with. Marly great job again. You are the best.
I have never work with Silk yarn. I think it would be a lovely yarn to work with for a summer top. I will have to look into that for next summer.
I enjoyed listening to the podcast and learning about people in the yarn industry.
Silk is a delightful fiber but I would love to have yarn from Spain! It’s wonderful that yarn is a universal language. (Wanted to let you know I get to knit and visit with Tammy every week at our LYS, aren’t I a lucky girl!)
I really enjoyed getting to hear about Jennifer! The story behind Tinking Turtle was so great lol. I’ve yet to work with silk yarn, but it’s on my to do list!
I love your pod cast! I enjoyed listening to you talk with Jennifer. I’m loving learning about the many designers out there. I’ve never worked with silk before and would love a chance to work with it.
Jennifer’s Tinking Turtle logo is soo cute and I really like several of her designs. Maybe I will make one in a silk-blend yarn.
Loved the podcast as usual, and Jennifer is interesting! All my new faves imported at Stitches Texas were silk, imagine that! I see some $$ in my future!
That should say “I petted”, really
I love using yarn with silk in it. Thanks for another great podcast.
i’m a little behind on pod casts so just got to listen today. I checked out Jennifer’s patterns and there are several I’m going to want to knit. Some of them with a silk wool blend yarn!