welcome everybody today we have two special guests who were part of the collaboration of the yarn tarot which is a deck for anyone who is a fiber Enthusiast and who loves tarot duh we have Katie Ponder and Jacob Seifert Katie is the illustrator of the deck while Jacob who is the editor at Sixth and spring books light from Lantern presents knit a spell I'm magical maker Katie rempe and I'm the maker of magic James Divine join us as we stitch together the symbiotic relationship between crafting and The Craft foreign
Katie's style is both fresh and contemporary with references to Art Deco and a touch of Gothic inspiration Jacob along with working at six and spring books is a Knitter book and horror Enthusiast and game designer at Sledge hog games welcome everyone
we are so excited to have you on because obviously this is one of the first decks in the yarn and knitting crochet weaving theme before we jump into that why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit of background about you how you found yourself at Sixth and spring and your journey in general your magical journey I don't know if I would say I'm magical but um why not sure um if you rub my bald head maybe there'll be some magic that comes out so I'm originally from the Midwest I grew up in a very conservative family but for some reason I really enjoyed anything's scary so I grew up my favorite show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer really loved horror movies I grew up reading uh one of the earliest books I remember reading was Goosebumps and then graduated to Fear Street and then like Dean Coons and all of that so um there's always been an interest of you know like the magical and the dark and stuff like that um growing up a conservative religious household you know I was aware of what tarot decks were but they were of the devil you do not touch them you know like um they were just awful but I was always really intrigued by them whenever I saw them in media and that was kind of my knowledge of Tara growing up I guess also I've always just really been drawn to cards in general um like just playing cards or card games I think that stems back to um my grandfather he was a big poker player you know like all of his grandpa friends they would play poker and in their house we would visit them a lot and they had a lot of just decks of cards so we would play various card games or make houses of cards that's also part of that fascination of cards and never knowing what's going to come up and um those probably converged along the line somewhere I started knitting when I was 18 being in the Midwest and not having a lot to do I thought it would be funny if I learned how to do what I called the grandma and the grandpa hobby so I was like I'm gonna learn how to admit and I'm going to learn how to whittle so and I'd always been like creative you know I liked doing arts and crafts and stuff like that so it wasn't too strange for me to do so I picked up knitting it was fun I enjoyed it a lot and like quickly was making my own you know combining stitches to make my own scar I made a lot of scarves made a lot of scarves whittling didn't really stick around because I kept cutting myself up so I I chose a very hardwood uh from just our garage and that's not what you should be willing with so I had a very bad experience with that but knitting was much less dangerous and bloody so I kind of just stuck with that and then I've always been a reader and then uh the goal was to be a writer for the longest time but then undergrad I discovered you know writing workshops and I really enjoyed editing people's work and then that led to me looking into a career and further education in publishing I originally wanted to work in fiction but then I came across this listing for 16 spring books where it was we're looking for someone to work on knitting books and I was like huh well that's interesting and then I applied it must have been in the stars because I'd actually I was applying for positions I put in my resume that I was a Knitter to make myself stand out and then I found a knitting publisher so you know it's kind of I've been there set for seven years now gosh when it's meant to be so Katie what brought you into the publishing world what was your background up until the point where you decided to do this amazing yarn Tarot deck good question um so I grew up in London and I think from from the get-go when I was born on the day I was born I decided art was the world I needed to be and there was there was no alternative I just wanted to do art and I was always in trouble at school for drawing instead of doing my lessons my all my textbooks were full of mermaids and fairies and as soon as I finished school I went to Art School um down in Falmouth which is right down in the south of England in Cornwall which is a very like Cornwall is full of lots of uh fairy tales and folklore and it's all a bit sort of magical so I spent three years there studying illustration once I graduated from Falmouth I sort of thought well you know a career in art who knows if I'll make it I'll have a backup Chris I started teaching yoga I trained as a yoga teacher and was working full-time as a yoga teacher and doing a little bit of illustration here and there and sort of seeing Oh Where Can things go as an illustrator but also not putting too much pressure on myself and I eventually became friends with A really lovely illustration agency based in London called the artworks and started working with them a little bit and eventually they signed me on as one of their artists um which was I think it was one of the sort of Miracle moments of my life so whoa this this is it I actually get to be an illustration um the artworks has a sister agency based in New York called Mandola so through the artworks and Mendola I've been getting pretty much consistent work ever since as an illustrator and it was Mandola that introduced me to the project with Jacob working on on the tarot cards and um being that I've always loved all things magical as soon as Mandola emailed me I was like oh would you like to work on a deck of tarot cards I thought yes yes yes please I I would like that very much oh that's so exciting so they reached out to you how did the project start initially yeah where did the idea of yarn and Tarot come together originally someone approached us with with the idea um they reached out via Instagram and they said hey I would really like to do a knitting Tarot deck would you be interested in that I took that to my boss uh this was a handful of years ago um and at that time I was told no so I was very disappointed Flash Forward a few years later so Sixth and spring books is distributed by Sterling well what was known as Sterling publishing they're now called Union Square they actually have been publishing a lot of tarot decks and have really great success they published the modern witch tarot I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one a very successful deck that I love so much they have been doing just a whole series of tarot decks so that that became yeah at the at the Forefront of our mind I was like well what if we do this Tarot deck now so we reached back out to the original person who contacted us and we tried to get something going with the project but she wanted to do a knitting Tarot deck you know the terms of the contract weren't what we could offer what she wanted so we parted ways but we still wanted to do a Tarot deck so we went the route of doing the yarn Tarot deck not doing a knitting Tarot deck like she had original suggested but trying to be much more inclusive of The Yarn Crafts a lot of people will and crochet or they'll crochet and spin or people will knit and weave you know or any sort of mixture of that but the thing that unifies all of those is the love for yarn and like the obsession for yarn so that's the direction we decided to go so Katie do you do any fiber crafting well um I did my granny taught me to knit when I was young and there was a phase when I was about 11 where everybody I knew and loved got a lot of really lumpy scarves but I I don't think it was really my medium I had to sort of put it aside once everybody had had several rounds of scarves I think it was sort of time to put the knitting needles down for me but I do a lot of Patchwork quilting which is my little craft project I do and I find it such a soothing thing to do just to quietly sit and Stitch in the evenings after you know being sort of in my head all day daydreaming about I don't know children's books I'm doing to sit and just have some peace and quiet sewing it it does a lot for me for on a mental health level I find are you hand stitching yeah yeah
in itself it's quite slow in pit I've been working on a quilt for a friend for about four years now um one day it will be finished oh man well and you're art style is perfect for patchwork quilt and that sort of thing I mean as soon as I saw this I was like oh that's a quilt like I thought for sure I've seen you before I used to go to a lot of Needle Art conventions and things and so there would always be Quilters I was astounded by the artwork like the Pearl elaborate designs that folks can make in Fabric and now to see them in cards it's it's really exciting what was it like working together you two whose idea was it to come up with certain directions in the art Kitty doesn't know this part so right now as it wound up yarn tarot we try to stick very closely to the writer wheat Smith illustrations to just update those and put as much yarn and things in there as we could my original thought was to translate it into like the modern world of yarn Crafters that was my original concept it got shot down in an editorial meeting that was pretty tense it was decided to go the route of something that people are more familiar with in the end I think it went better editorially to go that direction but uh there was an the art director who oversawed on our side who was essentially the art lead and went between Katie and I she wanted to make sure that we gave Katie as much Freedom as as she could so we didn't stifle her art style so that that was my understanding and Katie kept coming up with a lot of these beautiful illustrations and like directions that like we necessarily wouldn't have gone to sum it all up it was it was a dream working with Katie she was a wonderful person if anyone is an illustrator you should hire her because she's just a great person to work with oh thank you so much Jacob it's so nice I think working on projects like this you kind of for me you kind of have to be a little bit detached because it's not just my work it's it's Jacob's ideas it's I I read ideas it's the PO it's the publishing houses you know the what they need and you kind of it's a huge collaboration of lots of different people you kind of just have to go with the flow and go Okay now what's your idea well this is my idea okay you didn't like that one this one might work and you go with the flow and eventually it comes together and it's it might not be what you had visualized in your mind but it's so much more because it's it's several other people's creation and it it has its own sort of Life Beyond just your ideas it's a collaboration and um yeah it was also very nice working with you too Jacob I was I and I for me like I love Tarot cards so much and I'm so like I've always looked at the ride away cards as a source of inspiration for my artwork because they're so iconic they're so beautifully done and to have the opportunity to sit and actually really look at these cards and be immersed in that inspiration and to just explore these ideas it was it was a really it was quite a dreamy project really we had this sort of the interesting Dynamic of it being a transatlantic project I was in Berlin Jacob's in America and it's amazing you know people from all over the world collaborating I I really that to me feels quite magical especially it was it was doing all the lockdown times and then to be oh having a chat with America and making this project you know that's gonna it's published internationally it's a really it's a wonderful feeling that even if you're sort of Trapped in your little flash that you can work on these things I do think my work is me even when I'm doing ideas that not mine like I like to think the work is still me so I'm a big fan of Joni Mitchell and she has sung such a broad variety of genres actually goes from Jazz to folk and sometimes she you know as an old woman she's got this old husky really amazing voice and as a young woman she's got this young smooth voice but she's always Joni Mitchell and you can always tell it's a Joni Mitchell song and I like to think okay I'm definitely not like Jody rich but I like to think even if the idea is like oh this is a different angle for my work I like to think it's still me under you know it's still me even if it's it's just a different genre a different angle what Irene really wanted to emphasize too is that you know we reviewed a lot of different illustrators for this project before we approached anyone and we really liked Katie's style and that was why we approached her because we wanted Katie as the as the illustrator we wanted her creativity and her her design influence so we gave her a lot of freedom and we were very very happy with what came out and so Katie you were familiar with tarot before working on the project is that correct oh yes and did you find it daunting to have to uh do 78 cards in your own style or was it more of an exciting kind of feeling a bit of Faith the excitement and and wanting to make sure I did a good job and there were definitely some cards which I was super excited to do in some cards which was like I don't know how I don't know how to do this one this one and I'll save that one till the end and so Jacob how long did the project take from like the initial idea to actually being published in the world for everyone to enjoy this published in like last fall I think when we first really got it started in Earnest like getting Katie involved is probably a year and a half before it was published when we come back from our break we are going to take a little tour of the cards in a deck ask Katie and Jacob about their favorite cards and show you some of the cool cards in the deck stay tuned exciting news listeners knit a spell is coming to patreon this summer
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me you can sign up to learn more about this exclusive opportunity at thedivinehand.com forward slash mastership and we're back I'm curious about the aspect of the symbolism on the cards to show this to the Watchers but I think what's really interesting about a card deck that's themed like this the yarn tarot what did you use for the suit this is Jacob's genius not mine he he was the brains behind the decisions I just made things pretty I guess when we approached the deck we knew instead of just using one craft we wanted to use multiple crafts so uh to just to be as inclusive of the yarn art as we could be the natural thing is like well just make each suit a different craft so that's where we started from and I know that some there are some other tarot Decks that don't stick to the Classic Suits they'll have whatever they want we wanted to stay a little bit more classic so we did not update the name of the suits we just updated the symbols so when it came to swords you know you stick them with the pointy end as they say in Game of Thrones so why not a knitting needle so the the crochet hook uh became wands I actually really loved the designer Two of Wands and she's a crochet designer so instantly in my mind I'm like I love her let's use crochet hooks for wands this is my little Fanboy moment and then as far as so I'm gonna interrupt you so to be clear there's a designer out there who calls themselves the Two of Wands and is a crocheter yes the inspiration behind this that's awesome I think she has she has no idea she might not even know this Becca exists and [ __ ] I'm sure she has no idea that that kind of Inspirations so then then the next suit I'll talk about is the cups spindles kind of have a cup shape and then also it's related to water and holding things so you know like spinning yarn is oh you know almost fluid like so that seemed to make sense and then the last one for Pentacles we just use a little square Loom that people use to hand weave um and that seemed like the the easiest way to still maintain the pentacle symbol while still in the craft so I'm just curious if you had maybe one or two that came out particularly well that you were like oh this this is one of my favorite I mean I'm not to like pick out of your babies I'm not sure they're all the favorites of course but my favorite slack okay I didn't know what it says about me but but my favorite was actually the devil um to design I really enjoyed doing that one um I really like the film uh I think it's called Legend 1980s film with Tom Cruise and Tim yes exactly and I channeled that Vibe for this one but um in particular for the for the for the for the rest of the decks oh I think I really liked doing three of swords that was the one this one with the the heart like that's such an iconic yes um one from the Ryder weight deck so I liked doing my little interpretation of that I don't know it's like such a graphic simple simple one to do but some of them were it was quite challenging sometimes to convey the messenger I don't know how you feel about Jacob but for some of them um to be restricted to to to the craft of of knitting and crocheting and communicate the messages that they need to sometimes it's a little bit challenging but but one's like the three of swords that was I like that one that was my favorite Jacob did you have a favorite card or cards out of the deck I have so many favorites so one of my favorites is the hermit huh what oh it's my favorite too I love the hermit it just turned out that you know instead of you know a staff with a lantern there's a shiny ball of yarn that gives the you know his own secret knowledge and like what he's learned and his guidance I'm also a bit of a Hermit myself so I can relate to that wanting to be alone with a bunch of yarn so that was one of my favorites I just loved the color palette I love the bright yellow that Katie had it turned out beautifully another one of my favorites so number two is the eight of Swords I just loved how that one needle is just bound up a little bit you know but it it's it's at the beginning of a project but it looks bad it looks like it's confined I don't know so there's a lot of interesting ways to think about about that and one of my favorites that I always think about a lot um is the five of Wands of how even when we are in conflict with other people we are still connected and that yarn is literally connecting you and um if you have a problem with someone if you're if you have beef that's a dinner you're having with that person you know it's like you can't have a problem with others by yourself even though you're at odds you are connected still with that person so I just thought that was a beautiful way to illustrate it I want to say something about the Three of Swords which is and referencing an earlier conversation this would make an amazing quilt yes indeed like how how fantastic would that be to quilt I mean I would not be hand stitching it but you know you do you Katie just take me the next 10 years but yeah I love how with quilts they're often full of symbols you know the stars the star shapes have meaning all the pineal pineapple shapes have meaning and you could you could take all the symbols from tarot and use that in a quilt and that that would be lovely yeah I think because my work I use a lot of quite like graphic uh geometric shapes and I think that comes from looking at quotes a lot like I get a lot of inspiration from quilts and and all the contrasting colors and quilts as well and some of the quilts like I think that I think I like to think that that's sort of one of the big Inspirations behind my work so I'm really happy that Katie that you picked up on that one that's exactly what I want oh well then you did your job perfectly there you go but just for a bit of balance I'll also say the star is also my favorite because I I don't want to just be the devil the devil the star um that was a really lovely card to work on and I to repeat Jacob I really loved working on the herb one and I think for me um I've done quite a few books for children on mythology and yarn or string is is is a symbol used throughout mythology and so in Greek ancient Greek mythology you've got the three Bates who um they they stretch out the string to determine how long your life is and for me that's kind of what the hermit card looked like it looked something looked like something to do with that I just felt like a very natural translation using the yarn instead of I think in in the rider weight it's a lantern isn't it so yeah it just it felt like a really natural translation to go oh yeah actually it could be yarn rather than a lantern and I thought that was very I found not quite effective I liked also doing the lovers I think that's got quite a look I think the lovers and the devil card they both got a lot going on in them and I think if they're sort of like parallels to each other those cards and I I I liked working on those two a lot I want to know like when you look at the lovers card and the devil what speaks to you in retrospect so I think for the lovers I love that there's so much going on in in that it's a sort of a scene um I love that there's The Burning Tree behind the man and there's the sort of Adam and Eve element with the snake behind the woman I enjoy it really enjoyed illustrating that instead of doing my own sort of graphic my style look of that and I think it I think it worked quite well and I think the same with the devil I just really I I I I just really enjoyed doing his beard and his horns like it was really it was really fun there aren't many opportunities in my work where I get to do a picture of the devil so I really relished that another card I want to ask about is my other favorite card outside of the hermit death there we go oh yeah you know people are always scared to get this card I love it out with the old and in with the new and I like how the writer on this one is not wearing like armor it's just Fabric and that the flag is knit be nice to think that when when death comes he's got a nice snuggly blanket ready for us and isn't too scary looking I would be more accepting of my mortality if I thought he had a nice quilted or crocheted blanket to wrap me up in to take me to whatever is next the Cloudy place yes I agree plus they seem into it they're like yes all right here it's like they're here for the parade it's exciting yes they showed up for it they're not afraid I like it one of my favorite uh elements of that card is like the yarn ball that's rolling away I'm like leaving a string I don't know one thing that I thought was really interesting working on really digging deeper into like the meanings and whatnot work of the cards like you said people see the death card and they think automatically like all this dramatic crazy stuff you know like a normal person might think but there's a lot more positivity in a Tarot deck even in the quote-unquote bad cards that a lot of people realize initially I think that's always nice to like kind of just level yourself step back and just think about things in a different way I think every single card is neutral personally that every single card has equal amounts of what a human might think of as positive or negative and what we tend to do is label cards in a certain bent but it's really worth looking at too much sun is a bad thing just like too much death in the wrong place at the wrong time can be misaligning to our will but you're not going to eat any food of any kind be you vegan or an omnivore if there isn't death the carrot cannot survive you eating it so if we don't have death there's not going to be life and that's just the way life you know the way it works and all the cards have a neutral and holographic symbolism to them and when we can start to see that way in which the cards in the right place and in the right way and in the right amount work within and can be used to help us find our Direction I think that's when the tarot can be extraordinarily powerful um but when we have our ego or our judgment in the way of the message then it can be a tool that can be weaponized very easily for me when I read tarot cards myself it's it's such a I mean you can look up what their official meanings mean but actually sitting and looking at the pictures oh what are my associations with those symbols what does this you know what does this mean for me and you and I feel like tarot cards are such a good way to have a conversation with yourself and just get a bit of just time to reflect on what you're what's going on in your head and get it get a little bit of context and perspective on things um and see I always try and when I'm reading for myself look at you know the books and the guides to sort of get a more official insight into what the cards are saying but also listen to you know read the cards to myself or what what do these symbols mean for me that's a great message and again this book is very helpful it has tons of nice layouts and lots of information on it but like you said the best gleaning of divinatory practices are just going to be what comes to mind for you naturally so that's a great way to just trust your intuition trust yourself whether it's for you know dividing purposes or just like should I start this new project today or no Chef uh no oh maybe not today it's death or maybe I should finish something before I start something new they can be very practical too yeah for sure for sure I think I have to be careful for myself when I'm doing my own readings like no no no it's saying it's saying do the thing it's saying do thing even though they're clearly saying don't do the thing like no it doesn't do the thing and then the next time I read the cards it's like see we told you you shouldn't do the thing and I mean you all knowing cards yes they will always come back to tell you even if you're not willing to hear it the first time
coming up until it's like you're reading it the way it wants to be read or it will bring up another card that's like oh okay well you don't want this one how about this one that says the same message now that you've tried to turn it around how about that exactly so sassy and there have been times where I've tried to do well not tried but I've gone to do a reading for myself and I've like dreaded what the car what I was gonna find out I'm like oh no it's gonna tell me this but then it told it told me something else that I was like okay that's not so bad and like I wasn't trying to convince myself anything because I was convinced I was going to get a certain direction and then I wanted a much more pleasant Direction I was like okay thank you maybe you Katie and Jay can speak to this I've noticed that there's different approaches to people's interactions with tarot some people have a lot more spiritual connection rely on energies mystical type aspects to It While others use it just for straight up reflection to think about things in a new way do you think that there is a right or a wrong way to use tarot or I don't know how would you speak to both those because I you know I know a little bit about your podcast and like how you definitely go more towards the magical as opposed to the psychological right I think I think kind of come at it from both angles especially Jim he's got a lot of uh background and was sociology for me personally and then Jim I'll let you you know give your reflection on this too because I'm sure it'll be different I think you can use use them for anything I think also you can use much like we were talking about earlier with your love of decks in general you can use any card to do any sort of divination I think the real key is just knowing what you're asking if you know what you're asking then whatever you choose to Divine will help prompt that answer within you whether it's should I cast on this new project now or not or you know should I take this huge life-changing opportunity mundane to Super like should I take up a new deity you know does a steady want to work with me and then flipping a card for that perhaps to get the answer I think it it could be anything what about you Jim such a fun question much like Katie said it's a little bit of both but it's that's a kind of a to not have that be a cop-out I think that one comes before the other for me personally I think that it's really important in what I've observed in people and how I teach this to people is Clarity of spiritual readings and psychic ability often occurs in Still Waters and that's a metaphor for clarity of mind and awareness of self and I think a lot of times that Clarity of mind and and awareness of self occur most when people have done their own work on themselves psychologically and have a certain level of like a grip on themselves so I find that utilizing the psychological aspects of a rubric and a methodology within divinatory practices that's what I often will resort to and teach with my palmistry and with tarot are good at providing sort of a foundation and then within that Foundation a sort of clarity descends and within that Clarity then the spiritual and psychic messages sort of have a a Stillness in which they can occur there are times when people have a natural skill or ability like there are certain people that are born with the ability to just sing and I think that sometimes people have a gift to just be psychic and to just connect and those folks are amazing and I think that for many of us we must develop that and to develop that and to have it be clear for me it lives in that Clarity of having that awareness having a regular spiritual practice of meditation and and those sort of things is how for me divination and a divinatory rubric allows for those amazingly clear psychic messages to show up and that also when I'm doing it for myself allows me to have the skill to let my ego set aside so that when as Katie said their cards are saying it's not the time for you to do that I can actually hear that and know the difference have the discernment to know that that's the card saying not yet as opposed to my ego saying yes now I don't know what how does that response sit with you Jacob I'm curious well I just think it's really interesting because like kind of going back to introducing my earliest knowledge of tarot being of the devil you know like predicting the future and then my experience now of I have met a lot you know not well not a lot but I've met several people who use tarot simply as meditation and thinking and it was totally Stripped Away from elements and Planet alignments and like anything to do with spirituality I recently read I don't know if you're familiar there's a it's a from the library of esoterica it's published by Passion it's this series of books there's one on witchcraft and then there's one on tarot and this book on tarot is like 500 pages long there's a few essays about the history of tarot but for the most part is actually a gallery of all these different tarot decks showing all these different approaches and artwork so I would definitely check it out one thing I thought was interesting was in the essays about the history of tarot the root of tarot and like the 1800s and 1900s was a very very like occult this is spiritual you know like that in in the essays that I read it didn't seem to have any sort of straight up psychological you know meditative aspects because tarot was being used heavily by these Society you know these societies and these groups and it mentioned the way Tara has been used over the hundreds of years has been reflected by societal Norms so I wonder if there is a certain desire to maintain any sort of like Purity you know or whatever that could be over the hundreds of years of the use of tarot as opposed to what conservice would say a Godless society that doesn't need spirituality anymore you know is that reflected in the use of tarot of people wanting to be more psychological as opposed to spiritual these days I mean there is lots of History around the tarot including its original use in Italy as a card game yeah and which was purely that and then its use in occultism just like the playing cards used for divinatory purposes and then records of You Know Carl Young using it as a tool at least the major Arcana as a way to reflect on the archetypes human archetypes so I think that there's a mix of sort of how humans are like a reflection of like people will use things in different ways and I think it's an interesting thing to separate the menu from the food I think there's some implication and the ideas that are out there in society that the tarot in its in and of itself is spiritual and my take on it is we will use the tarot in spiritual ways but in and of itself it's just paper and like just like the Bible in and of itself is just a book but the the way people use it can be used in different ways and certainly in the tail end of the satanic Panic has brought tarot still into this um it's of the devil in you know Conservative Christian mentality certainly how I was raised in deep in the satanic Panic Katie did that occur for you in England where you was it tarot evil no we had Harry Potter's uh all things magical as I was I was growing up was the thing my mom gave me my first Tarot deck when I was 11 I got it in my Christmas stocking and um like crystal balls and all things witchy I had a cool mom I know I'm so grateful I didn't grow up with satanic panic I would have been terrified yeah oh my god um no um I'm really really really glad that I didn't have that because that'd be very frightening um but I did have people I was quite surprised because to me it's just such a I I see tarot cards as both spiritual and practical i i i and and for me this like spiritual and practical are kind of the same thing my spiritual practice is what keeps me grounded and sane and helps me approach everything so for me it's a very practical and grounding thing to have this spiritual practice but when people react like oh tarot cards oh you're not a bit scared to do that why why would I just in the same way that you look at a piece of art that's hung on your wall and you might read things into that and it might evoke a feeling for you or make you get some perspective on your own life like tarot decks it's like this little mini gallery that you get to look through and and go oh this makes me think of that and oh maybe I should change how I'm approaching this it's it's just images that help you emote something within you and and I don't know give you perspective on life yes there just a tool I think there is something magical about them but in but not in a scary way it's not like something demonic is going to come through the cards it reflects what's going on in you if you're full of fear and panicking about devils and things and probably yeah though something scary will pop out for you because that's your own projection I think my generation in England has a lot to be grateful to for to Harry Potter we were we were we were really into all the Spells and witchy things when I was growing up I appreciate this discussion and like I think it is really interesting how tarot is so open for anyone like however you want to use it how you connect with it it's like you said it it's a tool for like personal and betterment whether someone takes up a yoga practice you know or someone takes up uh jogging or like or whatever sort of thing to improve themselves tarot can definitely be one of those things and how you use it doesn't really matter it's that you are using it to your benefit it is phenomenal your work both artistically editorially and I just am in deep gratitude Jacob and Katie for your work and that it's done with such expertise yes I'm sure it has opened up a lot of people's eyes you know not only people who were already into magic and maybe like oh maybe I'll start you know making again but also people who didn't have any idea or were scared of it you know it's it's in a more accessible level for them as something that's themed as something they already know is safe so they can go into it feeling good and talk to their friends about it without perhaps feeling like they're going to get ridiculed and if anything they could you know again Inspire someone well before we head out I want to make sure everyone knows how to follow everyone so Katie why don't you go first and let everybody know how they can follow you Instagram website newsletter all that fun stuff I think the best place to find me is probably on Instagram um I'm Katie Ponder illustration um and you can see what I've been up to and regular updates on my cat poppy um I also have a website but I'm really bad at updating it so I think Instagram is probably the best place to find me and Jacob what about you well I do have a personal Instagram that is more or less defunct but if you want to learn more about six and spring books the best place would actually we are part of Soho publishing which is published by Vogue knitting magazine you know since we are part of the same company all of our books are promoted via the Vogue knitting channel so if you follow Vogue knitting mag on Instagram or Facebook or you go to vognating.com and sign up for the newsletter you will hear all kinds of information about the new books and products that systems bring is uh putting up thank you again both of you for being on the show it is so appreciated maybe they'll even have feedback for us that they'd like to drop us at knit asbellpod us at gmail.com or you can always pop on over to our website knittaspell.com and just drop us a note in our contact form also where you can find the show notes and links to purchase the yarn tarot for yourself and go directly to our guests their website and their Instagram thank you everybody for being here as our guest it was so fun to have you it's my pleasure for sure yeah thank you so much and thank you for listening and we'll see you next time on knit a spell thanks thanks for listening if you enjoyed the show consider sharing it with a friend leaving a review on iTunes and Spotify or following knit a spell on Instagram you can also subscribe to the light from Lantern YouTube channel to enjoy full episodes of knit a spell and see our happy faces you can also learn more about ratings classes and events going on with your favorite maker of magic James Devine by visiting thedivinehand.com and subscribing to his newsletter then follow Jim's fun and interactive Instagram account at Divine hand gym keep up with Katie the magical maker by subscribing to her newsletter at lightfromlantern.com you'll even receive a free knitting pattern as a thank you gift then follow Katie on Instagram at light from Lantern for even more magical making tips see you next week foreign
