The Kristin Omdahl Show
Episode 1175 | The Kristin Omdahl Show
Aug
Welcome back to the Kristin Omdahl Show! This is a recap of episode 1175.
You can watch episode 1174 HERE or you can browse the entire playlist of episodes since 2017 HERE
Episode 1175 on Patreon HERE, releasing Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Episode 1175 on YouTube HERE, releasing Thursday, August 27, 2026
The Kristin Omdahl Show | Episode 1175
One of my favorite things about creativity is how rarely one idea stays in one place.
A crochet motif can become the beginning of a dress. A movie watched nearly thirty years ago can influence the way I think about writing novels today. A fictional character’s cardigan can lead to a bag of avocado pits in my freezer. And somehow that can reconnect me with a part of my creative career I haven’t visited in years.
That’s a pretty good description of what’s happening inside my creative brain this week.
Welcome to Episode 1175 of The Kristin Omdahl Show!
The Motif Dress Continues
Last week I shared a collection of crochet motifs and started exploring whether I could transform them into a dress.
The project is still evolving, which is one of my favorite parts of designing.
Rather than beginning with a completely predetermined garment and buying exactly what I need to make it, I’m working in the opposite direction: I have the yarn and motifs, and now I’m figuring out what they want to become.
That means there are creative decisions to make—and, naturally, some math.
How many motifs can I make with the yarn I have? How should they be arranged? What shape can I create? How much of my original vision will remain, and how much will change because of the materials available to me?
This is exactly the kind of creative problem I love.
When a Story Becomes More Than a Story
Many years ago, a friend and I fell in love with the 1996 movie Big Night. Around that time, I discovered Big Night: A Novel with Recipes and bought it as a birthday gift for my friend. I was fascinated. I had dreamed about becoming an author since childhood, but this was one of my first experiences with the idea that the world of a story could extend beyond the story itself.
You could watch the movie—and then make the food.
Something about that concept lodged itself deep inside my creative brain. A fictional world didn’t necessarily have to end when you reached the last page or the closing credits. You could bring little pieces of that world into your own life. Fast-forward nearly thirty years, and I’m now a novelist myself. I’m also a crochet designer, artist, recipe developer and lifelong maker. Maybe those things were never supposed to live in separate boxes.
The Companion Guide to The Sea Glass Journal
From Tess’s Closet to My Dye Pot
There is a scene in The Sea Glass Journal in which Tess wears a linen dress with a matching crochet cardigan in a beautiful dusty mauve color. The yarn for the cardigan was hand dyed with avocado pits. I could see it so clearly when I wrote it. And apparently writing about it wasn’t enough. Now I want to actually make it.
The project has already begun in the most glamorous possible way: there is currently a bag of avocado pits in my freezer. About ten of them, at the moment. I’ve also sourced undyed organic cotton yarn and purchased the mordant/fixant I’ll need for the dyeing process.
There is only one little problem.
I haven’t decided what I’m going to make with the yarn yet. And that decision matters, because the size of the project will determine how much yarn I need to dye—which may determine whether ten avocado pits are enough or whether considerably more avocado eating is required in the name of creative research.
Math Nerd meets botanical dyeing.
I love when my worlds collide.
Math Nerd: How Much Yarn Can 10 Avocado Pits Dye?
Of course, before I can dye yarn for this budding project, there’s a math problem to solve. I currently have about 10 avocado pits tucked away in my freezer, but “10 pits” isn’t actually a very useful dye measurement because avocado pits vary in size. What really matters is the weight of the dye material compared with the weight of the yarn.
A good starting point for achieving a substantial color on cotton is approximately a 1:1 ratio by weight of avocado pits to dry fiber. Natural dyeing is wonderfully unpredictable, so this isn’t an exact formula. The fiber, mordant, water chemistry, pH, extraction time and even the avocados themselves can influence the final color. But 1:1 gives me a reasonable place to begin.
For some preliminary Math Nerd calculations, let’s estimate that an average avocado pit weighs around 33 grams. Ten pits would therefore weigh roughly 330 grams. At a 1:1 ratio, that gives me enough dyestuff for approximately 330 grams, or about 11.6 ounces, of cotton yarn.
Now it gets interesting. If I want to dye a full pound of yarn, that’s approximately 454 grams, or 16 ounces. At the same ratio, I’d want roughly 454 grams of avocado pits. If they average around 33 grams each, that works out to about 14 pits.
So my current stash of 10 pits should be plenty for a small 4-ounce project and could potentially accommodate something in the 8- to 12-ounce range. But if I decide I want enough yarn for a larger garment requiring a pound or more, apparently I need to keep eating avocados.
And this is where my creative process becomes wonderfully circular. How many avocado pits do I need? Well, that depends on how much yarn I need. How much yarn do I need? That depends on what I’m making. And what am I making?
I haven’t decided yet. The yarn is sport weight organic cotton. Roughly 1200 yds per pound. I could possibly get a lace cardigan out of a pound, but would need a second pound if I want a midi to maxi dress or a full skirt.
Welcome to Math Nerd: Avocado Edition.
Before I actually dye anything, I’ll weigh my frozen pits rather than relying on an estimated average. And when I’m finally ready to dye yarn for the Tess-inspired project, I’ll document the process—including the actual weights, ratios and results—so we can see what happens together.
In the meantime, perhaps I should make some guacamole, avocado dressing, or an avocado salad. You can find all of my recipes HERE.
Returning to Botanical Dyeing
This project also reconnects me with another chapter of my creative life. For years, hand-dyeing yarn was part of my professional work. Returning to it now feels very different. I’m not thinking about production quantities or creating an entire collection of yarn. I’m thinking about one small batch with a very particular purpose: bringing something from a fictional world into the real one.
I’ve always been fascinated by botanical and natural dyes and the beautiful—and sometimes surprising—colors that can come from nature. In fact, I have a botanical dyeing ebook that I’ve been working on for years. It’s probably about 80% finished. The remaining 20% is currently scattered somewhere between my computer, notebooks and brain, where it has been collecting digital dust. Will Tess’s avocado yarn inspire me to finally dust that project off?
Maybe.
We’ll see where this particular rabbit hole leads.
What Should I Make With Tess-Inspired Yarn?
This is where I’m sending the idea across the net to you.
What do you think I should make with the avocado-pit-dyed organic cotton yarn?
Should it become something directly inspired by Tess’s wardrobe? A smaller companion project? Something completely different? Or maybe even a collection of projects?
That last idea has me especially curious. In many of my books—Crochet Power, for example—and throughout my pattern designs, I’ve explored the idea of taking the essence of one stitch pattern and seeing how many different directions I can take it. What happens when I work it in even rows or even rounds? Can I increase it in rows? Can I increase it in rounds to create a circle, square, rectangle or hexagon? Once I understand the underlying structure of a stitch pattern, suddenly it isn’t just one pattern anymore. It becomes a jumping-off point for all kinds of different constructions and projects.
Uh oh. Here comes another rabbit hole.
I’d love to hear your ideas. And when I have enough avocado pits, settle on the project—or projects—and finally pull out the dye pot, I’ll bring you along. I plan to document the process and share a tutorial so you can see exactly how the yarn develops. I have no idea yet what shade of dusty pink or mauve we’ll actually get—and honestly, that’s part of the fun.
Across the ‘Net
I have been completely overwhelmed—in the best possible way—by the response to Episode 1174. I received dozens of comments, many of them paragraphs long, and I can’t tell you how touched I am by the time, energy and emotion you put into welcoming the show back. Beyond how meaningful the comments are to me personally, they’ve also been incredibly encouraging. After wondering for so long whether there was still a place for this show, hearing from so many of you reminded me of something.
Before I ever recorded the very first episode of The Kristin Omdahl Show, I debated doing it for a long time. I was afraid I would put myself out there and no one would watch. Not one person. Eventually, I had to ask myself: So what? What if nobody watches? Do it anyway.
And strangely enough, that’s very similar to how I finally wrote my first novel. I had dreamed of becoming an author since childhood, but for decades I found reasons not to write the book. Looking back, so many of those reasons were really just fear dressed up as excuses. Until one day I told myself: So what? Write a horrible first draft. It didn’t have to be good. Nobody had to read it. I just needed to prove to myself that I could get from the first page to the last. And once I had that first draft, something changed. I had done it. That accomplishment gave me the confidence to make it better—to write a second draft, and a third, and a fourth. Eventually, that frightening blank page became a finished novel.
And now I realize I’ve done essentially the same thing again with Episode 1174. After three years of thinking about bringing the show back, wondering what it should be and worrying about whether anyone would want it, eventually I had to come back to that same question:
So what?
Feel the fear and do it anyway. Record one episode. And then see what happens. What happened was that you sent so much love back across the ’net that I don’t even know how to adequately thank you for it.
So maybe that’s my reminder this week—for myself as much as anyone else listening:
You don’t have to know whether something will succeed before you begin. Sometimes you just have to make the first draft. Record the first episode. Take the first swing.
Then you have something real to work with. And sometimes, what comes back across the ’net might surprise you.
Happy Moment
Each week, I also want to stop and notice something much simpler: one little moment that made me happy. Not necessarily an accomplishment. Not something impressive. Just a moment worth noticing.
I’ll share mine in Episode 1175, and I’d love for you to share yours with me, too.
What is one little thing that made you happy this week? Sometimes paying attention to those tiny moments is enough to remind us how many of them there actually are.
Watch Episode 1175 of The Kristin Omdahl Show
In this episode, we’re connecting crochet motifs, design math, a beloved movie, novel writing, Tess’s wardrobe, avocado pits, botanical dyeing and an unfinished ebook that’s been quietly waiting for me to rediscover it. They may sound like completely unrelated subjects. But Inside my creative brain, they’re not unrelated at all. One idea leads to another. And I think that’s one of the most interesting parts of creativity.
Come join me for Episode 1175, and don’t forget to send something back across the net. I can’t wait to see where the rally takes us.
Let us make time to create, share and inspire, today and every day.
xoxo, Kristin
Show Notes:
Patterns and Products featured in this episode:
The Sea Glass Journal, a novel by Kristin Omdahl
Margot Cardigan Free Crochet Pattern
Bardot Stretchy Headbands Free Crochet Pattern
Free Crochet Pattern: Bardot Headband #1 – A Stylish & Stretchy Accessory
Sea Glass Sanctuary Wall Art Free Crochet Pattern
Driftwood Rose Doily Free Crochet Pattern
Tidal Whisper Free Crochet Shawl Pattern
Products mentioned in this episode can be found in Kristin Omdahl’s Amazon Storefront
White Strapless Dress worn by Kristin in this episode
About Kristin Omdahl
Kristin Omdahl is an author, designer, and lifelong maker with over 20 years of experience creating crochet and knit patterns, books, and tutorials. With more than 1,000 designs published worldwide, her work blends creativity, technique, and a love of storytelling.
She is also the author of The Sea Glass Journal, a novel that weaves together themes of creativity, self-discovery, and coastal living—often inspiring the patterns, recipes, and projects she shares.
Explore more patterns, tutorials, and the world of The Sea Glass Journal at KristinOmdahl.com.
