Big and Small

I like Gwen's ideas about the relative benefits and drawbacks of larger and smaller venues. All of her observations are right on. It is definitely something I thought about in Atlanta. For me, one of the obvious benefits was teaching my last class of 6 students in a gorgeous, deluxe boardroom with a trey ceiling; beautiful moldings and mirrors on the walls; a crystal chandelier; individual, leather, executive-style chairs for each student and glass pitchers of ice water on the table to fill our crystal glasses. Nice!

The Magnolia Room at the Renaissance Waverly at Stitches South

Seriously, while I do like being able to give more individual attention, I do find that smaller classes at a big venue like Stitches seem to have less chatter and interaction from the students, so there is less peer learning going on. Peer learning and neighbors helping neighbors are things I really welcome and even encourage in my classes. I have no illusions that I have the only and best solution to every knitting problem. I love it when I go around the room to help and a student reports that the person next to them got them to their A-HA moment. I am just a facilitator-the energy and the dynamics of each group of students keep teaching fresh and exciting. For this reason, I usually never have any sensation of boredom or that I'm teaching the same things over and over again.

On the other hand, smaller classes allow me more time to cover things in greater depth. The whole pace of the class is slightly slowed and relaxed. If someone asks a tangential question, I feel comfortable going off in new and off-the-handout directions. That is really fun.

In the end, I am glad there is variety in the available venues for learning our craft: big conventions and small, intimate retreats all have their place. As Gwen said, I invite you to get investigate the options and take a class or just go to a fiber gathering. Meet your fellow knitters and enjoy the fact that you belong to a tribe of wonderful, intelligent, curious people who value learning and growth.

Some for you to consider, if not this year then next year or the year after that are:

Black Sheep Gathering
Sock Summit
The TKGA Knit and Crochet Shows
Michigan Fiber Festival
Stitches Midwest
Rhinebeck (the nickname for The New York State Sheep and Wool Festival)
Stitches East
Meg Swansen's Knitting Camps and Workshops
Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival
All sorts of Crafty Cruises

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list, but it will get you started exploring the wonderful world of fiber learning. As those cruise commercials say, "GET OUT THERE!"

Is Bigger Better?

Kellie and I recently returned from Atlanta where we both were teaching at the first Stitches South knitting convention. As a first time event, it was very well attended. However, we have gotten used to the large number of knitters that attend the Stitches events and so by comparison, this event seemed a little small. But bigger is not always better! Here are a couple of my observations why sometimes a slightly smaller event might be better:

• Classes will generally have fewer students resulting in more personalized attention
• The market is less crowded making it easier to see what is available in EVERY booth
• Less folks at the big events thus increasing your chances at winning one of the door prizes

Even so, there are advantages to the larger events as well:

• The class list is significantly larger so there is a higher probability you can find the topic that you want at a time that is convenient
• More vendors in the market result in a wider variety of choice including vendors that may travel from some distance
  
• With more attendees walking around, the variety of garments (being worn) increases dramatically making every day a kind of a fashion show

So is bigger better? I think they all have pluses and minuses. And for me, I like being at all of them whether I am there as a teacher or as an attendee. If you have not ever attended a knitting convention or fiber festival, you should try it out. The season is upon us and I expect you will find it to be an experience you will want to repeat!

It IS About Choices

When I read Kellie's post below, it made me smile, because her last statement really sums up my knitting philosophy. Knitting is about choices! Since then I have been on the road teaching most of the time. Today is my last day with students before I head back to California tomorrow.

I have taught a variety of classes on this trip and the thing that students seem to respond to more than anything else is I give them permission to have their own "right" answer. For my own knitting I often have "rules and guidelines" that I follow because they work for me, my style and my personality. When I share those in the classroom, I call them "Gwen's rules for Gwen". I will RARELY use "always" or "never" in a class, because so often there is more than one "right answer".

So this got me thinking.....do I have any universal rules in the world of knitting? This is what I came up with:

1. Be consistent, at least within each project. What ever choices you do make, use the same answer/process/technique throughout that project.
2. When someone compliments you on a project say "thank you" and possibly share that it was made by your own two hands. DO NOT try and point out every little mistake or imperfection.
3. Knitting should be fun. This doesn't mean that you will never have moments of frustration or confusion, but BY FAR, the fun, good, positive, relaxing moments should always outweigh any negatives.

There might be others, but this is all that I could come up with that I felt were TRULY universal. What are yours?

Glad to Be Here, Gwen!

I'm Kellie and I am thrilled to be one of the Knitting Professors with Gwen. I am appreciative of her kind introduction and can say all the same good things about her. Frankly, I think of her as a true knitting genius, and love the way she teaches and designs. I look forward to posting here and exploring both the technical and artistic sides of knitting.
By way of introduction, I have been knitting since I was a child, and am almost completely self-taught. After learning the basics in a children's class as a young girl, I found myself fascinated but without known resources, such as shops or books, so I would look at sweaters with a magnifying glass while poking around with a knitting needle. In this way I learned the structure of the knitted fabric first, then how to follow patterns and read about knitting much, much later. The first time I followed a written pattern, I was in my twenties. For all the years in between, I just made it up as I went along. Here is one story that illustrates some of my knitting life: I taught myself to do cables without a cable needle in about 1980, by carefully examining a cabled sweater and discovering that the stitches were knitted in exactly the same way, they were just out of order. So, I took my stitches off the needle and manually reversed them, then knitted them. When I found shops and books and patterns some years later, I thought that cable needles were a brilliant convenience. It has made me smile to see the emergence of cabling without a cable needle as something new and amazing. I can do it both ways, but I really appreciate the help that a cable needle gives. So there you have it-knitting is about choices and there is really no wrong way to knit. In the end though, this learning process has served me well and I look forward to helping you understand your stitches better so you can have absolute confidence about your knitting.

Welcome to Our Newest Professor

Starting today, the Knitting Professor blog becomes the Knitting Professors -- yes plural. I am excited to announce that Kellie Nuss of Knitting Inspiration, a great friend, fabulous sample knitter and knitting instructor extraordinaire will be joining me here!

Kellie visited me for a couple of days before we headed west across the state to teach at Stitches West in Santa Clara. During our drive I shared my long time wish to have this blog be more of a "conversation" regarding knitting techniques and the choices that we make. Kellie said she was up for it -- so here we go. And don't be surprised if the look of the blog as well as the name changes over the next few months to better reflect our combined personalities.

In some ways we are a lot alike (we both love sharing our knowledge and are GIANT knitting geeks) but we are also very different (I am a HUGE extrovert, Kellie is much more of an introvert). So, as I often promise, I expect that our postings will be much more frequent than you have historically seen on this blog. But I think that this time it might REALLY come to pass! In the mean time, if you have any questions you would like to have answered, please leave us a comment and we will start sharing our answers.

Once again -- Welcome Kellie!!!

Writing a Book is Hard!

This may not really be news, but writing a book is a lot of work! Now I must be perfectly clear, I NEVER thought it was going to be easy. In fact, that is the primary reason it has taken me so long to even consider taking on the endeavor. And please don't assume that I am not enjoying the process, because I am. But working under deadlines, specifically knitting under deadlines, has never been my forte.

Last month I delivered my first set of finished projects and their patterns to the folks at XRX, Inc, my publishers. The meeting went well and I think everyone is generally pleased with my progress thus far. But what I realized is that I delivered about half of the project, the small half and the remaining projects are mostly larger projects.

So what have I learned thus far?

1. My original timeline was probably closer to correct and I should have gotten started on the finished projects sooner than I did.
2. Having time away from the normal day to day (in my case up at my cabin) really helps in allowing one to focus on the task at hand.
3. Quality test knitters are hard to find, but when you find them, treat them well, because you want to keep them.
4. No matter how many projects arrive on my doorstep, they each give me a thrill when I see my concept come to life.
5. Next time, if there is a next time, I must start swatching, designing and knitting much earlier in the process.

I am sure that there will be many more lessons to learn over the next year as I finish up the bulk of my work and it is turned over to the publishers. Stay tuned!

Cleveland is cool

I recently returned from a multi-stop trip which began in Cleveland, OH. This was my first trip to Cleveland that I can remember. What struck me the most was its similarities to Kansas City, MO a place I called home for many years. The advantage that Cleveland has over KC is what appears to be a great public transportation system.

The folks I met in at the North Coast Knitting Guild in Cleveland were all warm, friendly and very welcoming. I particularly enjoyed the dinner I shared with my host and several of the guild members on Saturday evening at a Hungarian establishment. Both the food and the company were FABULOUS.

If you ever have a chance to visit Cleveland, I would recommend it. You might be surprised, I was!!!

Things I Learned My Last Trip

During my last trip I had stops in Cleveland, Annapolis, Baltimore and Las Vegas. During this trip I learned many new things and I thought I would share them:

1. It really pays to be a Frequent Flyer, especially when your flight to your final destination is canceled and you are scheduled to teach the following morning.
2. Always pack more knitting in your carry-on than you think you will need. You never know when your flight will be canceled and will be rerouted through Atlanta making your trip 6 hours longer than planned.
3. You can never have enough knitting buddies. OK we all know that, but they are particularly helpful when you have an interesting design problem and need help resolving it.
4. Writing a book is more difficult than I thought and I already thought it would hard -- more on this later.
5. Lots of fluids and vitamin C really can manage a cold down to nearly nothing. Especially when you have to make a presentation in front of a room full of people and you don't want to have to worry about the effects of other medications.
6. Seeing a Cirque du Soleil performance live is truly amazing and worth the money, but next time I am going to get seats a bit further back (we were in the second row) because there is too much to see!

Next time, more trip details.

The Last Year in Baltimore

2008 marks the last year that Stitches East will be held in Baltimore. Although I am always happy to go to new places and will go teach anywhere they will have me, I have liked being in Baltimore. One of my closest friends, Jeanne of Nature Speak Knits, live in Annapolis and Stitches East has always given me a reason to spend a couple days with her and her husband. Also, I was always able to arrange to have at least one meal at the GREAT tapas place at the Inner Harbor.

Next year Stitches East will be held in Hartford, CT. For me, it will be a new opportunity to get to learn about another place in the US. And there are few things I enjoy more than learning. I will miss the "regulars" in the Baltimore area, but look forward to meeting new folks up in the north east.

And luckily for me, I still have ample excuses to visit the Baltimore area since BWI is the airport my husband and use when we are visiting his family. Next time out will be the end of December. Maybe a get together over tapas is in order?!?!

A Busy June

This past June, was the the busiest (to date) teaching month. And then in addition, I also had church meetings and family vacations squeezed in there as well. It meant that between June 3 and July 8 I was only home for 6 days! Thank heaven Arlis is great about doing laundry or I don't think I would have made it.

What I found most interesting, was that through it all, I never once regretted my choice to become a professional knitting instructor. If anything, it just affirmed that this is truly what I want to do. If I was ever going to change my mind, this was probably going to be the month. But I really enjoyed all of my various opportunities to teach and the students that they introduced me to.

And in some cases, there are pictures!

My first stop was TNNA. Some of my favorite classes to teach are what I call "train the trainer" which is what I offer at TNNA. TNNA is also a time to spend time with my knitting buddies. And this time I did not have a booth so I could wander the floor, see what was new and research yarns for my upcoming book.

The next stop on tour was the Knitters Connection. This is only their second year, but they have been doing a great job. Penny, one of my SSK participants blogged all about it and included pictures - including one me!

The last teaching gig for the month was Camp Stitches East in Hamilton, NY. Camp is always a lot of fun, but this location is particularly wonderful for their customer service and OUTSTANDING food. This is my class.


They were a ton of fun, really stretched in their own learning experiences and were a wonderful inspiration.

Sure it was a lot of traveling and a lot of time away from my husband, but it still was a lot of fun. My goal is to teach more next year, so I expect months like June will become more frequent. But as long as I am enjoying it and my students are getting a good class, then the Knitting Professor will continue!