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!

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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?

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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.

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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!!!

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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!

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