VK Live Blog Tour & Giveaway: Day 1

Happy 4th of July to all my American readers!

Today I am the first stop on a blog tour designed to introduce you to some of my fellow teachers who will be appearing at VK Live this September, in Los Angeles.


I am honored to be in the fine company of so many wonderful fiber folks. And having experienced how much fun the very first VK Live in New York was,



well, it's not an exaggeration to say that I cannot wait for the fun to start. Last year I got to stalk Melissa Morgan-Oakes; grab Franklin Habit's butt (WARNING: Do not try this. You will be sorry -- very sorry!); have dinner with Brooke Nico, the Koigu mom & daughter team, Kathy Merrick AND the Buffalo Gold duo.



I got to meet some of the best, most enthusiastic students one could ever hope to have in a class. I got see a little bit of New York (including a visit to Purl Soho) and a jam-packed marketplace. And I even got to meet some of my knitting heroes, like Meg Swansen!!! (I try not to overuse the exclamation points, but meeting Meg Swansen deserves three, in my book.)



So if you live anywhere near Los Angeles, or you can drive there or can trade in airplane miles to fly there, make your plans soon.

I have been asked specifically to tell you all a little bit about the classes that I will be teaching at VK Live in L.A. The class I will teach multiple times is called "Yarn Substitution Made Easy," and is rapidly becoming my most popular class. If you have struggled with how to substitute yarns in patterns, or if you have a stash and you need help in figuring out how to pick the right pattern to showcase the yarns you have, then this is the class for you. We talk all about weights and categories of yarn, gauge and how it relates to weights of yarn, fiber characteristics, tips for getting quantity right, and we also walk through a substitution or two of a real-world pattern, so you can see how everything fits together. This class is selling out fast, so grab a spot while you can.

The second class I'm teaching is called "Secrets of the Schematics." I recently wrote an article for Vogue Knitting on this topic, and I had trouble keeping to my word limit. There is just so much you can learn about a pattern by studying its schematic. We will take some examples of schematics, and I'll explain what everything means and why those numbers are so important. We'll talk about fit and how you can use the schematic to help you make your garments fit better. By the time we're done, you will never start knitting a sweater again without spending some time studying the schematic. And you will end up with garments that fit you better, and are more enjoyable to knit.

The last class I'm teaching is about a topic I absolutely love: self-striping and self-patterning yarns. I think that self-stripers and self-patterners are some of the most interesting and hypnotic yarns out there. But if you don't fully understand how they work, they can also be frustrating to work with. In this class, we will cover exactly how self-stripers and self-patternings are created, and how this affects the way they will knit up. We'll talk about tips for working with them and common pitfalls -- and how to avoid those pitfalls. You will end up with a great understanding of these yarns and why they work the way they do, and you will be empowered to use up all the fun Noro and Poems and Kaffe Fassett Colourscapes and WEBS Cold Spring and Opal and Regia in your stash.

It's kind of funny that I have ended up teaching knitting classes because I come from a long line of teachers -- my dad was a science teacher for 30+ years, my brother teaches junior high, my aunt is a third-grade teacher and I have lots of cousins who teach, too. When I was a kid, I actually wanted to be a teacher, and do you know what people told me? (I still can't believe they used to say this.) "You're too smart to be a teacher." Can you imagine?

So maybe it's fitting that I ended up a teacher in the end, and honestly, I really love teaching in a way I never imagined I would. I love seeing the light in someone's eyes when they get something. I love helping knitters understand their craft better so they can get better results and have more fun. I love that my students end up my friends on Facebook and Ravelry, and I can see all the cool things they work on. And I'm really grateful to the folks at Vogue (especially Trisha Malcolm) who gave me the chance to teach in New York, and again, in Los Angeles.

Before I get all weepy and maudlin, though, I have two announcements that will interest you. The first is that thanks to the kindness of Rabbitch, I will have Black Bunny Fibers yarns to sell at the Rabbitworks Fibre Studio booth at VK Live. So even if you can't take a class, you can come and see some of my lovely yarns (nd Rabbitch's, too) in person and scoop them up before they are all gone.

The second is that the folks at VK Live have very generously offered to give one of you readers a free class at the show! To win, just leave a comment here and make sure there is contact info available either in your comment or via your Blogger profile. I will use a random number generator to pick a lucky winner. Leave your comment by midnight, Wednesday, July 6th. I'll pick the winner the next day. Please note that I moderate comments due to spammers, so there may be a time lag between the time you leave your comment and the time it appears on the blog-- if you leave a second comment, I'll delete it since it's one comment/entry per person.

And for your blog-reading pleasure, here's the list of other fabulous fiber folks participating in the blog tour this week:

5 July -- http://www.knitgrrl.com -- Knitgrrl (Shannon Okey)

6 July -- http://lornaslaces.blogspot.com - Lorna's Laces blog (Beth Casey)

7 July -- http://knittyblog.com/ -- Knittyblog (Amy Singer )

8 July -- http://www.indigirl.com -- Indigirl (Amy Swenson)

9 July -- http://www.bricoleurknits.com -- Bricoleur Knits (Cirilia Rose)

Hope I see you in L.A.!

Midwesterners: this one's for you!

I am very excited to be teaching at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Fair this June, in Grayslake, Illinois. I have a very warm spot in my heart for Illinois because so many dear friends (s.g. Franklin Habit) of mine live there. It's also a special thrill for me to be teaching at a location that's accessible to folks who live more than a few hours from me.

I haven't been teaching that long, and I don't want that to deter you from taking my classes. We cover lots of material, and my classes sound a lot like my blog posts -- conversational, lots of humor, concrete examples, and plenty of time for questions. My aim is for you to really understand the way things work-- not just to learn how to do something in a rote way, but to get why it works that way. Here's what I'm teaching in June:

Yarn Substitution Made Easy: I love teaching this class because this is an issue that I didn't understand when I first when back to knitting. I would go in to a knitting shop with a pattern and say "I want to make this; can you show me which yarns will work?" and then the clerk would point out all the yarns in the same category, like DK or worsted weights. I soon got impatient with having to ask for help all the time and with not really getting why one yarn would work and not another, so I spent a lot of time reading and playing with yarns to figure out how yarns are classified, how gauge works and how it is connected with yarn classification, and things to consider when switching out a yarn for the one listed in the pattern. I will cover all of this in the class so you understand it, too. We finish up the class by taking some actual patterns and coming up with some substitutes for them, so that you can see exactly how it all fits together in a real-world pattern.

Making Friends with your Handpaints: This is another class that is very near and dear to my heart, and you will leave with an incredible amount of information about handpainted yarns and why they work they way they do. If you love yarns like Koigu, Madeline Tosh, Lorna's Laces, Shibui, or any of the gazillion indie dyers out there, this is the class for you. We talk about how handpaints are made, why they look the way they do, how to sort them into categories by the way they will look knitted up, and how to choose patterns that will use the yarn to its best advantage. Most people take this class because of the section on pooling -- why handpaint yarns can produce strange patterns of color, like this:



and how to avoid that, if you don't like the effect you're getting.

Creativity with Color: This is a more hands-on workshop. If you are one of those people who shies away from color in your knitting, whether simple stripes or fair isle patterns, or who sticks with solids all the time, then this is the class for you. I will gently, gently walk you through some very user-friendly principles of color theory and ways for you to look at color in your life. We'll talk about some of the blocks to creativity that knitters experience, and then we'll play with color. We'll do some swatch knitting and some playing around with creating color patterns using graph paper and colored pencils. I will keep you entertained throughout with my sparkling personality and anecdotes from the dog-eat-dog world of yarn.

Self-Stripers: How They Work & How To Use Them: If you love Noro, Wisdom Poems, Regia, Trekking, Kaffe Fassett's Colourscape and similar yarns that stripe on their own, from one color to the next, then this class will help you understand them better and use them more effectively. We'll discuss how these yarns are made, the concept of the repeat and why it makes stripes, and what things affect the way the stripes look -- wide, skinny, zigzaggy or gentle shades of color like this:



I think you'll really benefit from the tips and tricks section. We'll go over some ways that you can work with stripers to get the results you want. (NOT "strippers," mind you, STRIPERS. For tips on working with strippers, you're on your own. Although I'd advise against Googling it unless your virus protection is up-to-date.)

You can see the specifics of dates and times by going to the Teacher Bio page here. Scroll down to my name. (You'll also see the other amazing teachers -- Franklin, Abby Franquemont, Merike Saarniit, to name just a few).

And there will be lots and lots of other fun at the Fair -- a fleece competition, marketplace, juried art exhibition, nonjuried vintage handbag showing, fashion show, music, food and more!

So pretty please, consider signing up for one of my classes. We'll have a great time, you'll learn a lot, and then we can all go eat funnel-cakes and ice cream together.

P.S. IT'S AIR-CONDITIONED!!!