Knitting in the South – The Knit and Crochet Show

I’ve been buried under a pile of work lately and been a terrible blogger. However, when you’re buried in your work and you are a knitting teacher and knitwear designer, the mountain of yarn pressing down on your head is at least soft.

This time of year is an insanely busy one, with shows nearly every week and designs due just as often.  My month kicked off at The Knit and Crochet Show, always a fun event.

The Knit and Crochet Show

This year’s show was in Charlotte North Carolina.  This to me, a Brooklyn girl, is south. After all, they served biscuits and gravy for breakfast, a sure sign. However, certain friends from the (their words) “actual south”, poo poo this notion.  I was recently told “it has North right in the name.”  To me it felt south. It was, after all, 88 degrees in October. Of course, when you are inside a convention hall for five days, you really don’t notice the weather.

After waking up in my dreamy balcony suite  – yeah I upgraded, a girl only lives once, and being greeted by this misty view, it was time to start the show

The week started out at PDD, otherwise known as Professional Development Day. It’s a day full of speakers talking about what it’s like to work in the industry. I gave a talk on using teaching and events to promote your work. My favorite by far was my insane pal Melissa Leapman who gave a talk about how to write a book proposal that included mock photos of her (god help us) cat book including sketches with cat heads.  Truly, disturbingly hilarious.

I had three days of fabulous students in amazing classes, and being a terrible blogger, I took no pictures.  One of my clever students took these on my last day of teaching.

By far the most silly fun I had all week was presenting at the TKGA fun night.  It was a lot of pressure being the “fun” in fun night (or as I called myself – the performing seal for a room full of knitters), but it was a ball. I asked the organizer what the fun / learning ration should be and she asked me to lean more towards the fun.  I did a ridiculous slide show called “I Accidentally Knit a Dress” all about gauge tragedies.

Here’s a glimpse into how silly it was, it included photos like these:

However, while I distracted them with silly pictures, I did manage to sneak a little learnin in there.  Like shoving a pill inside peanut butter, I wanted to get some of my real gauge info into the presentation while they were laughing at the silliness.

My favorite part of the evening was when we did the “true confession / testify” section ala Oprah when I went into the audience and people stood and shared their gauge tragedy stories.  One woman actually was working on her sad gauge project.  She stood up and explained that she wanted to knit a pair of socks for her husband and she had never knit socks before.  She said, “they are coming out a little small”, the proceeded to hold up what looked like a perfectly knit doll sock.  Everyone gasped and I helpfully advised (like the knowledgeable, professional knitting teacher that I am), “There actually is a fix for that.  When you get home, find a smaller husband.”

Big laugh.

Peace out North Carolina!

Enjoy the veal, and don’t forget to tip your waiter!

Drop mic.

Next up in my knitting in the south – Houston Texas . . . more on that another day.