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kniteracyI spent most of Friday at the show at the Knit One Pass It On booth, teaching mostly secondary school girls to knit, though I did have a rewarding continental knitting session with one of the other teachers early on and a few crochet students later in the day.
The fun thing about the continental lesson was that while I was teaching the lady how to purl, some knitters from Denmark came by. Initially they exclaimed, "Wow! You knit like we do!" and then they realised I was purling differently and offered to show me. Though I was pretty sure what they were going to demonstrate, I handed them my needles. Because I'd never seen someone from Denmark do this in real life and I wanted to make sure I was doing it right.
Friends and students, if you've learned Norwegian purling from me, I am here to tell you I do it exactly like those ladies from Denmark! Wahoo! I demonstrated again for my student (OK, I was showing off by this time), and she was, as most English knitters are, totally boggled by the necessarily quick motions of the needles-- even though I wasn't nearly as fast as the ladies from Denmark. They were delightful, and they enriched my day.
I did have an unpleasant experience a bit later on, which I've outlined on a friends-only post on LiveJournal, but I'll give you the gist here (copied from the other entry, for those of you who are now experiencing deja vu):
While I was teaching a group of five secondary school girls to knit at the Knitting and Stitching Show, a cranky old biddy walked up to my group of students and started criticising the way they were knitting, the way I was teaching them, and pretty much everything. No matter what I did, she wouldn't go away. My students were mortified and vulnerable; onlookers were appalled. I asked the booth supervisor to come stand behind me while I very evenly explained to the old biddy that this was my class, she was interrupting it, and could she please find something else to do with her time besides terrorising fourteen-year-old girls (who are naturally unsure of themselves). She ended up saying that my teaching methods were irritating her so much she had to go away and stomping off. My students were highly critical of this lady, and so was everybody else who overheard (and a lot of people overheard).
There's no need to dwell on that cranky old lady: my students learned to knit and purl, and they were doing pretty well, too. I took a break and saw a little bit of the show, got some fudge forfilceolaire, and picked up a copy of Divas Don't Knit because I'm craving some mindless fiction and somebody recommended it to me. Hopefully it won't be as bad a recommendation as The Friday Night Knitting Club. I am actually looking to find a copy of a book by Barbara Bretton called Casting Spells, which is apparently about a witchy/sorceressy knitting shop owner. I could probably get into that, even if it's appalling. ;)
And that was my entire haul from the Ally Pally show. I simply didn't have the money to buy loads of yarn, the crowd was too dense for me to stop and see anything for long (for shopping, I admit that even though the variety was slightly less varied, I'd prefer the quieter and less packed I Knit Weekender any day), and the fact is, there were only two things I could have been enticed to buy knittingwise yesterday: a copy of Cat Bordhi's new book, which I really can't afford but dearly, dearly want, and some of the new neon Kauni. Unfortunately, Scandinavian Knitting Design were not at the show, which was a bummer. I had such a great experience ordering from them last year and I would have loved to meet the nice people who do such great business over the web and over the phone. Web of Wool were there with their usual supply of self-patterning everything; I abstained. GetKnitted weren't there, unless I missed them. Colinette was there with new colours that were barely resistable (but I resisted), and there was the usual astounding display of Shetland lace at Jamieson's of Scotland.
At the end of the day, Fred related a story about one of our teachers sweetly offering to teach someone to knit—and him sitting there with his hand over his mouth, covering the hysteria, because "someone" was Nicky Epstein. I wouldn't recognise Nicky Epstein if I tripped over her, so I hope it wasn't me. He promised it wasn't. Brief pause while I google: No, I don't think it was me, but she isn't a wild dresser it would appear, so I might have made the mistake. For any of you who would like to know how to recognise Nicky Epstein at a distance or even close-up, here's the best photo I found.
The trip home wasn't as maddening as the trip there, where I'd been the victim of two disabled trains on the Northern Line and a station mixup at Moorgate, but I did just miss the train out of Alexandra Palace and had to wait 15 minutes for the next one. I am still not sure I had the right ticket for this train, but no inspectors in the carriage ftw.
I came home via London Bridge, andfilceolaire met me at the New Cross train bridge, just because he is the sweetest husband ever. I hope he keeps me.
The fun thing about the continental lesson was that while I was teaching the lady how to purl, some knitters from Denmark came by. Initially they exclaimed, "Wow! You knit like we do!" and then they realised I was purling differently and offered to show me. Though I was pretty sure what they were going to demonstrate, I handed them my needles. Because I'd never seen someone from Denmark do this in real life and I wanted to make sure I was doing it right.
Friends and students, if you've learned Norwegian purling from me, I am here to tell you I do it exactly like those ladies from Denmark! Wahoo! I demonstrated again for my student (OK, I was showing off by this time), and she was, as most English knitters are, totally boggled by the necessarily quick motions of the needles-- even though I wasn't nearly as fast as the ladies from Denmark. They were delightful, and they enriched my day.
I did have an unpleasant experience a bit later on, which I've outlined on a friends-only post on LiveJournal, but I'll give you the gist here (copied from the other entry, for those of you who are now experiencing deja vu):
While I was teaching a group of five secondary school girls to knit at the Knitting and Stitching Show, a cranky old biddy walked up to my group of students and started criticising the way they were knitting, the way I was teaching them, and pretty much everything. No matter what I did, she wouldn't go away. My students were mortified and vulnerable; onlookers were appalled. I asked the booth supervisor to come stand behind me while I very evenly explained to the old biddy that this was my class, she was interrupting it, and could she please find something else to do with her time besides terrorising fourteen-year-old girls (who are naturally unsure of themselves). She ended up saying that my teaching methods were irritating her so much she had to go away and stomping off. My students were highly critical of this lady, and so was everybody else who overheard (and a lot of people overheard).
There's no need to dwell on that cranky old lady: my students learned to knit and purl, and they were doing pretty well, too. I took a break and saw a little bit of the show, got some fudge for
filceolaire, and picked up a copy of Divas Don't Knit because I'm craving some mindless fiction and somebody recommended it to me. Hopefully it won't be as bad a recommendation as The Friday Night Knitting Club. I am actually looking to find a copy of a book by Barbara Bretton called Casting Spells, which is apparently about a witchy/sorceressy knitting shop owner. I could probably get into that, even if it's appalling. ;)And that was my entire haul from the Ally Pally show. I simply didn't have the money to buy loads of yarn, the crowd was too dense for me to stop and see anything for long (for shopping, I admit that even though the variety was slightly less varied, I'd prefer the quieter and less packed I Knit Weekender any day), and the fact is, there were only two things I could have been enticed to buy knittingwise yesterday: a copy of Cat Bordhi's new book, which I really can't afford but dearly, dearly want, and some of the new neon Kauni. Unfortunately, Scandinavian Knitting Design were not at the show, which was a bummer. I had such a great experience ordering from them last year and I would have loved to meet the nice people who do such great business over the web and over the phone. Web of Wool were there with their usual supply of self-patterning everything; I abstained. GetKnitted weren't there, unless I missed them. Colinette was there with new colours that were barely resistable (but I resisted), and there was the usual astounding display of Shetland lace at Jamieson's of Scotland.
At the end of the day, Fred related a story about one of our teachers sweetly offering to teach someone to knit—and him sitting there with his hand over his mouth, covering the hysteria, because "someone" was Nicky Epstein. I wouldn't recognise Nicky Epstein if I tripped over her, so I hope it wasn't me. He promised it wasn't. Brief pause while I google: No, I don't think it was me, but she isn't a wild dresser it would appear, so I might have made the mistake. For any of you who would like to know how to recognise Nicky Epstein at a distance or even close-up, here's the best photo I found.
The trip home wasn't as maddening as the trip there, where I'd been the victim of two disabled trains on the Northern Line and a station mixup at Moorgate, but I did just miss the train out of Alexandra Palace and had to wait 15 minutes for the next one. I am still not sure I had the right ticket for this train, but no inspectors in the carriage ftw.
I came home via London Bridge, and
filceolaire met me at the New Cross train bridge, just because he is the sweetest husband ever. I hope he keeps me.
