Turning roving into yarn has intriuged me for years, but I’ve never mistressed it – maybe now I will. At any rate, my head, life, travel is all spinning (out of control? I hope not…) so if I just hold the roving still in my hand I’ll end up with a ball of yarn.
I’m staying with the charming, beautiful and accomplished Crazy Aunt Purl (not so crazy…) and it’s a delight. She let me have her BED, for heaven’s sake, and I feel guilty (but also had the BEST sleep of my life, so I’m not giving it back…) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Mr. X was a fool.
Yesterday I taught a full day of classes at Knit Cafe on Melrose. It’s such a wonderful and charming store – but due to a family emergency the owner couldn’t be at the shop and part way through the day MEC, who was effectively acting as manager, had to leave and at that point it seemed the forces of the universe converged on the shop!
One of my students slipped while trying to catch the meter-maid before she ticked her car. She hurt herself – not badly, but it was obviously very painful – and had to leave with some very attractive paramedics so the class was down two folks. Then in the next class it just seemed the planets were totally out of alignment or something.
This happens every now and then – and it’s as much my fault as anyone elses, and DEFINITELY my responsibility to set the class right. Which I felt I did – partially – but also felt that those in the class didn’t get as much out of it as they might of. This always makes me feel very bad – I want folks to walk away feeling empowered, like they can do anything, not frustrated like they’d like to kick me (or my dog). But upon returning to CAP’s abode I was greeted by a bunch of LA knitters who wanted to meet me (me? They wanted to party with Purl!) and bad feelings were washed away by some great knitting and chatting.
One of the employees at Knit Cafe is working up a hat for me – and it has been a great lesson that a project that is not what was expected is worth FIVE TIME what a perfect project would be! He did a great job, but the hat is, well, odd. It’s not him, it’s the yarn, it’s the pattern (me) and he has helped me so much in figuring out how to revise this to make it a pattern that works. This is proof that a perfect thing is not always as worthy as imperfection (oh, god, did I drink too much last night…?)
I’m off now to go teach two classes – both are the same, the Cocoon Sweater – so that’s really good in a sense. I can put my teaching on auto pilot and really concentrate on getting through to the students who may not be picking up the concepts in the same way as everyone else. It’s my job, and even when it doesn’t go perfectly it’s not a total waste if I can use that to see ways to make it better next time. Like the hat.