Waxing & Waning

I swear, I just feel like an epic blog fail these days.

Finding something interesting to write about evades me some days.  I enjoy the blogging, and I’m not going to stop, but I’m sorry that I’m not a more vivid or regular correspondent these days.

I’m definitely feeling the weather.  Cold days are hard, and this may be the year I begin wearing socks. But now that my last tie to West Virginia is broken, I guess it’s time to don foot gear.

I have been trying to pretend that I don’t feel the weather chilling up – riding my bike every day – but then I remember the paralyzed, painful period I had last Fall and I find myself a little scared.

I feel like I’m looking up a hill, and I could sit and whine about it all day, but nothing will get me UP the hill but ME.

Evidently I’m going through a phase, I’m Gibous.

And all that frenetic energy I exhibit at times?  That’s must be libration.

U-Knit-Versity

One thing I have been doing is setting up a new classroom structure within a domain I already own. The ning fees aren’t terrible, but they are adding up.  If I can make a better classroom AND move away from ning, so much the better. All I’ll have to pay are subscription services for various secured media hosting and my domain and hosting fees – much less than the ning fees!

I have two classes ready to go, and I figured today I’d transfer some of my free How to Knit students over.  Yes, that’s the price of the class – guinea pigginess.

I’ve got the chat working, I’ve set up a group gallery for each class, I’ve got the videos and handouts all set up (and I’ve reworked the videos at a higher resolution) The only thing I won’t have in the classes are forums.

Maybe I’m a little forum shy, or maybe it’s because they weren’t utilized very much over at my ning classroom, but I just feel I’d rather answer folks’ questions individually or have them participate in the chat.

I’m also rethinking my pricing structure.  Online class fees run a pretty wide scale, mine have hovered around $50.  I’ve never felt 100% great about that – it seems as though they should be cheaper – but I didn’t want to undercut other online class teachers and become a race to the bottom.

However, even though the classes run a full month, it’s still NOT the same as me going to an in-person event.  Once I move the classes I’ll be able to charge less because I won’t have the monthly ning fees hovering over my head (yay!)  What are your thoughts on this?

Figuring out the minimal coding has been daunting, but also exciting.  I’m a bit of a geek, but I have a tendency to learn only enough to make myself dangerous.  Since Adria Richards introduced me to Word Press (and Margaret Roach gave me an extra push) I’ve been very happy.

Finding that there are great plug-ins and add-ons which can turn a blog into a password protected classroom setup is pretty wonderful.

But, as with many self taught knitters I meet, I just have this nagging fear that I’m not doing it RIGHT.  And, as in knitting, maybe there isn’t one RIGHT way to figure widgets and categories and minimal php coding.  I mean, if the code works and if it’s not cluttered, maybe that’s the goal – reachable by many different routes?

At any rate, learning is good, and I’m getting fired up to create a few new classes this Fall.

Millinery & Beyond!

Number one on my new class list is Millinery.  I’ve been wanting to add this class, and receiving the new book, Modern Knits, Vintage Style yesterday gave me the encouragement I need!

I worked this hat up out of love – I fell in love with the yarn, I have a long-standing love affair with cloches, and so I just knit it for no reason.

When I was contacted by Kari Cornell about submitting something for Modern Knits, Vintage Style, I suggested this happy cloche and she accepted it – yay!

I love that, designing for a group project rarely happens so tidily.

Offering a class on how to make this hat as an online class will be the cherry on top of the whole adventure.  It’s such a happy design, I did it during our period down at Rochester in 2007 so it bears happy memories, too!

In Other Vintage News

I’ve been ABSOLUTELY remiss about mentioning Knitting It Old School by Stitchy McYarnpants – and I LOVE the book so much!

I’m not just saying that because I have a piece – a crocheted piece – in the book.  I’m saying it because it’s true.  This is a wonderful little journey into some modern knits that have a certain old-time feeling (hmmm, there’s a lot of that going around…) and I found myself becoming more and more excited about each piece as I leafed through the book.

One of the hardest things about what I call Queen Midas Syndrome – turning what I love into gold – is that I don’t have the time to just KNIT something I see in a book.  Any extra time I have is usually not devoted to knitting, and any knitting I engage in is generally for hire.  It’s a trade off, and I’m not complaining.  But it makes looking through these exceptional books a little bittersweet.

For everyone whose said to me, “I am jealous you get to knit for a living!” I could respond, “I’m jealous you get to knit for fun alone!” But I can’t complain – aside from some hard deadlines or difficult pattern writing sessions, most of what I do really IS fun!

B’nai Hey Hey!

We met with our Rabbi yesterday to see what stuff we need to check off our list (or ADD to our list, as the case may be) regarding Max’s Bar Mitzvah in January.  There is a LOT of stuff to do.

First, we need to find Jews.

We have 6 Aliyot to fill, and they must be filled by Jews.  Dang.  Or should I say, “Oy!” Of course, if I’d been thinking (or if I were Jewish) I would have seen this coming, but it slipped my consciousness until we chatted with the Rabbi last night.

Since moving here almost 4 years ago we’ve made SO many friends – but not a ton of Jewish friends.  In that way, it’s much different than New Jersey.

Obviously I have no Jewish family (no family to speak of, really…) and Gerry’s family is back in NY.  I’d sort of left this up to Gerry, but last night the memory returned to me of our Wedding Date Fiasco.

Wedding Date Fiasco

Gerry and I decided on a date for our wedding, had the invitations printed, sent them out, and THEN we were told that a Saturday afternoon wedding isn’t quite the right thing.  A marriage is a contract, and a contract shouldn’t be signed on Shabbat.

Therefore, Jewish weddings do NOT happen during daylight on Saturday, or after dark on Friday night.  It was such a forehead slapping moment, I felt absolutely humiliated that I hadn’t known that important fact.

To be honest, it only prevented a few members of Gerry’s family from attending our wedding, but it looked bad and those family members (modern Orthodox) were definitely missed.

Gerry plead ignorance, “I didn’t know that!  I’ve never been married before!”

I plead Methodist.

Why it hasn’t occur to me that we will need a posse of Jews to chant blessings before each of Max’s mini-portions is beyond me.  THIS is something I should know, having attended other B’nai Mitzvah.  Oy.

We may be calling on the band to come up and chant a blessing…

Speaking of the band, I attended Steven B’s Knitting & Klezmer event this summer and fell in love with the band, Klezmorim.  I’ve hired them to play on Max’s day, in this case I’d rather spend the money on good, live music than food.

The band is led by Judith Eisner, who is a sister of Candace Eisner Strick (small world!) and they are SENSATIONAL!  If you’d like to hear a sample of their music, you can listen here (and get the CD!)

Of course, we’ll have food, but it will be a low-key spread of salads and bagels and a big gluten free cake and other sweeties, coffee, tea, etc.  We’ve spoken to two caterers now, and I definitely have the feeling that this is something I and a few friends can do.  Our wedding was rather simple, too.

Or maybe I shouldn’t be using my wedding experience as an example…