upcoming classes & events

A peek...from  a photo shoot for this cowl pattern, to be released soon from the talented Elizabeth Elliott Knits. It's a good thing the cowl has such strong graphics or the eyes would take over the whole photo. Made ya look!

Are you attending TNNA in Las Vegas in January ? Thinking of it ? Do it!  I am looking forward to teaching three classes there. Join me!  

The class sizes will be smaller than the June summer show. We can really get into helping YOU and make sure you leave with new skills and a customized plan.  Plus--what a hoot? ! We'll be in Las Vegas?! Actually the whole show is going to be more personal, in a mart format. It's a great chance to connect with others in the industry. I love the hustlebustle of the summer show but it can be hard to do more than a quick chat that week.  Building relationships takes at least a MaiTai by the pool, right? (JOKING!)  I am not even sure what is in a MaiTai.( I'll have tequila,  thankyouverymuch). I do think it'll be a great opportunity to meet yarn industry folks worth knowing.

I am teaching
Become Insta-Savvy: Instagram as Community Builder 
with co-teacher Beverly Army-Williams. We'll help you get on board or smarten the way you use my fave social media platform. It's a very powerful and fun way to stay in touch and connected to your customers, or meet new ones. Words, pictures, planning, nuts and bolts...we cover it all.  I am amazed how much real business gets done on Instagram. You can find me on Instagram almost daily. Follow and say hi!

Beverly and I are also co-teaching Simplify The Newsletter .  We know small business owners and creatives have trouble finding time to put together a newsletter, so it gets sent irregularly.  Or haphazardly. We'll take a second look at how to apprioach the newsletter,  help you streamline the way you create content, make it fun, and make a plan that will work for you, specifically. Start 2018 with consistent and eagerly awaited newsletters to your email list!

Lastly,  I'll be teaching my beloved I-Phoneography class*. It's a fun, hands-on chance to discover how easy it is to make smartphone camera photos fabulous. The reason I enjoy teaching it so much is everyone leaves happy. I see them posting great images right away, after class.  I share tips, and tricks that are easily put to use, as well as demo a free creative app that helps you make strong, professional looking images that pop out on social media. Or anywhere, really.   The beautiful Backyard Fiberworks yarnballs above? A quickie smartphone photo just as it was getting dark out. 

 If you are in Connecticut, Beverly and I are also teaching at a very cool new place, The StoryTellers Cottage in Simsbury CT.   We're teaching a three part class (sign up for as much as you want/need to learn) on blog writng and photography, and also a Creating Haiku Postcards Valentines Day workshop. You can find these plus a lot of other fun opportunities, on their calendar.

Do you do needlepoint? Is there a needlepoint FB page you like or forum?  Where do needlepoint folks hang out online? if you know, do tell!

* BTW? I teach this class inside th yarn industry and outside it, as well. If it would be useful to your organization, company, sales staff, civic group, institution, whatever....give me a shout , I am happy to come teach an in-service. 

recent work & upcoming TNNA workshops

Not sure I ever shared this adequately: last summer I photographed the book for Berroco Portfolio 3, pretty much a dream shoot for me. I just realized you can page through the complete lookbook online.

https://issuu.com/berrocodesign/docs/berroco_portfolio_vol_3 

(sorry! I can't seem to get this to embed. Please check it out though)
Of course, the version with the patterns is for purchase, these are all cotton and so so good. The Portfolio series are books by talented creative director Amy Christoffers' selecting indie designers to create pieces for a special collection. (We just shot Portfolio 4 last month. It  is wool, and spectacular, too.)

Finding the right location for a full book photo shoot is important. You'd think it'd be a breeze, but I spend hours (and hours)  poring over choices, what settings, backgrounds, facilities, costs, textures, accommodations are present before we choose. You could shoot the same collection on a city street and have a whole different feel, possibly wrong.  Or just blah.a

While we were deciding, I was lucky to be visiting with a sister and her friend in Vermont, who said she wanted me to meet her friends, in the final stages of renovating a notoriously dilapidated and crazily painted Victorian farmhouse in town. She didn't know I needed a location, she just thought I'd be interested.  I fell in love the minute I saw it, and was thrilled that they welcomed us to do our shoot there, and become some of the first guests ever at the stunning Amare Guest House in Chester VT.

The photo shoot took place on a ridiculously steamy hot day- utterly uncharacteristic for a Vermont summer- but it is hard to recall that, when I look at the photos now. The model, Ilima, is amazing.The rest of us were...glistening. And possibly more than a little whiffy.  But smiling!

TNNA is in Columbus Ohio in early June! 
I'm thrilled to be co-teaching three workshops with writer & crafter Beverly Army Williams, aka PoMoGoLightly again this year. Our workshops all fall under the rubric of marketing, communications & social media for yarn shop owners, indie designers and yarn companies, and really, any small business that has only two hands but wears many hats.  The schedule and course descriptions are all here.
Ours are planned  to be fun, useful and participatory, so you can use new skills & ideas for your business immediately.
•Smarten Up Your Facebook Page -Thursday
•Social Media on the Fly - Thursday
•Hands-on Workshop for Mobile Photography and Writing-Friday
and solo, I am offering
•iPhone/Smartphone-ography for Your Business- early Saturday, before the marketplace opens

 from a recent shoot for June Cashmere

If you sign up, feel free to message me in advance with anything in particular you'd like us to include. We love to tailor our workshops to the students.

hap knitting, workshop planning, looking ahead

My summer knitting's been all about shawls. One's waiting for fringe and blocking, soon to be shown. This one's  a hap shawl- a construction and style I've been meaning to get to forever. It's the right knit at the right time for me - and apparently in the right place with the right project bag too, as you can see. So matchy-matchy, that's me.

I'm making a Hansel (Half) by Gudrun  Johnston. Because if I'm going traditional Shetland shawl, it should be from the source. Ok , not really.  It's actually because she is a lovely person and her designs are so wonderful. You start with a garter stitch triangle that grows with a yarn over preceding the 1st stitch each row. Those edge loops will be picked up, making a lacey connection to the borders, which is varied width stripes in an old shale lace. I'm knitting it in Starcroft Fog, which comes from the Nash Island sheep. Loving. Every. Single. Stitch.  I can't say enough about how much I adore having this yarn in my hands. I'm just about at the pick up the border stage, and plotting what order my stripe colors will be.

In other news  and we're going bullet style here with lots'o'links

- Craft Industry Alliance -  Joined! If you are a maker who sells, designs, offers services to the creative community or is contemplating any of the above, do yourself a solid and check out this group. Craft Industry Alliance.  It's sewists, knitters, jewelry makers, surface designers, writers, dyers, graphic artists...you name it.  Learned about it while teaching a webinar for them on Creative Consistency: Your Words & Pictures Online with Beverly Army Williams. They have a nice set of resources including forums, webinars, and their blog and  newsletter.

- Fiber College of Maine coming soon, Sept 7-11th. You  could sign up for my classes ;-),  but if you don't want to make Haiku Photo postcards or do a Creative Vision Challenge photo workshop (fun! can't do it wrong!), there are tons of other options.  I also heartily recommend the event as a fab way to end the summer and get a kick of inspiration for the new season. The setting, on Penobscot Bay in Maine, is so worth the ride. More here.

- Spending lots of time this summer giving the rental side of our 2  family home a facelift. It's looking pretty good now.  As Mr Rogers says "Won't you be my neighbor?" . 

It's this whole side of the house, sort of a townhouse style rental. You have to love beach neighborhood lifestyle, being in a village. It's a 1 minute walk to private beach, there's a low key pizza place on the corner, and it has that 100 year old house, old wood floors, shabby chic vibe. And a lot of space to store your yarn. Pass it on if you know anyone in my area , shoreline CT east of New Haven- or maybe someone who wants a weekend home that isn't deep in the woods.  Zillow listing here.

the recent past/the near future

where'ya been hiding all summer?

I was thinking I'd finally start blogging about my fibery/stitchy adventures this summer - there have been many-- but then I realized, it is almost the end of August, I must talk about what's next: 

FIBER COLLEGE  in Searsport Maine Sept 3-7 

 I'll be co-teaching Savvy Storytelling: Writing & Photography for Your Blog with Beverly Army Williams. We loved teaching this together last year (and loved our students). After a planning lunch this week, I can tell you that this year's version is going to be amazing. You will leave the day with a glint in your eye and all fired up to blog. ( I kind of got that way just talking about it with Beverly).  

Also a new class fromr me: Photo Scavenger Hunt. It will be a fun hands-on photography class making use of the wonderful surroundings- not just the natural but the people, and art and activities and moments. It'll teach you a lot about technique and composition, while you shoot challenges. You can be any level of photographer-it's a very adaptable and personalized class. Plus, there's a critique at the end.  I am rather psyched about both these classes. Click on that link to the (admittedly, um, idiosynchratic) website and sign up before you find everything full. I was astounded to learn there's still a couple of seats in Cal Patch's classes, f'rinstance and I recommend you nab'em while you can, too.  Hello? Do you need to think twice about hanging out with Gees Bend Quilters? Cal Patch? Ellen Mason? Jackie Ottino DeGraf? Mary Lou Egan?

I've blogged about my love for this unique event  here and here and here. Or email me if you want a private earful! 

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And now a bit about my last trip to Maine, to A Gathering of Stitches in Portland:

Meet Rhoda, the most self-possessed French Bulldog ever. In her fabulous porta-suitcase bed, thanks to her upholsterer-artist human,  who creates in a studio space at A Gathering of Stitches.

So much creativity at this dreamy makerspace, with Samantha Lindgren at the helm. (I am very annoyed that I can't find the excellent photo of the two of us that Keren Kurti made at the end of the classes) - upholstering, sewing, block printing, weaving..and in our case, 2 days of photo classes to explore shooting all of the above.

All three of the classes were new --or updated versions - and that was a joy. In the all day Photographing Your Handcrafts, we left time to upload images from earlier in the day,  and review/critique.We all felt like there was progress-I love this photo by Carolyn Noyes. A lot of talent in the room!

On Sunday the Photo Editing class and the iPhone Masterpiece classes flew by. I hope to be offering those again.  I think I heard some heads exploding when students saw the kind of controls you can have over your iPhone images with just a very few moves and a couple of cheap/free apps.

I can't end this wthout saying that if you can have a crush on a city, then Portland Maine is mine all mine. Obviously the vibrant arts and fiber arts community is there, the waterfront/beaches ( can.not.live. without a beach nearby), the hills and architecture and parks and size are right but ohmygoodness... the food!

Moral of the story: head northeast to Maine.  Join me at Fiber College. Get on Samantha's list and take a class at A Gathering of Stitches. 

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PS There's a nice interview with me on the Fiber College blog. In it, I awkwardly mention my thing with tomatoes. I have no idea why I couldn't stay on topic!