Hello and happy Summer (for those of you in the Northern hemisphere)! I’ve got a number of new workshops to announce, but I want to first talk about something that’s weighing heavily on my mind right now. If you just want to skip to the workshop announcement, click here to go there now.
One of my good friends, Dennis from Wall of Yarn, at Stitches.
As you’ve probably read/heard already, Stitches/XRX has dissolved as a company, presumably due to the financial pressures of the pandemic/post-pandemic economy. However, they did it apparently out of the blue and with no prior communication with their partners such as vendors, teachers, etc. Many vendors have lost deposits they made for booths in future shows, and many teachers were not paid for virtual workshops they just ran the prior weekend. It’s unclear whether any of the small businesses directly involved in this closure will be made whole. Others have written more about this, and a recent article was just written that seems to sum it up pretty well.
Keep this in mind as you choose whom to support. A lot of teachers just lost a lot of real and potential income — Stitches has been a huge boon for teachers in the fiber world for over 30 years, with coast-to-coast live shows and recently, almost monthly virtual shows. A lot of vendors lost a reliable, well-regarded, well-attended series of events where they could ply their wares further afield. There is only one company (Vogue) left in the US that does anything similar, which is a lot of pressure I’m sure.
So how does this affect me? Well, I was perhaps lucky, as I had been on a break from teaching for other people this year (aside from the couple of shows early this year that I’d already scheduled back in 2022) while I worked on fleshing out my new workshop offerings. Ironically, I was just having my virtual assistant apply to Vogue workshops for me, and expected Stitches to be next up when I got word they had folded. So while I am not out any real money like some of my colleagues in the national teaching circuit, I am definitely left stranded as far as big live shows go. I’ve met so many amazing people and taught so many amazing students at these shows, students who often come to find me later to take more workshops. It’s not only a loss of future income, it’s also a loss of promotional capability.
As you know, I have been building a sort of bulwark against this kind of occurrence, in the form of my BuildingBlox virtual and recorded workshops. It’s my hope that the loss of this big company’s presence will encourage students to go searching for those teachers they looked forward to learning from again. I hope I’m one of them. If I am, never fear: I have lots of workshops available now as recordings, and more coming up as live virtual workshops too. And I’m sure I will be at live events again soon, but I don’t know exactly when yet. Stay tuned to my calendar, or better yet sign up on my email lists.
And now, workshops!
Without further ado, here are the BuildingBlox virtual workshops I’m teaching for the rest of 2023; all times are in Eastern Time! Note that a couple of them are coming up this weekend, so sign up soon if you’re interested in either (recordings are also available); you have more time to sign up for the others but why not get your foot in the door? Here’s what’s coming up:
These are not currently on my calendar but will be soon; for now, the direct links above are the easiest way to get to the workshop pages.
If you’re interested in taking a number of these workshops, I recommend joining my Patreon at any level above the lowest, as everyone there gets hefty discounts on my virtual workshops and/or recordings each month. And when I can start designing again, you’ll get free copies of my patterns as well.
Thanks for sticking with me and hope to see you in a workshop soon!
Here in New England we’ve had a couple of false starts to Spring, but this time for sure … or not, as snow begins to fall again. But whatever the weather, my workshop schedule continues unabated. I’ve done my last scheduled in-person workshops (thanks if you attended one at VKL or Red Alder last month) and now it’s all virtual for a while. And in addition to my own BuildingBlox workshops, I’ve also got a couple of new events next month to announce!
Without further ado, here’s what’s coming up in my BuildingBlox series:
You may notice that there are not many people signed up for anything right now. I hope that will change, but I won’t be cancelling the workshops for that reason. I still want to get the recordings up, so I will still be running the workshops even if they’re empty. However, a virtual workshop is always better with live students because people often come up with questions that I might not anticipate, which enriches the workshop and makes for a better experience for all who view it, even later on. So consider enrolling if you have the time and interest.
You may also notice that there are no BuildingBlox workshops in April. This is due to my very busy schedule in April, partially for personal reasons and partially due to two weekend events which I’ll list below:
First, I’m doing a presentation and a long weekend of 3-hour virtual workshops for the Rochester Knitting Guild. Members of the guild get a discount but anyone can sign up. I think you probably need to be a member to attend the presentation. All times are in ET:
Mon, Apr 3, 7-8:30pm: History of Double-knitting talk and demo
Fri, Apr 14, 9am-12pm: Introduction to Double-knitting
Fri, Apr 14, 1:30-4:30pm: Double-knitting in the Round
Second, I’ll be doing one of each of my new Foundations workshops for the WEBS Virtual Spring Knitting Retreat (these are all 2-hour sessions; all times in ET). Registration opened late in February and these workshops usually sell out quickly but as I understand it they’re still only at ~60% capacity:
Fri, Apr 28, 11am-1pm: Introduction to Double-knitting
Sat, Apr 29, 11am-1pm: Double-knitting in the Round
Sat, Apr 29, 3-5pm: Slip-stitch Double-knitting
So what else is new?
My focus has really been on building this new virtual workshop “engine” which will, after a time, create a constantly-updated library of double-knitting instruction videos. The work to do this has been daunting, and considerably more time-consuming than I had budgeted for. I am keeping up with it, but not much more than that right now. This means that it’s going to be a little while until I have time to really focus on new designs. However, through the compiling of new handouts, I am rejuvenating my engagement with double-knitting, as each new handout forces me to rethink how best to present the subject.
For example, I have, to my shame, found a glaring error in my original Extreme Double-knitting text which propagated to the new version without being noticed by me or my editors. But it has spurred me to discover a new technique which had eluded me back in the early days of my double-knitting development, and that new technique will be added to one of my new workshops. As soon as it’s properly tested, I’ll be adding it to the errata page, so stay tuned. And if you’re itching to know what it is, be aware that it’s so obscure that nobody has noticed the error in over a decade, or at least nobody has bothered to tell me about it. So you’re likely not missing anything unless you’re deep in the appendix techniques.
But what about new patterns? An interaction at Vogue Knitting Live this past February got me thinking about an old back-burnered pattern that I’ve brought back to the foreground and have started testing again. It’s a lace pattern, and very complex, but I don’t love the way the repeats are lining up so I plan to redesign it. This is a bit frustrating since the current version of the pattern is already stretching the bounds of possibility, and now I have to rethink the whole thing. My brain may not always be up to it, but it’s on my needles and I hope it’ll grow into something exciting in the future.
In other news, I’ve got my Virtual Assistant working on setting up an Etsy store for me — this is something I used to have, but which I got rid of when I set up my own eCommerce site. But since then I’ve heard that they handle VAT processing for international shipments, so I’m going to restart it explicitly for that reason. And of course, if more people find me that way, so much the better. No link yet, but stay tuned.
I’m also looking at a couple of ways of getting more word out there about the workshops, and especially what’s new/different between last year’s offerings and this year’s. Look for a podcast on my YouTube channel this coming Saturday morning (March 11th), talking about all of that — and also, I’ll be doing some more regular blog posts, one about each workshop (kind of like what I did when I published my books, focusing on each pattern).
Thanks for sticking with me — hope to see you at a workshop soon!
This is just a quick note to mention a policy change on the BuildingBlox virtual workshops. These workshops exist at an intersection between two business models: live virtual workshops, and tutorial videos. After a couple of emails and some soul-searching, I decided to remove the expiration date on the workshop recordings. Previously, I was offering recordings of workshops for a year, which is generous for recordings of a workshop you took, but in the context of tutorial videos you purchased (think Craftsy, Teachable, etc), somewhat less than generous. It makes little sense to treat the two things differently, so I opted for the more generous option.
Most places where you buy access to video workshop recordings offer “lifetime access”. I’m not exactly doing that, but I will guarantee access as long as Fallingblox Designs and the BuildingBlox virtual workshops last. Given that I have no plans to retire either my main knitting design business or my virtual workshop platform, this will have to suffice for “lifetime access”. I am working on a FAQ which has more info, if you’d like to check that out.
Bottom line: if you take a workshop with me, or buy a workshop recording, you’ll have access to the recording “forever” (for some definition of eternity).
Also, now that my brain is feeling less fuzzy, I’m going to drop in a full list of my workshops in 2023 (thus far) here. All times are in Eastern (US) time unless otherwise specified:
In honor of the season (but also all other gifting opportunities throughout the year), I’ve created a gift-card system on my site. You can now buy a gift card (of any value, thanks to my existing “name-your-price” system) for a friend or loved one and send it directly to them at a particular date, or just have it sent to you for printing. They can redeem it as a guest or a regular customer; customers with accounts can even store gift card value on their account for later use!
I type this from my bed, where I am isolating after catching a pretty bad cold that we are pretty sure isn’t COVID. I hoped to have this stuff out before everyone was inundated with Black Friday emails but I was too sick to get it done. Now that that bizarre “holiday” is over, I feel it’s more appropriate for me to post this on “Small Business Saturday” anyway, as I am the smallest of small businesses.
What you are probably waiting for — the 2023 workshop listings — are a little later on in this post. If you like, you can jump right there now. But you might also want to read on, as there’s an uncommon occurrence you might want to take advantage of.
I do not usually do sales on my patterns, but occasionally I take a chance. For the past couple of years, I have managed to miss the deadline to join Ravelry’s Indie Design Gift-A-Long — but this year I made it in. This means I’ve got 18 patterns which are discounted by 25% until Nov 28th. I am sorry for not giving you more notice of this, but see above about illness. I did mention it was coming up in my last blog post. But more importantly, I am only one of a couple of hundred independent designers with patterns on sale, and I highly recommend you check out the others as well. For example, one of my friends and a designer of stunning lace shawls, Anna Dalvi, is also participating (and I will more than likely be buying some of her patterns at least). For more info, visit the Indie Gift-A-Long group on Ravelry!
Finally, Workshops
I have been, as I’ve mentioned already, going absolutely nuts trying to get my ducks in a row to get the new slate of BuildingBlox workshops out and ready so you can sign up for them. They’re finally up, and you can get all the details on my Workshops page (for workshop descriptions and more info in general), my BuildingBlox page (for info on my virtual workshop series), and my Recordings page (for a listing of all recordings that are scheduled/available).
I also have another set of virtual workshops I’ll be teaching for Maryland Sheep & Wool’s Virtual Winterfest in late January; these are listed on my main calendar along with all of the other events I’ll be teaching. Nota Bene: these are all in a two-hour virtual workshop format.
Other workshops including the live ones I’ll be doing for Vogue Knitting Live and Red Alder in February 2023 are also listed on my calendar.
Under normal circumstances I would post links to all of my workshops here in the blog post but I am exhausted enough from all the work I’ve done today and it’s already getting dark. I hope you’ll forgive me and just click through to get where you need/want to be! I’ll be posting more about all of these workshops in the near future!
Lest you think I’ve been “resting” for the past month, I want to give you some updates. Hold tight, there’s a lot of info coming. Want to skip ahead? Jump to Patreon, In-person Workshops, or Website updates rather than slogging through the general Workshops updates (but honestly, read the workshop updates — it’s exciting stuff, at least to me).
BuildingBlox & Workshops in general
The biggest news is on my workshop front. For a long time, my workshop offerings have remained approximately the same. Earlier this year, I added a couple of new workshops and taught each of them once — then I put everything on hold. It was clear that I needed to make some big changes, and I was never going to be able to do so if I didn’t take the time, pause, rethink, rework, and restart. This has meant a lean quarter, but I think in the long run it will be well worth the lost revenue from these 3 months.
The new workshop offerings are now up on my website! There are 35 of them, as opposed to the previous 10 or 12! Only a handful have anything scheduled, as I’ll be doing a couple of live shows in February 2023 but nothing else is announced yet — still, you can get a preview of what’s going to be offered in 2023 and beyond.
I have deliberately held off applying to teach anywhere else until this step is complete, and have missed a couple of opportunities in the meantime. Still, my priority right now is getting ready to schedule my own virtual workshops.
So, about that: the BuildingBlox virtual workshops will also be restarting in 2023, although dates and precise selections of workshops have not been selected yet (stay tuned for that — and sign up for my workshop interest lists to be among the first to find out). But I do have some good info that you may have been waiting on about the pricing and other infrastructure stuff that’s changing.
First, you may have noticed that the workshops are all listed by Tiers (previously “levels”). Each new tier builds on the previous ones in some way, and there are four tiers, including the Foundations workshops. There are now four Foundations, but only two of them are really meant to build most of the next Tier of workshops on top; the other two are specialized Foundations for specialized skill building. This is important because the Tiers inform the new pricing structure. Rather than all workshops being the same price, workshop prices now rise with each new Tier.
In addition, all workshops are recorded and made available to those who enrolled for a year from the workshop date (previously 6 months). But these recordings will also be sold (at a discount) to those who can’t or didn’t make it to the workshop.
Without further ado, here are the prices by tier (for a 3-hour workshop; multi-session workshops will have different prices):
Foundations: $39.95; $34.95 for the recording only ($5 savings)
Tier 1: $59.95; $44.95 for the recording only ($15 savings)
Tier 2: $79.95; $54.95 for the recording only ($25 savings)
Tier 3: $99.95; $64.95 for the recording only ($35 savings)
So, let’s talk about the “why” of this change. It’s a pretty radical change; my previous workshops were based on a sliding scale starting at $35, across the board — so I’m sure you have questions about why the big jump. As I mentioned in previous posts, the old price was based on faulty math, and here’s why. I have been teaching for the big shows for about a decade. I have come to expect payment of a certain amount per workshop, and if it’s more, I feel extraordinarily fortunate. When I started offering my own workshops, I based the price I required on those payouts. When I started doing the virtual workshops, I set the price so that if a workshop filled halfway with people who only paid the minimum, I’d get approximately what I’d have been paid if I taught that workshop for one of the big shows. You can do the math, but I’ll do it for you: a typical payout for a 3-hour in-person workshop at one of the big shows is around $350. Obviously, if I got more than 10 people, or people paid more than the minimum, I’d make more than that.
But here’s the thing: when you pay for a workshop at one of the big shows, only a portion of it goes to the instructor. Typically, quite a bit more of it goes to the show and all of their overhead. This is fine — the show needs to pay its bills and still show a profit or there’s no point in them running it again. But even though there’s a maximum I can expect to get from a workshop taught for a big show, it’s important for me to remember that that amount does not determine my value as an instructor.
What I should be doing when I run workshops myself is to charge something similar to what you pay when you enroll at one of the big shows. So that’s what I’m doing. I did some research, talked to some people whose opinions I trust, and made the changes I needed to make. Typically, I’d have sent out a survey, asked my existing customers how they felt about the proposed changes, and used the responses to decide on a set of prices. But multiple people advised me not to do that, and just to make the prices reasonable based on what others were offering for similar products. I got advice that I could easily get $90-125 for most of my workshops. This seemed like too much of a jump, and the people who advised me thus will probably roll their eyes at my relatively modest increase — but the math works well, and offers room for increases over time if needed.
The issue with my research was twofold: first, almost nobody is doing anything as robust as this virtual workshop series, at least as far as I could tell. Second, there’s no way to compare the content of my workshops to others. Why not? Well, I am the only person on the planet running workshops on the vast majority of what I teach. That’s one of the reasons behind the Tier-based increases. There are plenty of people teaching Foundations-level double-knitting, in-person and virtual. With each successive Tier, there are fewer other people teaching these techniques (and at Tier 3, there’s really nobody else doing anything remotely that advanced). In addition, there are fewer students who are both willing and able to take workshops in the higher Tiers, so a higher price covers lower expected enrollment. But I found prices, and found that the prices I am charging here are reasonable based on what others charge per hour, whether independent or through some other venue.
I also don’t intend to cancel workshops for low enrollment. Even if I only get a handful of people taking a Tier-3 workshop, I’ll still run it because I will get a recording which I can continue to sell for most of the next year (although I expect fewer people will purchase them the longer they sit, given the finite end date).
So here’s the bottom line: My virtual workshops are longer than average, have access to a recording for much longer than average, are mostly on topics you can’t learn anywhere else, and are still less expensive than many of the big shows’ fees. Do you need any more reasons to be willing to enroll?
There is one caveat, however. The BuildingBlox workshop experience will be somewhat different (better, I think) — each workshop will have a dedicated page where homework, links, Zoom links, and (later) the video recording will be housed. Everyone who enrolls in the workshop will get access to this, although those who buy the recording only will get access only to certain parts of it (no Zoom link, for example). This means that everyone who enrolls in one of these workshops will need to have an account on my site (as that’s how I can control who gets access to the page). You can make an account at checkout by simply choosing a password, or you can get a head-start by creating your account now.
Patreon updates
If you’ve been keeping track of my Patreon, you might know that the highest tier had a free-workshop-per-month perk. This was based on the fact that the tier price and the workshop base price were the same. This is no longer the case, so that perk has been removed. However, in its place there’s a benefit to almost all patrons in the form of a monthly workshop discount coupon. The coupon will work on any one virtual or recorded workshop per month, and (like the workshops) the value is based on the Patreon support tier. Now here’s the neat thing: the discount you get is more than the amount you pay monthly for Patreon support. So this is the one and only way you can get regular discounts on my workshops! If you think you’re likely to want to take a bunch of my BuildingBlox workshops in 2023 and beyond, maybe think about joining my Patreon! Here are the discounts:
Slip-Stitch Tier: $5/month gets a $10 coupon ($5 savings)
Modern Tier: $15/month gets a $25 coupon ($10 savings)
Extreme Tier: $35/month gets a $50 coupon ($15 savings)
Sorry Tubular backers, the lowest tier doesn’t get a lot of perks and also doesn’t get a discount here.
One other change, only affecting the Extreme tier backers: I removed the “office hours” perk because in over a year of offering it, only one person has ever used it, so it wasn’t worth it for me to keep paying for the booking system. If there’s more interest in that in the future, I’ll look into reinstating it some other way.
In-person Workshops
Yes, as I mentioned before, there are in-person workshops scheduled, and you can sign up for them now if you’re in (or traveling to) NYC or Tacoma, WA next February for Vogue Knitting Live or Red Alder. Red Alder even has a couple instances of new workshops I’ve never taught in person before!
Because this post has gone on pretty long already, I’m just going to refer you to my handy Events Calendar, where you can get all the info you need. You can also (of course) look me up on the individual event pages. I’ll do another post later with updates on all my upcoming workshops once I’ve scheduled my first set of BuildingBlox workshops, and have even more virtual workshops aside from those to share as well.
Website, Blog and Social Media updates
You may have already noticed if you’ve been following my blog for a while, as well as if you’ve followed many of the links from earlier in this post, that I’ve been doing some heavy work on my website and blog.
The work on the website has mostly been focused around the places one might visit while looking for workshops, while the books and patterns have been left alone for a little longer. I’ve made a lot of aesthetic changes along with the structural ones. One of the changes you might not immediately notice is the one you’re using right now: the fonts! The fonts have been changed to web versions of the same ones I use in my books and patterns. I’m excited that I’ve been able to figure out how to achieve this, and I hope you like the look of them. Fine-tuning continues, so please let me know if anything is broken.
The blog is a separate, less-complex site, but I was also able to import the fonts here, and with some CSS wizardry I’ve been able to customize this theme to use the same fonts my website uses.
If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you have probably noticed I haven’t been doing much in those spaces. I made a post a while ago about this — in the absence of my former social media manager, I have had to choose between “production” and “promotion” weeks. I have been deep in production and have had no time for promotion — but as time goes on I will need to do both, so I have hired a new virtual assistant. I’ll introduce you to her in a future post, but you’ll start seeing more from me on social media if you follow Fallingblox Designs in those places.
What about knitting?
Among all of these time-consuming projects, what about knitting? This is the season for knitting, where I live. It’s getting colder, and I really, really want to get the needles and yarn out and make some stuff. I hope I have the time, after all this workshop prep is done but before I actually have to start teaching them. I miss the simplicity of just knitting, whether for myself or for a new pattern. It’s hard to find the time for it now, but I hope that after all this infrastructure is done, and I have someone to help schedule workshops and take some other work off my plate, I’ll be able to get back to the basics of this craft I love so much.
Thanks for your patience with me, and for reading this far in such a long post.
Well, folks, it’s been a long time since the last one of these, but here’s the new one! Thanks for your patience; I hope it’s worth the wait! In it, I talk about plans to futureproof Fallingblox Designs (specifically regarding virtual workshops), some new innovations, and more. If you click through to YouTube, the clickable links for the various things I share in the video are also there.
In other news
I want to give you a heads up about the next few months. I will be closing out my Fall season with this month’s virtual workshops, listed here:
It has become clear that I need to find a sustainable way to continue to offer virtual workshops in a post-pandemic world (as alluded to in my previous post), and that if I just continue to offer the same workshops in the same way, I’ll never actually find a time to make that transition. At the same time, I need time to work on workshop content, perhaps formulate some new workshops, and then come back in 2023 with a real workable plan. So I’m taking the rest of 2022 to figure this stuff out. Want to make sure you’re among the first to know when the workshops return? Join my mailing lists on my contact page.
Want to stay updated on what I’m doing in the meantime (and help me weather 3 months of no workshop income)? Join my Patreon! Patreon folks saw (and got way more detail on) the techniques I worked on during my August of Innovation, mentioned in the podcast above, in more-or-less real time.
First of all, I don’t believe we are in a post-pandemic world. A lot of people have decided that masking is no longer necessary for them to feel safe, but regardless of how we feel, the pandemic is still occurring and it’ll be a while before we can truly say we are past it. But in the knitting world, as in other communities, we have already started to move past pandemic measures — more in-person events are being scheduled and happening, to begin with.
The current phase of Fallingblox Designs is primarily based on education — during the pandemic, I found virtual workshops possible and practical (and profitable) and this has been my main focus over the past 2 years (I got a late start due to the fire). Throughout these years, I’ve told myself (and others) that I intend to keep doing virtual workshops even as physical ones become possible again, primarily because I’m able to reach people I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to reach. Not everyone has a “big show” near them or can afford to travel to one.
But as people tire of the pandemic and the trappings of pandemic life, I am seeing fewer enrollments and having to cancel more of my virtual workshops. This is almost certainly partially my fault for letting my social networking slide — but if the survey I put out last year is any indication, social networks are less important to the majority of my customers and the issue could be simple market saturation. Regardless, I need to figure out how to proceed.
A few things occur to me, after conversations with some students and further discernment on my part:
I need to schedule my virtual workshops further out. I’ve been scheduling them a month, maybe two, ahead for the past couple of years. This worked during a time when people had fewer conflicts due to lockdowns or simply lack of events, but with more and more events now vying for everyone’s time and money, I need to allow my students to plan further ahead. This also means I need to be able to plan further ahead, which has been difficult.
If I need to settle into the reality of lower enrollments, I need to raise my rates so that I won’t need to cancel so many workshops. This may mean I come up with a slightly different way to deal with my “sliding scale” model, perhaps enacting a more formal “scholarship” process. More on that later.
I need to figure out how better to get the word out about my virtual workshops to people who might actually be interested in attending.
Am I ready to take all of this and put it into practice? Not yet. Right now it’s more important that I let folks know about my upcoming workshops than that I radically change my process — but expect workshops for the rest of the Fall season to be announced soon.
Right now, here’s what I’ve got scheduled. As usual, I’m starting my season with an intro workshop, then I’m bringing back the two workshops I cancelled in June for a second chance. Then, at the end of September/beginning of October, I’m teaching some workshops at Knitters’ Day Out in Harrisburg, PA. These are the last of my in-person workshops for the year (stay tuned for more in 2023). All times are in Eastern Time:
I made a proclamation to my mailing list that I was taking August as a break from knitting-related work — no workshops, no pattern work, etc. August last year was miserably hot and I don’t have effective AC that makes it comfortable for me to knit. This year it’s been a bit better but I have largely been absent, on “actual” vacation (from which the photo above is taken). It’s also a time when many others in the US take vacations, and less knitting is done due to the heat, so workshops rarely fill. But I knew I needed to schedule some workshops, so it couldn’t be completely devoid of knitting work. I also said that I hoped to use this month to do some experimentation on some new or undeveloped techniques, and I’m happy to say I probably have enough to do a workshop on double-knit short-rows, and am starting work on stacked stitches. I hope to have some experiments to show for my next podcast, but if you want a look sooner, I recommend joining my Patreon, where I’m showing these swatches as I go.
Advanced Double-knitting Texture draft sample (probably not actually the one from the upcoming workshop)
I have been watching interest in some of my workshops dwindle a bit, and in order to breathe new life into them, it’s really past time that I brought in a new workshop or two. Some months ago, I put out a survey where people expressed interest in some new workshops I had in mind, and while I have not been able to work out all of them, I’m a little further along on a couple. To be honest, I am not ready to teach these workshops right now. But scheduling them at the end of July will give me a deadline by which I must be ready. And I will be. I look forward to it, and I hope people are excited about them.
Also, my Off the Grid workshop which was cancelled in May for low attendance has now been rescheduled for next weekend. It’s got enough people to run now, but I’d love a couple more, if you’re interested and free.
Without further ado, here’s my list of upcoming scheduled workshops, both virtual and in-person (all times in Eastern Time):
Also in September/October, I’ll be at Knitters’ Day Out in Harrisburg, PA, with a schedule very similar to the VKL workshops above. Links to that when I have them.
I have a new mailing list signup form which you should go check out, especially if you’re interested in my new workshops. Aside from the main list, you can sign up for the individual workshop interest groups (including for the two new workshops), which get first crack at my virtual workshops when they’re announced.
Thanks for your continued interest and I’ll have more to post soon!
In the absence of my social media guru, I have tried my best to keep up with the weekly scheduling of social media posts. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ve probably noticed the result. The reason I had a social media person working for me was simply because I don’t “do” social media naturally. I am working on it, though.
However, in the past couple of weeks, I have been so overloaded with responsibilities, real and self-imposed, that I have realized something very important: in any given week, I have time for either production or promotion — rarely both. This realization has been very freeing for me — previously, I would get hung up on the fact that I was unable to get any social media posts scheduled, then get stuck in a spiral of guilt and executive dysfunction and the week would end with nothing getting done on the knitting front. Last week, instead, I just told myself “OK, I didn’t do any social media posts — this must be a production week” and I got 3 Youtube videos out, moved my mailing lists from MailChimp to MailerLite, set up some email automation, and cancelled a workshop for low enrollment 🙁 .
Will this mindset work forever? It remains to be seen — but I think it’s healthier than the alternative. So if you don’t see any social media posts from me for a week, you can rest assured that I’m being productive and will have more news for you soon (hopefully). This isn’t great for the almighty algorithms, but short of spending a mint, very little that I can realistically do will help much with those. The best you can do is like and follow my Facebook page, and with luck you may see some of the posts there. That, or stay tuned here or on my mailing lists — which the last survey I ran told me were much more important to most of my customers than social media anyway.
Workshops update
Per my recently-posted virtual workshop cancellation policy, I’ve had to let my Off the Grid workshop go this week for low enrollment. I am still trying to figure out June, and in all likelihood, I will move that workshop to June and give those students another chance to take their preferred workshop (as well as more time to get more students into the workshop). However, I have two more workshops this month as well as new in-person workshops scheduled for August at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC! (all times below in Eastern Time)
Hopefully you’re following my YouTube channel so you already saw these go by as they were posted, but just in case you’re not, I now have 3 new short technique videos up. These were originally the “Technique(s) of the Month” from my last 3 podcasts, so if you’ve been watching those, there’ll be nothing new here — but they are at least easier to access than having to scroll through to the end of a podcast.
If you’re interested in joining my Patreon but don’t want another monthly charge on your credit card bill, I’ve just qualified for (and enabled) yearly payments, which come with a 10% discount on your month-by-month tier cost. Thank you to those of you who support me there in whatever way you do so! Not sure what Patreon is or why I’m using it? Read more here.
It’s only May 4th, and I’ve released a new pattern, gotten a podcast out … now if I can just get some more enrollments in this month’s workshops, I’ll be golden. Without further ado:
Two new patterns!
Since the last blog post, I’ve now released two new scarf patterns that are available for purchase on Ravelry or LoveCrafts, both using Rowan Felted Tweed/Colour solid and gradient combos. Vesica is a wide scarf based on a sacred geometry pattern; Arabiyya is based on a segment of a pattern I’ve been playing with for years. Arabiyya uses increasing and decreasing to shape the ends of the scarf, but there is an option for a plain rectangular scarf for those who’d rather keep the pattern intro-level.
Fallingblog Podcast #7 has been released
If you’re interested in the two patterns above, head over to the recent podcast for some more info about them, as well as a long-requested tutorial on weaving in ends in double-knitting.
Workshops in May (and beyond)
I have virtual workshops galore — both my own and through Stitches — and also some in-person workshops coming up in August and September. If you’re interested in intro/intermediate level workshops, sign up soon for the Stitches ones; if you’re interested in advanced-level workshops, look no further than my BuildingBlox series — I’ve even got the elusive Double-knitting Entrelac workshop this month! You can see them all on my calendar but here’s a quick rundown:
As usual, all of my BuildingBlox workshops will be recorded so you’ll have access to the workshop video even if you’re unable to attend at the time of the workshop (but you do have to enroll to get access!)
If you’ve been trying to access my website over the past several weeks, you may have noticed some glitches and changes. I’ve been struggling with some serious instability (of my website! I’m OK) and I’ve had to do a bit of an overhaul. It’s stable right now, but at some point I’m going to need to delve into the back-end of the site and finalize some things to make it easier to manage in the future. So what does this mean for you? Not much, unless you run into something that doesn’t work as it should — if so, please just get in touch and let me know. If it just looks like the formatting is a little weird, you can ignore that for now — it’s a work in progress. Thanks for understanding!
