Fallingblog

Friends, I apologize in advance, on a number of levels, for this post. First things first, this is not about us — our personal tragedy is largely over for 2020 (knock on wood), but we keep getting touched by terrible news and I have been remiss in not posting about them.

Partially my failing is that these things just keep happening, so just as I’m emotionally able to think about how to address one, another one happens. The overload has kept me from properly addressing any of them. I regret that I was unable to say anything meaningful when I learned of one death while still processing another, and so on. I also regret that I am failing to honor each of them with the time they so deserve by compiling them all in a single blog post. But the alternative is to do several posts, which will require me to wait even longer to honor the memory and the struggle of people who deserve more timely attention.

I am also struggling with the order of operations — should I start with the most recent and most pressing tragedy, or go in chronological order? If the former, I have a better chance of effecting change for those to whom it may still make a difference — but the latter honors people who should have been honored sooner. So please, if you want to help me honor the dead, read on from here. If you want to help those still living, skip to the end. Apologies if that sounds macabre or something.

The first tragedy (aside from our home burning down, which is now months in the past) that I have been processing is the passing of my grandfather, Avery Post, on Monday, September 7th. If you are a friend of mine on Facebook, you can see the post I made in the wake of that event. My family, in concert with the UCC leaders, is organizing a memorial for him in Norwich, VT on November 1, but due to Covid restrictions, it will mostly be attended over Zoom. Our family will have a memorial in 2021 when it is safer to gather, at the family plot in the foothills of the White Mountains in NH. You can read his obituary in his local newspaper, and/or the one on the UCC website.

I was able to visit Grandfather in hospice care in NH, a few days before his passing. I held his hand and read Robert Frost poems to him — our shared favorites — and Marcus and I said our goodbyes to this wonderful man who I’ve been so close to throughout my life, who Marcus grew to know and love, and who (as a UCC minister of some renown) married us a decade ago.

The second tragedy was the passing of one of my knitting mentors, a woman who helped me get my start as a professional knitting designer, the visionary knitter Cat Bordhi. I knew of her work in moebius knitting, and had even tried some, but I didn’t meet her until the first (and only) Men Knitters’ Visionary Retreat in Friday Harbor, WA in early 2010. I was already well into the creation of my first book, but a friend had nominated me to attend this event for aspiring self-publishing knitting authors, and I did. After my presentation to the group, I remember Cat’s words well: “I know 3 knitting geniuses currently working today; I’ve just met the fourth.”

Cat (and by extension, her network of Visionary Authors) has helped me immeasurably over the past decade, as I cemented my place in the world of national-circuit knitting teachers and authors. As she had focused more of her physical presence in South America, I had fallen out of regular touch with her, so news of her illness was a surprise. But, as with so much in her life, she took her impending death with so much grace and humor. She passed away on September 19th, 2020, while we were still raw from the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a tragedy less personal but with wider-ranging effects that you definitely don’t need me to go into here.

Clara Parkes of the Knitters Review has written a lovely memorial post about Cat. I recommend you read it, whether or not you knew her, and you will know her a bit better.

The third tragedy occurred less than two weeks later with the passing of another titan of the knitting world, Annie Modesitt, on October 1. Annie and I were kindred spirits, of a sort, with unconventional and irreverent viewpoints on knitting. Her company, Modeknit, frequently vended my books and patterns when I was traveling to her area for the Interweave or Yarnover shows. She was one of the earliest presenters for the guild I co-founded in Cambridge (the Common Cod Fiber Guild, now defunct), and was always unstintingly supportive of my creative work. Cancer had struck her family before and she was no stranger to loss and grief, but she kept her spirits up and her outlook bright. Her struggle with cancer was also well known and this was the expected outcome — but the loss of one of the leading lights of the knitting world is still difficult, especially for her children who lost their father to cancer less than two years ago. They are using Annie’s Twitter account to keep people updated on the memorial etc.

I learned of the fourth tragedy today. You may have seen me on the Fruity Knitting podcast back in the early days of Covid-19, and perhaps you saw their outpouring of support and the KAL they started when they heard of our house fire. Andrea and Andrew were struck with a tragedy recently when they discovered that Andrew has an inoperable brain tumor. The future of the podcast is unknown but they are committed to continuing it as long as they are able. It is currently their only source of income, so please consider joining their Patreon at the highest level you are able, or donating to them via Paypal so that they can afford their living and burgeoning medical expenses.

The final tragedy is ongoing, and hardly visible to people in the US as our news cycles are overrun with our insane national election. As you may or may not know, Marcus is half Armenian and half Austrian Jewish, descended from survivors of two different genocides. Culturally, she is more connected to the Armenian side, and we visited Armenia for the first time last October.

Armenia is bordered by hostile countries Turkey and Azerbaijan on two sides, and friendly or at least cordial countries Georgia and Iran on the other two (much smaller) sides. Just over the Azerbaijan border is a large territory the Armenians call Artsakh, but which the rest of the world knows as Nagorno-Karabakh. It is populated with ethnic Armenians and has been for thousands of years. However, it lies within the borders of Azerbaijan and has been the target of conflict in the past, as has the Eastern border of Armenia proper. Recently, Azerbaijan has resumed aggression against civilians in Artsakh — with the backing of Turkey, who perpetrated the last Armenian genocide and still has not taken responsibility — and war seems inevitable. Learn about some of the history by watching this RareEarth video and/or reading the Armenian President’s statement.

Marcus is working with her coworkers at Google to make the biggest difference in fundraising for humanitarian aid for Armenians affected by the current struggle by pushing for donations to the Armenia Fund before November 1st, when Google’s employee donation-matching policy will change. If you have any compassion for the inhabitants of that beautiful and ancient country, please consider donating to one of Marcus’ coworkers’ fundraisers, or if it’s maxed out, the Armenia Fund directly.

If you’re still with me, thank you. I hope to have some knitting-related news for you soon.

TL;DR: sign up for my “Design your own Double-knit Hat” workshop series, starting next weekend (Oct 3) at Stitches at Home.

I posted last time about what I was able to recover, in terms of samples, from the fire. There’s a whole lot more that I didn’t recover — more than I could list (not actually true, as I did have to list it for the insurance, although I’m sure I missed some things). I had some old hats that were stored along with my stash, not with my other samples. And since the stash was lost, so too were these hats.

At the time, I wasn’t too broken up about it. After all, they were relics of a workshop I hadn’t taught in about a decade — and isn’t practical to teach while traveling due to the necessity of scheduling two separate weekends to do it. They were also all done in twisted stitches (as much of my work was at the time).

Then the good folks at XRX got in touch and offered me a workshop space at Stitches At Home, a show where we’re teaching on … get this … two separate weekends.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that I could resurrect this old workshop for the virtual teaching world — but yes, it’s ideally suited to a teaching environment where nobody needs to travel.

It’s also the only class I teach that’s specifically project-based. Especially during the winter gifting season, many people are interested in projects rather than learning new techniques.

So, without further ado, I’ve got 12 slots left in my “Design your own Double-knit Hat” class, taught across three 2-hour sessions on Oct 3, 4 and 10. If you already love double-knitting but want to get into designing, this is a great first step. If your double-knitting is a little rusty, this will help you get the muscle memory you’ll need for it to feel natural. And you’ll learn some decreases to boot!

I do feel bad that I wasn’t able to take better photos. Even if I had the hats still accessible, I could have done some better photography. But if I’m going to be adding this workshop to my (virtual) knitting roster, I could begin revisiting some of the hats for eventual release as standalone patterns. I’ve got plans for one of them already, which I’ll use to teach the upcoming sessions. We’ll see which others get revisited if there are further iterations of this class.

Stay tuned for more about workshops — there’s a lot in the works right now, and I’m trying to sort it all out! Thanks for your patience!

It was almost 2 months from the day of the fire, but the demolition finally began on Tuesday, July 21st. It’s taken me this long to post about it because … well, it’s a lot to process. This is going to be a bit of a long post with a bunch of photos, so if you just want to hear how you can help, jump down to the bottom (and thank you).

We hoped for some notice, but in the end, we received only half an hour’s notice that the demolition was about to begin. We’re lucky (in many ways) that we’re now living about a half-hour’s walk from our old home. I got there as quickly as I could on my new bike (as I’d long since given up getting my old one back), but I still missed the first “chomp” of the excavator claw.

We had been told that they’d be moving back-to-front, which gave us hope as many of the things we wanted to save were toward the front. But in fact, they went right-to-left, demolishing the three levels above our unit first. As they got down to our level, we watched them use the claw like a fist, punching through our ceiling and dumping debris into our unit. I understand why — they had to keep the debris largely within the footprint of the building, and (as was soon clear) they needed a platform for the excavator to roll around on so they could reach the front.

We began to be less optimistic about our prospects for recovering anything. Friends stopped by with camp chairs, snacks, and drinks. We called it “the worst beach party ever”. Aside from the smell of burnt debris, they also had to demolish three kitchens to get this far (with 5 more to go before the end). The stench of a month and a half of rotting refrigerator contents was almost enough to keep us out of the worksite.

But I was committed. Not only to getting what I could from my unit, but to watching for salvageable items that might be important to the other residents. Almost nobody from the building was there that first day — just us and Roselene. One of the renters showed up later in the day and was able to rescue a few things from his unit. But we watched for anything that looked valuable, got the excavator operator (his name was Matt) to toss things like that toward the back where we were waiting. We tried to connect items to owners but in the end we got precious little.

I stayed for four days. I missed some early mornings and I regret that I was not there when they began excavating my unit. But I got there before they got to the back wall of the living room, where my knitting library lived. This was destroyed, of course — but underneath it, on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, was my computer. The excavator, unfortunately, is not a subtle tool, and Matt was able to retrieve the bookcase and computer — but it was badly crushed. Still, I picked apart my knitting library, taking photos of books I had not already added to my list, and I got the crushed computer, from which I was eventually able to retrieve the hard drives and SSD. The drives are too badly damaged but I am only short about 2 months of backed-up data, so it may or may not be worthwhile to send them for data recovery. The SSD, in a testament to the resiliency of such things, not only still works but was able to boot my newly-built computer. I backed up the last bits from that, cloned it to the new drive, and saved it in case I need it later.

But the real question (and the one you are most likely eager to hear about) was in the next room: our bedroom. I told Matt about what we were looking for — a set of weathertight plastic bins underneath a bed. So when he got down to the floor and didn’t find a bed, let alone a set of bins, we were dismayed. But then my wife called from the front that she saw my samples, and I rushed to the side of the pit and looked as hard as I could. I saw the edge of Waterford Crossing in a bag under some rubble and called to Matt, who obligingly used the claw to push a bunch of bricks to the side so I could clamber down and start digging. I found the wreckage of the bins, and underneath them, the dozens of Ziploc bags of knitted samples (and even some yarn). I began pitching them up onto the ground outside the foundation.

In the end, I was able to rescue about 60% of my samples in fair to good condition. Another 25% were recovered but too badly damaged to repair — soaked, moldy, leaking dye, etc. The other 15% were simply not recovered.

I think that the damaged ones had their bin compromised early on — the seal was not good enough or perhaps there was a crack in the plastic. They sat in water for a month and a half, and if their bags were not also watertight, they took on water themselves. The ones that were a little damp I think took on water during the demolition process itself — only a couple of days rather than weeks. Those ones I spread out on the lawn at the Meeting House and let the sun do its best to disinfect and dry them out. Some will still need a washing but their ailment is more dirt than smoke or mold.

I’ve packed them all into fresh bags and gotten them new Iris bins (<–affiliate link) similar to their previous ones. I’m overall happy with the performance of the bins, even though they were packed this way to stave off moths, not water. I also managed to recover two bags of cloth project bags, which were fine after a run through the laundry.

In addition to the knitted objects, I managed to save a few other small items and all four boxes of my CD collection — a total of over 1700 discs, housed in ProSleeves. Unfortunately most of them are damaged beyond recovery; I will be evaluating that collection soon (it’s moldering, literally, in a storage unit) but I fully expect that it’s mostly heading to the trash.

So what didn’t we recover? It’s almost too much to even contemplate. Aside from countless books, clothes, kitchen stuff, etc, my wife and I both lost precious family heirlooms. I lost all of the art I ever produced in college, high school, and earlier. We both lost childhood photos which we never properly digitized. I rescued a pile of them, but since I just had them in a shoebox, most of their colors had run off (who knew that could happen?). We lost birth certificates, social security cards, passports (although what am I going to do with a passport these days?). We lost two aquariums full of freshwater fish and shrimp. I lost all of my knitting library, all of my yarn stash, and all of my works-in-progress. And more. But more to the point, we lost our stable life. We had everything lined up, all set to weather the pandemic in safety and comfort. We’d just paid off our condo in March. I’d just taught the first of a series of (hopefully) successful online workshops. Life was looking up. Now we’re facing an unknown amount of time in uncertainty, unable to properly isolate, and I’m about to have to head back to work.

So, what can you do to help?

If you’ve been following this saga for the past two months, you’ll know that we haven’t asked for much. We managed to find a good place to live thanks to our Quaker community. We got some basic furniture and kitchenware from local f/Friends, but we have been slowly replacing things with non-temporary replacements. We haven’t asked for money except for our neighbor Roselene, who was in a much worse situation than we were. We appreciate the help from my coworkers who did set up a GoFundMe on our behalf. Largely, we were waiting to see what we could recover. Now that we know, it’s time for us to ask for some help.

First, if you are able and willing to sample-knit for me, I will need very good double-knitters to help me replace some of the samples which were lost. In addition, I will be reaching out for support from the companies/dyers whose yarn I used, but if you have any clout with the relevant companies, please help out if you want. Also, three pieces will need new yarn since the yarn used is no longer in production; if you have suggestions for what I might use instead, please let me know. In general, if you want to be of any help with this, please contact me.

The pieces I need replaced are:

• Hesperos (Plucky Knitter Primo Sport)
• Kontinuum (Yarn Carnival Goat Roper — out of production, I think)
• Rustle of Leaves (Miss Babs Yowza)
• Hexworth (Bijou Basin Ranch Tibetan Dream — out of production, definitely)
• Ferronnerie (Quince & Co. Finch)
• Atyria II (Seven Sisters Arts Helix)
• Heartbound Again (hat) (Jaggerspun Green Line)
• Heartbound Again (headband) (Jaggerspun Maine Line)
• Spring Willow (Anzula Squishy)
• Parallax v0.1 (Mirasol Ushya)
• Duvino (Classic Elite Woodland — out of production, definitely)

I also lost one set of Footsies, the original Sierpinski baby blanket, the original Four Winds hat, the original Atyria hat, almost all of the cards from the 52 Pickup kClub edition (if someone feels led to do a scarf version of that for me, I would be ecstatic, but it’s not necessary), the Moosalamoo hat, the Fir-cone sachet, and one “double-knit beanie #28”. However, I am not planning on replacing any of these at the moment.

Not up for knitting at the professional level just yet? I’m also looking to replace a number of things that were central to my business — books, tools, etc. I’ve set up an Amazon wish list for these things (I’ll add to it as I think of others that might apply). I want to be clear: mostly, I’m not asking people to buy stuff for Fallingblox Designs unless you’ve been itching to support me in that way. What I want is to see if you’ve got a spare copy of this, that, or the other book that I need/want, or a set of Hiya Hiya bamboo interchangeables or Sony E-mount camera lenses that you don’t use. Eventually, insurance will likely take care of all of this but I guarantee we won’t get everything we’re hoping for from that. If I can help you by taking something off your hands that you’re not using, and you can help me by replacing something I lost, then we both win and I can save the insurance money for something else.

Another way you can help: when I do finally start teaching my online workshops again, tickets will be “pay what you want” above a certain amount. You can always pitch in more than you normally would, or “toss a coin to your stitcher” in my Tip Jar.

Finally, the most abstract method of helping me: keep working for positive change for your community/state/province/country/world. I feel like a lot of things have been happening and I’ve had opportunities to step up and make a statement or make a difference in some other way, but I’ve been absorbed in my own relatively small problems while the world burns around us. I feel like making posts on these matters now is too little too late, but that won’t stop me — it’s just that this post has gone on long enough as it is. It’s heartening, however, to see so many other people actively working to help. Keep doing it, whatever it is: protesting, getting out the vote, helping in the battle against the Coronavirus, etc — I’ll step in as soon as I can.

Thank you for all the offers of help, condolences, etc, even if I haven’t been willing or able to accept. The offer is received in the spirit in which it is given, and appreciated regardless. I feel blessed to be part of such a loving community.

Alasdair Post-Quinn, Fallingblox Designs

It’s been nearly a month since the fire took our home and my studio. The demolition still has not happened, so we are still in a kind of limbo. With no way (aside from the increasingly emotionally draining compilation of our property loss spreadsheet for the insurance company) to recapture the past, we are starting to look toward the future.

Our Quaker community has been of immense help; we thought we’d stay in the Friends Center guest room for a couple of nights while we sorted out our next moves — but they offered us a small unused private apartment for a couple of months. While staying here, they extended a further offer of a larger apartment, once it was vacated by its current tenant, for the span of 9-14 months (depending on a number of things). We’re glad to be nearby our old neighborhood, and staying in a place that already feels like home (considering how much time I spent here pre-Covid). The neighborhood is peaceful, green, and quiet.

We decided, once we had the lease in hand and approval from our landlords, to make an addition to our family. Meet Longfellow, our seal-point Siberian kitten. He’s about 3 months old, and (while he’s not eating, pooping, or rocketing around the apartment) is a complete snugglebug. At the encouragement of several people, we made him an Instagram account to chronicle his adorableness as long as he lets us stick cameras in his face. We hope that, once social isolation is over, we can introduce him to some of our local friends.

Now, to business (literally). Fallingblox Designs has 3 main divisions: Sales, Education, and R&D.

1. Sales: The books I had in the apartment were destroyed, but I keep most of my books off-site. I picked up a box of each, plus some shipping envelopes. I ordered some new copies of Victorian Raffia and Bipolar. I’ve got a scale, printer, label printer, labels — technically everything I need to begin shipping. The issue is that I simply don’t have the space to set it all up. I’m going to need to wait until we’re in the new space in a few weeks. In the meantime, Wall of Yarn continues to drop-ship for me, so feel free to order stuff on my store as usual. As always, you can follow my pattern links to Ravelry as well.
2. Education: I had to pay 150% of list, but I did re-acquire my high-end webcam for teaching virtual workshops. The laptop I had ordered for workshop streaming arrived a few days after the fire. Now the only bottleneck is that the Meeting House only has 50mbps internet. We are in the process of upgrading that to full gigabit service. When that happens, I’ll run some tests and then open the workshop books again.
3. R&D: Unfortunately, patterns that were in development are on hold until I can acquire new yarn for them. Projects in progress were in cloth drawstring bags in a crate in my living room. The chance that any of them have survived is nil. Just to keep my hands busy, I am working on a new pattern unrelated to the ones I’ve been posting about thus far. As soon as I’m able to restart work on previous patterns, you’ll hear about it here.

You have heard about our troubles over the past couple of weeks. Thank you for your outpouring of support and well-wishes. Despite the tragic loss of our home and most of our possessions, we are well insured and supported. This is not the case for everyone in our building, however. Our next-door neighbor (in the other basement unit) was a renter without insurance, a first-generation Haitian immigrant with a teenage son, and a genuinely sweet, if shy, person. She has lost everything and has no easy path to the next steps her life will need to take. She is staying with family, while her son is staying several towns over with other family. They will be reunited soon, but she needs immediate help.

We may yet be able to retrieve some of our stuff, my samples, our memorabilia, etc — and what we can’t, we have insurance and good friends offering to help replace things. But we won’t ask for help until while our neighbor still suffers. To that end, we have set up a GoFundMe for Roselene, in the hopes that we can direct some of the goodwill coming our way toward someone who needs it more than we do right now.

Later on, when the demolition has happened and we have some closure, we may reach out for other help. But right now, please help Roselene if you are able. Thank you.

Update: The GoFundMe raised its target amount within 12 hours and nearly doubled its target in less than a week. Thank you to the nearly 200 generous souls who donated to a stranger in need. We have turned off the donation button just shy of the 200-donor limit (to keep Roselene from having to deal with a 1099-K come next tax season).

In other news

I have taken my website out of hiatus mode. Fallingblox Designs is not fully recovered but certain things are at least starting to move again. Please visit the Fire Updates page for the latest on how Fallingblox Designs is rebuilding.

Thank you for all the messages of support via this blog, email, Facebook, etc; I will be responding to those that require responses soon.

Dear friends,

This is an update on our situation, a little over a week later. For those who hadn’t heard, our home burned down at 2:30 AM on Sunday, May 31. The building was an 8-unit condo with about 20 residents; all made it out OK. The 3-alarm fire devastated the interior of the building; however, our unit is one of two on the “garden level” (i.e. the basement) where the damage is much more water and smoke and toxic debris than actual fire. However, the city deemed the building structurally unsound and we have not been allowed into the unit to see if anything can be retrieved. We still do not have a final report on how the fire started.

The demolition was supposed to happen relatively quickly, but delays from Eversource have kept the city from issuing the permit we need to proceed with that. Because of that, our unit has continued to languish in the summer heat and the moisture remaining from 5+ hours of high-pressure water, which means we are likely going to have a severe mold problem in addition to everything else.

We still hold out hope that some of our most important and irreplaceable items can be retrieved and possibly restored, but we won’t know until the demolition can begin. Eversource’s delay may yet cost us another couple of weeks without the closure we so sorely need.

To everyone who has already offered help, thank you so much. We feel lucky to have you in our lives. Your generosity adds light and hope to our lives every day, even when we don’t always respond immediately. Our Quaker community has been incredibly generous in helping us with temporary housing as we regroup. We have also had many offers of help from family, friends, and coworkers. Local people have offered furniture, clothes, food and sundries; knitters and yarn companies have offered to help replace yarn and reknit some of my samples; others have offered financial support and encouraged us to open a GoFundMe.

We have been reluctant to ask for any of those things because, as I mentioned, we don’t yet know what can be salvaged. We cannot accommodate a lot of material donations in our small apartment, and we have a very good insurance plan which should cover a large amount of the lost property — and will help us with rent until our condo is rebuilt. We’re doing (financially) OK — but we have one neighbor who is not. She’s a Haitian immigrant with a teenage son, who also lost everything and has no insurance. She’s living with family but her son has to live in a different town. Before we ask for any help for ourselves, we want to make sure she is OK and has the resources to rebuild her life with her son. To that end, we will likely be setting up a small fund to help her get back on her feet. Stay tuned for that.

To our local friends, thank you for the help offered so far. When the demolition happens, we will likely need hands and vehicles to cart stuff to a storage unit nearby. Aside from that, stay tuned.

To my knitting friends, students and followers, I am still optimistic that some of my stash and samples may survive this. Most of it (aside from WIPs) were in ziploc bags inside watertight bins, as a moth deterrent — the water should also have been deterred. If it turns out that this is not the case, I will begin a list of yarns and projects I will need replaced. If you are up to the challenge of sample knitting for me, you can join my test and sample knitters mailing list. If you just want to support my creative pursuits in double-knitting, please feel free to buy a pattern on Ravelry. For those who have found backdoor links to my online store (which I have tried to keep hidden until I am able to fulfill orders again), I have a limited supply of books and patterns at Wall of Yarn in IL; they are drop-shipping them for me during this time. Due to this limitation, I cannot currently sign books for you. As soon as the way opens, I will try to start running my virtual workshops again.

To our Quaker community, please hold us in the Light. We greatly appreciate the material and spiritual support you have offered and given, and I hope to be able to continue supporting the Meeting in all the ways I have thus far, and more.

To everyone who has made it this far, thank you for your care and support. We will make it through this. The world is burning, and we are but a small part of it. Our problems, large as they seem to us right now, pale in comparison to the systemic racism and violence our country visits on its most vulnerable citizens and residents, and the continuing ravages of the pandemic here and worldwide. Please know that we are marching beside you in spirit, even as our bodies and minds are exhausted from this ordeal. We hope to join you soon. We love you all.

Alasdair & Marcus

We have lost our home and studio in a massive fire. All of my samples, works in progress, and yarn were destroyed — over a decade of work and 40+ years of memories, up in smoke. I have no way of fulfilling orders or teaching virtual workshops. I have no idea when I will be able to begin normal operations again. My wife and I and the other tenants of the building are (at least physically) OK.

If you want to support me during this difficult time, please visit my Ravelry store. I have done my best to hide access to my store, but if you manage to place an order for physical books or patterns, it will be cancelled and refunded. 

Later, I may ask for more concrete help — yarn from dyers I’ve worked with, samples from sample knitters — but for the moment I need to focus on rebuilding my life. You may feel free to contact me, but I cannot guarantee a timely reply.

Thank you for understanding.

Alasdair Post-Quinn, “Softwear Engineer”

It’s been a long time in coming, but a number of things have come together and it’s finally time to announce that I’m ready to teach virtual workshops!

During the lockdown, I’ve had more time to iron out some details. A week or so ago, I ran a small workshop with a group of friends to test out the instructional technology (this is mostly equipment I already use to teach; I just needed to make sure it would work remotely). A few weeks ago, I posted a survey to get input on various facets of this project. This week, I’ve been reworking large sections of my website to make it easier for people to find and register for workshops. Finally, today, Craftsy/Bluprint announced that it will be closing, which opens a huge hole in the online video workshop ecosystem.

Before I make my announcement, I want to go over the numbers and some other info (scroll to the bottom if you don’t care about statistics). First, I had 184 responses to the survey before I closed it down. I had noticed responses slowing down so I decided to stop the survey at that point. Here’s the breakdown of interest in these workshops, at least from these 184 people:

As you can see (and to my surprise) multi-color double-knitting takes the prize with 124 people interested (about 67% of respondents).

Availability seems to be highest in the evenings and weekend afternoons, regardless of the lockdown, so I’ll stick with those timings for now.

Nearly 75% of respondents said they’d prefer a workshop that was 3 hours long (same as my usual timing) but about 2/3 of those preferred a break midway through. Another 20% said 2 hours would be enough. Time will tell but we’ll start with the 3-hour workshops with a built-in break.

For price: almost 40% of people thought a price point between $40 and $60 would be reasonable, but a little more than 30% wanted between $20 and $40. 12% said $60-80, and the rest gave many, many individual suggestions. Due to the variety of responses, I’ve decided to offer my workshops at a sliding scale starting at $30 (with my Entrelac workshop starting higher, of course). This way, people can choose how much they value the workshop. And if they change their mind (at least in the positive direction) later, I’ve also implemented a tip jar.

Now, to the announcement:

Due to popular demand (see the graph above), I’ve decided to offer my multi-color double-knitting workshop as the inaugural virtual workshop! It’ll be a week from today, Saturday, May 30th, from 2-5pm ET. It’ll be capped at 15 people, so I expect it to sell out quickly. Register now! (…and it’s sold out!)

Some answers to inevitable questions follow:

Why so soon? Because I want to test the entire system sooner rather than later, and because logistics are a little less difficult right now since you don’t need to drive anywhere to get to the workshop.

Why so few people? Because I want to test the entire system — from payment and enrollment to the workshop itself — on a smaller number of people to reduce disappointment if something goes terribly wrong (not that I expect it to). And because I expect that finding 15 people out of 124 (or more) will not be terribly difficult.

Why not the intro first? Frankly, because I contractually can’t. I am teaching at Virtual Vogue Knitting Live in June, and I have a non-compete agreement that means I can’t teach my intro classes (the only ones they’re having me teach) from now-ish until June 29th.

I have not yet decided on a schedule for the other workshops but I will post about those as soon as I can.

Thanks for your continued interest and stay tuned soon for more!

This is something I should have sorted out long ago — but the lockdown (and the attendant cancellations of all of my 2020 gigs) has encouraged me to take a harder look at online video workshops. What I need to do now is to gauge your interest.

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who took my survey on video workshops. With 184 responses as of May 20th, 2020, I have enough info to proceed. I have closed the survey and will be analyzing the responses to make a game plan shortly. I’ll make another post about that soon. In the meantime, if you’d like to be sure to hear about workshops when they’re available (either physically or digitally), please follow my blog or Facebook page, or better yet join my mailing list. Thanks!

In other news

The patterns Abaciscus, Eureka, Waterford Crossing, and Hesperos have now been released as standalone versions! Hexworth should have been on that list, but the yarn has been discontinued, so I will need to find a reasonable replacement and work up a new sample before I can release that pattern. It probably goes without saying, but if you already own Double or Nothing, there is no reason for you to buy any of these patterns (but you can, if you’re a completist and want to support me).

If you’re waiting on individual patterns from Extreme Double-knitting, I’ll probably wait a little longer until I release those. Stay tuned!

It’s been a little while since I put out a new pattern, but the continuing lockdown is keeping me occupied with my ever-growing list of creative pursuits. I alluded to this pattern in a couple of previous posts, and now it’s time for a proper announcement.

This is a new hat pattern, but it’s not alone: it’s part 1 of a serial collection that will be released over the next several months as patterns are ready. So the price ($11.95) may seem steep for a single hat pattern, but rest assured that the other 4 will make it well worth your while. The collection is called Wuxing: 5 Elements, and the hats are themed for the Chinese 5 elements (Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood) that figure prominently in Taoism and other Chinese philosophies. Agni Deus is, clearly, the Fire hat.

Each of the 5 patterns is going to be pushing the envelope on double-knitting in some new and interesting way. The patterns have a structural motif in common — a kind of teardrop shape that manifests in different ways, using the off-the-grid style to great effect. In Agni Deus, the shape is reminiscent of a flame — and at the heart of the flame there are beads! Of course, since it’s double-knit, there are two different colors of beads on either layer. And yes, the pattern does explain how to achieve the beading.

You can get the hat pattern as the first installment of the Wuxing collection here, or you can order a kit from BeadBiz — your choice of 10 different combinations of A Hundred Ravens Yaksha yarn and appropriate beads, along with a bead hook to apply them.

Curious about what the next patterns might look like? Stay tuned: the Honey Locust hat is test-knitted and the pattern just needs to be written up. The others will make stealthy appearances on my Instagram and Facebook feeds, so follow me and you might just catch a peek.

In other news

This actually warrants higher billing, but the pattern announcement took priority. A couple of months ago, before the pandemic hit properly, I spent a number of hours talking to Andrea of the Fruity Knitting podcast. The podcast was finally released today and I hear it’s really good! I have been busy today (and I am always a little nervous to see myself on screen) but I will check it out before too long. Meanwhile, you should go take a look at it, and share it with your friends too. There’s a blog post and (of course) a YouTube video.

While we’re on podcasts, I was on a livestream with Suzanne Bryan in late January, and that recording is also up if you’re interested.

Finally, I have been working on revamping some portions of my website. Feel free to go poke around — especially the patterns area — and see if you can see what’s new. There will be more changes coming as I have time.

P.S.: As I’m sure you were expecting, given the demise of my teaching opportunities this year, I am working on a video instruction solution; I needed to iron out some technical details and reclaim some space before I could properly work on this. But now that I can, I hope to have some news for you on that front soon.

Stay tuned! More to come sooner than usual.