Like most things in life, the secret to becoming better at knitting is to embrace the social aspect of it and to congregate with other knitters!When I learned to knit I didn’t have the benefit of YouTube and numerous knitting groups to choose from. Yes, I came from the school of hard knocks and have frogged many a project and made many, many, mistakes. While I’d like to think that helped make me a better knitter, I can truly say that I saw a real difference in my knitting IQ growth once I stared to knit with other knitters.
The biggest influence on me by far was a lady named Kathleen, who worked in the LYS I first worked in. She was your typical image of a “knitter” as my ignorance understood it way back when! A grandmother in her 60’s, she was a traditionalist at heart, believed in throwing always, and British to boot! She had more knowledge in her head than almost anyone I know, and could deconstruct and reverse engineer almost anything – knitted or crocheted. I loved just sitting with her and absorbing the copious amounts of information that seeped out of her needles!
Thankfully, Kathleen has been reincarnated in the form of knitting groups and events like World Wide Knit in Public Day! Through these things we can get together and knit and more importantly, share our knowledge with each other to help ourselves become better at this craft we all love. Yesterday, in Vancouver, a group of 33 people braved the rain and did just that for 3 hours! While it wasn’t long enough and we probably could have stayed there until we were removed by force, it was fantastic to just sit and knit and socialize and become part of a Close Knit Community. I would like to thank Danielle Landes for starting what has become such a great way for us to do this – WWKIP DAY! If you’re a knitter or crocheter that participated in one of the hundreds of WKIP Day events yesterday, show her some love and support by visiting the link and letting her know!
For the people that were out at the Close Knit Community event in Vancouver yesterday, a HUGE thank you for coming out and sharing your time and talents with me. And thanks for the assistance in organizing it! And to everyone that donated a giveaway, thank you as well! I’m sure we would have gathered anyway, but there was definitely added delight as names were drawn for giveaways. Some displays of appreciation were worthy of being recorded and I wish I had had the cameras rolling! 😉
Here are a few pictures from yesterday, and I look forward to having regular, similar events, in the future and a ginormous event next year!!
Hugzzz 😎