Holly Yeoh Days

I've been taking a few classes this week. We have a Vancouver instructor and designer, Holly Yeoh, in town.

Holly designs some really cute things for kids out of some of the most interesting and fun yarns on the market, sock yarns. Her sense of play and fun with these already fun yarns is amazing. I can see much much more in her future. She's is featured in the current issue of Twist Collective

She is teaching classes in all sorts of things and I was lucky enough to get into her lace and glove class. I must also mention that the lace class was supposed to be during my work hours, but I was allowed to sit and work on the class anyway (Did I mention I work for the best people?)

Like a lot of designers, her class has a special small design for class participants. Its a lovely little lace scarf, with some interesting beading, knit in mohair. Being the chicken sort, chicken to work with mohair, that is, I choose Rowan's Kid Silk Haze for my project, in the bright apple green Jelly colour. If you are going to start a mohair thing, knit with the best. It is a simple lace and though I have knit lace before, and I have done a little bit of beading, I have not knit on beads and I have not worked with mohair. It better be simple!I am pleased to say, I can now do both, and I learned a few little tidbits that are going to make the knitting of these things all the easier. It is the little things I learn in classes that stand me in good stead across all the knitting I do.

Yesterday I took a class in glove making. Gloves have always seemed like fiddly work, way to busy and technical for me, but just like socks, there are a few neat little things to learn, and away you go.

No full on picture, because there is something about this one that you ought to see when you take a class, and yes, you really ought to take the class whenever you can. A class like this is when you get to meet the heart of the designer and this designer is surrounded by a strong sense of fun and play. You can see it in her designs and you can really see it in her class samples.

You also get a little window into her thought process when she is knitting. There is a detail on her Guess Who? glove pattern, that makes you really understand and appreciate exactly what designers do and how they think about some very little things. It is the interesting little thing about this pattern, and about her innovative way of doing the connections between parts that make her design something really special.

This winter, I plan to make some gloves for Mr. Needles and myself. I prefer gloves for driving and I can see a time and place for glove/mitten combinations for both of us, but up till now, the thought of all the little tubes for fingers just hurt my head. I'm looking forward now, to something I put down to best avoided before and that delights me to no end.

So much of my journey here in the land of knitting (On cleaning my study I pulled out Cast Off by the Yarn Harlot. Does it show?) has been about simply accepting the challenge and asking the questions. The knitting is not so hard. It is the getting over the avoidance of it that is hard. I'm tickled to say that getting over the fear continues.