I haven't always been a Yarnista. Believe it or not, I've done more than play with sticks & string professionally, so it's always exciting when my yarny side gets to hang out with my teacher side!
The earliest memory of sharing my knowledge with others was in 2nd Grade when the teacher had me help another student with our writing lessons - English wasn't his first language and Spanish wasn't mine, but we bumbled through it and it was great fun for me.
I learned early on that teaching others isn't always easy with the unique personalities and individual learning styles. Later in my professional career in management and training, I discovered that working with adult learners was a whole new experience and I welcomed the challenge for the simple joy of seeing a face light up when the 'a-ha moment' arrives – what an amazing reward for spending a little time with someone!
I do teach classes at Firefly Fibers from time-to-time, but it's a gig where I fill in and pull from my Mary Poppins bag of knitting knowledge where needed. As the business end of things continues to become more manageable, I've been easing back into teaching and I love being back in the classroom!
Today, I’m happy to officially share that I will be making regular appearances in the classroom starting with the next class schedule - I am so excited! As I said, I never had a reason to put the teaching hat on more than once in awhile, but Sarah - my dear friend, fellow knitter and an instructor at the shop - is retiring from teaching knitting so my knitting instruction hat is on!
If you're wondering what this theoretical instruction hat looks like, this is my trademark hat and I assume it's probably a close representation:
Raveled: Cloudy Day
Pattern: Cloudy Day by Never Not Knitting
Yarn: Sport Weight by Blue Sky Alpacas
Back to the matter at hand... A question that has come up over the last couple weeks is: What's changing? Well, nothing really. I've always been involved in every step of the class planning process with the shop instructors: brainstorming, scheduling, project selection, techniques, layout, sample knitting and everything in between. Things will look pretty much the same; it will just be my face in the classroom. *smile*
So... with my teaching hat firmly on my head, I'm nose deep in class ideas, class sample knitting (secret projects for now, of course) and some really fabulous techniques.
I'm really excited to share the next class schedule in a few weeks! If you're excited too, be sure to 'like' AlisaTheYarnista on Facebook for peeks/teasers, along with other sorts of yarny and general goodness!
Cheers, Happy Knitting and Happy Learning!