Sunday, April 06, 2014

Fibre Space ~ Day 2!



Hi, Knitters,
Yesterday was simply an excellent day at Fibre Space. This shop is amazing. It is bustling and fun and cool. The staff is wonderful and helpful and smart. I had two jam-packed classes, full to the brim. In the morning Ann Weaver was teaching a sweater class at the same time I was teaching the Build a Toy workshop and it was the start of the local Yarn Crawl. The lines at the register were never-ending. It was a banner day for the shop. 


Fibre Space is clearly doing something right. The Old Town Alexandria setting is so charming and old. I love the teaching set up. There are open windows between the teaching room and the shop so you really feel like you are part of the action. 


See that swift in the window between the classroom and shop? That thing never stopped the entire day. I am surprised to see it resting in the photo above. That swift is hooked up to an electric ball winder.

I am so impressed with the owner, Danielle, and her staff. These are some hard working people. If people have images of owning a yarn shop and sitting around and knitting all day they should come to Fibre Space. The staff here never sits down or even stops for a second. They are helping people with their knitting, selecting patterns and yarn with customers, chatting, checking people out with their purchases, cleaning, helping me set up for my workshops, and more.... and they do it all with a smile. 

The first two photos are from my morning class. What enthusiastic toy knitters I had! We had a lot of fun together and the time went so fast. At the beginning of my workshops I always feel like I have so much time but all of a sudden at the end there is so much I want to squeeze in before the students leave me.

The following photos are from my afternoon workshop, Fair Isle Hat. This workshop has become one of my most popular classes wherever I teach. It fills up quickly and sells out it seems wherever I go. I love that because I love color work and I love teaching color work.





My classes pretty much rocked. I had students from past teaching venues show up, which I love, I had students with all levels of experience. Everyone succeeded and hopefully learned a thing or two and seemed to have good time on top of it.

I really love teaching knitting. That's what it boils down to.


Here is the sample table before my Fair Isle Class. I left the toys out just for fun.

Below are photos of my students' work in the color work class. I have to brag for them. They all learned and tried new things. Some were quite nervous at the start but they dug in and really went with the techniques at hand.

Look at these wonderful hats! This was only half way through the class. Much more progress was made by the end of class. A couple of students almost finished their hats. The photos below show some corrugated rib and a left-leaning Latvian Braid.














There were more, I didn't get photos of every hat in the class. Aren't those hats wonderful and inspiring? Thank you, students, for a fantastic day!


This is my beloved Melanie (maashrink on rav). I loved meeting her in person.


We have a thread in our Itty-Bitty Knits forum group on Ravelry called, Itty-Bitty Meet Ups. These meet-ups occur with members from all over the world. We always take photos and share them with our group and then everyone comments. On the left is Greg, knittingdaddy on rav, and Melanie, maashrink on rav. It was so lovely to spend time together in person.

Please come and join our fun-loving group on Ravelry, Itty-Bitty Knits!


One last note, I posted a photo of this sliver fiber for spinning yesterday on Instagram and Facebook, and asked if anyone knew what is was. I got a great response, even Amy Detjen and Clara Parkes responded and said I should get one.

Oh darn, I guess I'll have to bring a braid home with me now.

I'll take more photos from today! I have one more toy-themed workshop this afternoon. I can't wait.

There are not enough stars around for me to give Fibre Space a high enough review on all fronts. I suggest supporting this shop in every way we are able. It is a super vibrant community-based shop that is successful for all of the right reasons.

Click here for Fibre Space!

I'll be back soon with more. I hope you are having a nice weekend, everyone.
best, susie
p.s. I had about a 10 minute break at lunch to walk around in a t-shirt and skirt and soak in some sunshine. It felt so good to be outside without a coat, it just added to my great weekend.

13 comments:

JoAnna said...

So glad that you are having an excellent time!

Unknown said...

Oh how this makes me yearn for a good LYS. I'm hoping our next duty station is in a better place. Let me know when you come to Kansas! I sure want to take that hat workshop now!

Maureen said...

I had a great time in your fair isle hat class. Slowly but surely I am. figuring out the two handed knitting. Thank you for being such a great and friendly teacher!

Renee Anne said...

If it helps, I hear it's supposed to be in the 60s back home this coming week....

I love that it's finally getting to be spring in Madison...but it's supposed to be 79 on Tuesday here in San Francisco so, you know, I'll take that instead :)

gale (she shoots sheep shots) said...

what a fun report--I have never made it to Fibre Space and it always sounds wonderful. Now I see why!

Kelly said...

My girlfriend Jillian works at Fibre Space! She's a Chicago transplanted knitter over there -- such fabulousness at that store:)

Pat Salvatini said...

What a lovely shop and an even better workshop! I love the Itty Bitty meet-up photo, what fun!

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing all the great pictures, Susan! I love to see all the Itty Bitty Knitters Meet-Ups :)

Sunrise Knitter said...

Hopefully Fibre Space will add online-shopping to their website some time soon. Thanks for all the pictures. I've followed their blog for a long time.

Jaxie985 said...

It sounds like a wonderful day at Fibre Space! I make the trek over whenever I have the opportunity to visit DC. Wish I'd been there!

Unknown said...

Susan,
Where do you offer the patterns for the string a long frog, mouse and monkey that you taught on Sunday. They look addictive :)

Greg said...

Hi, Susan! I had such a great time at your workshops and learned so much. The Fair Isle Hat Workshop was by far my favorite, and I really enjoyed learning how to do two-handed stranded colorwork. It's really cool to see all of the pictures of the hats from the other students in the class. Now that I finished my first hat, I'm looking forward to working on some of the other patterns you included with the workshop.

LoriAngela said...

Every one of your sentences could begin with, "just for fun."