When: Monday, October 26 from 9 a.m. to noon. Even if you don't complete your bookmark by the end of class, you will be set up with the skills to finish it on your own. I am of course also available to help if you have a (knitting) crisis afterward. Who: This class is for those who are already confident knitting and purling. What: We will learn lace knitting techniques, which involves creatively placed increases and decreases. I will teach you how to follow both written and charted instructions and make sense of all the abbreviations that so many patterns use, as well as how to "read" your work. Where: Yesterday's Bookstore in Pyeongtaek. Walking distance from Camp Humphreys Pedestrian Gate. Bring your own yarn and knitting needles. For the bookmark, I suggest fingering weight or lighter so that it isn't too bulky between your pages. Needle size depends of your preference and personal gauge, but I recommend between 3.5-4mm (US 4-6) We're not trying to make a dense fabric, so even if you're using a really thin yarn, your needles don't have to be too tiny.

If you are a total beginner, please contact me prior to scheduling so I can steer you toward the right yarn and knitting needles for your needs. For beginner children's and pre-teen's lessons, I highly recommend that a parent/guardian learn along with the child. Not only will this enable you to help them at home, but learning alongside your child is a great opportunity to strengthen your bond and build trust in the relationship. If you already know how to knit but need some help with a specific technique or work-in-progress, this is for you too! You can tell me a little about your experience and needs in the booking form, which will help me prepare for your lesson. When you're really lost or just starting out knitting, it's hard to get very far in just one hour. With a longer lesson, we can make a lot of progress. I will work with you to determine what your goals are and tailor a plan to guide you toward it. Select your desired duration when booking. The default meeting place will be set to Ediya Coffee in Asan Techno Valley, but if you have somewhere else that works better for you (still in the Pyeongtaek/Asan area) let me know. The address of Ediya is: 충남 아산시 둔포면 아산밸리남로 77 (You can paste it into Naver)

When: Monday, November 2 from 9 a.m. to noon. Who: This class is for those who are already confident knitting and purling. What: Learn the techniques used to make those iconic cable-knit sweaters, but on a smaller starter project - a headband. I'll guide you through how to read both written and charted cable knitting patterns, and work the twists either with or without cable needles. You will not complete the entire headband in the class time frame, but you should leave with the skills needed to complete it at home. Where: Yesterday's Bookstore in Pyeongtaek. Walking distance from Camp Humphreys Pedestrian Gate. Bring your own yarn and knitting needles. I suggest worsted or Aran weight. Needle size depends on your personal gauge, but I recommend between 4.5-5.5mm (US 7-9) Optional but helpful supplies you can bring: stitch markers, cable needle, and a chart keeper.

Don't skip it! Back in the old days, when I would finish knitting something, I would go straight to wearing it without pausing to block it. If I could go back in time, I would slap my hand and say “Stop it!” Why does it matter so much? Think of it kind of like ironing, without the iron, and more passive. Maybe that’s a bad example. I almost never iron, even though I know it makes clothes look so much better. Anyway, much like how ironing smooths out wrinkles and gives a nice crispness to the fabric, blocking your knits makes the stitches look more even, filled in, and just makes it feel better. Before blocking This is my Clarke Pullover before I blocked it. It’s a nice sweater but see how it just looks kinda… lumpy? The underarms are weird, the sleeves are a little short, and the fit at the waist and hips is all wrong. (The hip thing is partly due to me adding hip increases that weren’t called for in the pattern and not spacing them out enough. But watch to see what happens there…) The blocking method I’m teaching you today is “wet blocking” It’s not the only method, but it’s pretty basic and works well for most yarns. We’ll get into the other methods another time. For today, I want you to know that the yarn I used for the sweater I’m showing you is a wool blend and I measured my gauge swatch before and after blocking (as per pattern instructions) so I knew what to expect as far as how much it would grow lengthwise. Another thing to remember is that a whole sweater will be heavier than a little gauge swatch, especially when wet, so expect a little more growth in the length. Put that baby in a tub. Fill a (clean) sink, bucket, or bathtub with lukewarm water and place your finished knitted object into it, gently pressing it under the surface of the water. Let it soak for about 15 minutes. You can add a wool soak if you want, but to be honest, I just used plain old water here. after 15 minutes of soaking Squeeze Drain the sink or whatever you’re using, and gently squeeze the excess water out of the fabric. Don’t twist or wring! Easy peasy sweater squeezy Towel burrito Next, you’ll roll it up in a clean dry towel like a burrito or sushi and squeeze it again. Press out as much water as you can, and if the towel feels really wet, do it again with another fresh towel. It's probably more like sushi than a burrito... Or should I say gimbap? Spread it out Carefully lay it out flat on foam blocking mats or yet another clean towel. I like blocking mats because they don’t absorb the moisture, which allows the sweater to dry faster, and you can move it around without messing anything up. You can also pin into it if you’re blocking something with a precise shape or needs to be held in place. I got these mats from KnitPicks. Gently smooth out wrinkles with your hands and smooth the edges. Shape it Shape it into the desired shape and size, gently. For this one, I knew I needed the sleeves and body to be a little longer, and that the gauge swatch did grow lengthwise so I didn’t need to force anything. I did a little work on the hips, shaping them more like the shape of my body and coaxing out the lump I accidentally created when I graded up to a larger size below the waist. (This is the beauty of making your own clothes. You get to make the garment work for you instead of feeling like it’s your body that’s wrong.) The hardest part is waiting for it to dry. Pat it to get all the ripples out and make sure the side seams aren't crooked. If you have a small fan, place it nearby overnight. Once it’s completely dry, it’s done! Now you can wear it proudly. Don't I look proud? It feels so good. External links to things mentioned in this post: Clarke Pullover knitting pattern Foam blocking mats* My Ravelry project page for this sweater *affiliate link. When you use my affiliate links, you help support me so I can keep creating free content for you!

When you finish a knitting project, you usually have some yarn left over, right? I know I do. I'm going to show you how to calculate how many yards or meters are left with reasonable accuracy so you can plan your stash-busting projects with confidence. After finishing a project I recently finished a big project - my Channel Cardigan. I still need to update the yardage in my stash. Now, I keep all of my yarn organized digitally in my Ravelry notebook. I have a really old video about that here. You can go back and check out if you want to know HOW to do that, but to calculate how many yards you have left is a little bit complicated you might think, right? Wrong. It’s easy. Supplies: A Scale All you need is a digital scale. That's it. Please note though: this method is for when you know how many yards per gram or ounce or whatever are in a skein of this yarn. If you've lost the label and you did not take note of it and you don't remember what brand or kind of yarn it is, I'm sorry but this is not gonna work for you quite so easily. Your Yarn Grab any partial skeins that you have left, and then make sure there aren't any others hidden anywhere. Sometimes I have a tendency to throw my knitting projects in a bag when I'm on the go and then leave partial balls different places. A Bowl This one is optional, but if the yarn won’t fit completely on the scale, a bowl will keep it all contained. Just make sure you zero out the weight on the scale after placing the bowl and before putting the yarn it it. And Now We Weigh If you have your stash and knitting project in your Ravelry notebook already, open up the project and scroll down to the yarn information. It will say how many yards or meters were originally in your stash. Click that, and note the original gross weight. (When you started the project) Then weigh your yarn. Subtract the current weight from the original weight; take note of how much that is, because that's how much you used. Go back to the project page, click 'edit project' then go down to the yarn again and click 'enter totals' then you're going to enter the difference, so, the amount that you used. Click 'save changes' and bam! now your stash is updated with the amount left over and your project reflects how much yarn you used. The reason I choose to do this through the project page and not the stash page is because it not only helps you buy the correct amount of yarn should you ever want to knit this pattern again, so you can know if you have enough, but it also helps other knitters who might want to make this pattern and might be curious how much yarn it's taken other knitters to finish a particular size. Without Ravelry If you just want to know how much is left, you can still calculate it manually with just a little bit of math. Look at what the label says and divide the length by the weight, and then multiply that by the current weight. Make sure you're using the same unit of measurement so you don't throw off your numbers. Et voila! That's how much you have left. See? I told you it was easy.

A finished object and the struggles I had with it. Experienced, but... Even though I've been knitting for a quarter of a century, every once in a while, a project comes along that really challenges me. Sometimes it feels like nothing's going right; I get really frustrated, but after all is said and done, these are the things that I end up being the most proud of. The Yarn: The yarn for this project was sponsored by knitpicks.com. They let me choose the yarn I wanted, and sent it to me free of charge. The only thing that was required of me was to say that it was #sponsored. It’s my very first sponsorship so this was really exciting for me! The Pattern: The pattern is Tamarack Cardigan for Him by Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed. This is the second cardigan pattern of his that I've made for my husband. It's another great pattern, and since it uses bulky weight yarn, it went pretty quickly as far as sweaters go. Modifications: I subtracted some length out of the body, sleeves, and a little bit from the armholes, because my husband is a short guy. That’s it! Since his first cardigan still fits him well, I measured it and compared it with the schematics for this pattern. That made it really easy to adjust. Special Techniques: 1. Tubular Cast-on I had never done it before. Yes, I know I'm a very experienced knitter, and I'm also still learning. You should never stop learning. I looked up a lot of tutorials for the tubular cast on, and there are so many different ways to do it, it was kind of overwhelming. I still need to figure out which way is my favorite. (When I do figure out my favorite method, I'll be sure to make a tutorial for you.) But it was totally worth the effort! 2. Moss Stitch The main stitch pattern for the body and sleeves is the moss stitch, or as some people call it: double seed stitch, or Irish moss. Whatever you want to call it, it's gorgeous and it's also really easy. 3. Ribbing There’s a good simple 2x2 ribbing around the edges of the sleeves, hem, and collar. I used a special technique for making it look extra neat. I don’t have a tutorial yet, but all you do is wrap the yarn around the needle clockwise instead of counterclockwise when working the first purl after a knit. Then on the following row that stitch will be twisted on the needle, and you untwist it by simply working it through the back loop. This prevents the weird leggy stitch you can sometimes end up with. 4. Short Rows Once again, there are a lot of different options when it comes to working short rows, but I think I ended up using the German short row technique. It worked out well and wasn’t hard to keep track of. 5. Tubular Bind-off I decided to do a tubular bind off around the collar and button bands so that it would match the beautiful edges of the sleeves and hem. I’ve also seen it called the Italian bind off, sewn bind off, or kitchener bind off. I’m pretty sure they’re all the same thing. You rearrange the stitches so that they’re in k1, p1 order and then knit a couple rows of double knitting if you want to, then do a kitchener stitch, but instead of having the knit stitches on one needle and the purls on another, they’re all on the one. It took so long but it was so worth it! (I thought. more on that later…) He loved it! I actually finished the whole thing pretty much without any problems. I got it done, I gave it to him, he loved it, he sent pictures to all of his friends, and he would make them feel it and hold it so they could see how heavy it is, because it feels like a blanket… but as soon as he put it on, I realized that the collar was going to bother me a little bit. It just it wasn't laying down on the neck the way I wanted it to. To Frog or Not to Frog? I saw him kind of messing with it and I thought, 'Man, I don't know. Should I frog it and fix it?' And then I convinced myself not to, because normally my perceived mistakes are not that big of a deal, and nobody wants to frog. Then I started knitting a sweater for myself. I could tell that it really was bothering him, and he finally he finally admitted that it was, so I promised him that I would fix it, but told him he had to wait until I was finished with MY sweater. Then when I was almost finished with it, I ran out of yarn and had to order more. Sweater Surgery Mid-frog While I was waiting for that to arrive, I went ahead and did the surgery required on this guy, and let me tell you: frogging a tubular bind off is not an easy task. Oh my gosh, first of all, I had woven in the ends so well that I couldn't tell which was which. I ended up having to just cut it on the edge and frog it from there. I had to take each stitch out individually from the bind off, and then put in a safety line where I wanted to frog it back to. Then I added more yarn on, and knitted a bunch more rows, and then I bound off again, and it looked a lot better. He was like, "Oh yeah, that's better." Since the button band was now quite a bit wider, I had to move the buttons over, but as soon as I did that, I knew it wasn't going to look right. The buttonholes hadn’t moved and now the buttons were way off-center. I had him put it on, and I felt so discouraged because it really didn’t look right. The collar was better, but I just knew that I was going to have to frog again. The Real Problem I was really contemplating exactly how I wanted to tackle it. At first I was thinking that instead of adding more rows to the whole thing, I would add some more short rows to the upper portion of the collar so that THAT would get wider but not the button band. But then I realized that the real problem was not with how many rows I had knitted, but with the amazing, gorgeous, beautiful, tubular bind off. As beautiful as it is, it's not as stretchy as the ribbing, and that's why it wouldn't lay properly. Around the back of the neck, where it folds down and hits the shoulders, it needs to be able to stretch out a little, but it was instead riding up. The Solution I researched a ton to find the nicest-looking stretchy bind off and kept coming back to Jenny’s Super Stretchy. It doesn’t have the same look or feel as the tubular, but it sure does work a lot better for this purpose. I'm happy with how it turned out. When my husband tried it on he instantly was like "oh yeah, oh yeah, that feels a lot better." The new bind off allowed the collar to spread out more on the edge rather than drawing in. Of course I had to take off the buttons AGAIN and sew them on AGAIN, but it was it was all worth it. Never Stop Learning Like I said before, after all these years of knitting I'm always learning something new, and this time I learned not to get too stuck on one technique, because every technique has its own set of pros and cons. That's why it's great to have as many options in your tool belt as possible. Different bind off methods, different cast-ons, all that stuff. Glad it's over I'm happy to be done with it. I was starting to feel really discouraged because as a monogamous knitter, it felt really weird to be working on one project before finishing another. And then going back to the other project knowing this one still needs some attention. It started to feel like a needy ex-boyfriend that kept calling even though I had gotten married to someone else. But it was totally worth it to fix it, and I'm glad that I did. And my husband loves me, of course. Who wouldn't love to be married to a knitter? Anyway, it's a great pattern, um, you should knit it. And don't forget to go and check out the yarn! It is very warm and cozy. Links: Tamarack for him Swish Bulky Yarn* (the yarn I used is no longer available) Ravelry project page *affiliate link

Meet the dedicated team that takes care of business at Becca J Norman. Team Members Becca Norman CEO Becca Norman is the head honcho. She works hard to keep the business in line with the company values. Read More Becca Norman Customer Service Becca Norman is wholeheartedly committed to providing you with the best experience possible. Read More Becca Norman Creative Director Becca Norman's imagination is responsible for everything you see around here. You're welcome? Read More Becca Norman Knitting Teacher Becca Norman heads up the tutorials you see on the blog and is the instructor in our classes. Read More Becca Norman Web Designer Becca Norman worked way too hard building this site. She's pretty proud of herself. Read More Becca Norman Pattern Designer Becca Norman started designing knitting patterns a long time before publishing any. Read More The Skin Care Team

Becca Norman heads up the tutorials you see on the blog and is the instructor in our classes. < Back Becca Norman Knitting Teacher Becca discovered her love for teaching knitting when friends started asking her to teach them. She felt invigorated every time someone held up their needle with their first row of stitches and beamed with pride. The only problem was time. When her kids were very small, and most of her friends also had small children, and none of them lived near extended family, it was nearly impossible to coordinate distraction-free time between all the naps, snacks, and diaper changes. She shelved it for a while, but after some time working for (gag) an MLM, she realized that she could teach online. Once her kids all started going to school, she had even more freedom, and started teaching some homeschool children from the neighborhood. Then she started homeschooling her kids and didn't have time for anything else. Now her kids are all in school again, and she's found a great location nearby for classes. She still feels a thrill every time a student gets the hang of knitting. Click here to view current offerings or request a class. https://www.instagram.com/p/CWEn5o1P0Nm/?1gshid=YmMyTA2M2Y= becca@beccajnorman.com

Becca Norman is the head honcho. She works hard to keep the business in line with the company values. < Back Becca Norman CEO Becca graduated from Academy of Hair Design in Springfield, MO, and passed the State Board examination with flying colors in 2003. This, of course, does not qualify her to run a business of this nature, but it's literally the only professional certification she has, so she wanted to mention it. She worked as a hairstylist for 10 years and very much enjoyed the close relationships she built with her clients, and the ability to help them feel good about themselves. She uses the skills she learned during her time as a self-employed starving artist to keep things running efficiently. becca@beccajnorman.com