Becca J Norman

Are you stuck on a project and just need some quick tips? Do you not even know what you need to know? Book this free consultation to get a little more guidance and see how I can custom-tailor a way to meet your needs.

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)

If you're a knitter in Korea, or you've looked up yarn stores in Korea at all, you've probably seen pictures and videos of the store with the giant wall of thread cones, artfully arranged by color. It's a beautiful sight. Even though I've been in Korea for 4 years, I'd never visited, until now! The store is called 바늘이야기, or the shortened Banul for the logo. It translates literally to "Needle Story." I wasn't really sure if it would be worth the hype, since all I'd really seen of it was that one wall, and the cafe upstairs. But I booked myself a weekend alone in Seoul, and made a point to finally check it out for myself. Blog contents: Location Yarn selection Other tools and supplies Cafe The front of the store building Location info [NAVER Map] 바늘이야기 연희점 Address: 서울 서대문구 연희로11가길 15 Phone number: 02-771-9771 (did you know that you can enter the phone number into Naver to find a business?) https://naver.me/G7D4f3CC How to get there: As you can see from the maps, it's not very close to a subway station, and while you can drive there if you have a car, there isn't a lot of parking available either. Personally, I don't enjoy driving in Seoul if I can help it, and I'm recovering from a foot injury, so I opted to take a bus. If you're new to Korea or public transit in general, (hi, it was me too) don't be nervous! Just get a T-money card, look up directions in Naver, and you are set! Yarn selection I was pleasantly surprised by the variety and amount of yarn available in the store. It's not only beautifully displayed with great lighting, there is a wide range of weights, fibers, colors, and prices. Natural fibers I've gotten questions from other knitters and crocheters in Korea about where to find natural fibers, and while most of the yarns had some synthetic fibers blended in, there were still quite a few that were 100% natural fibers, such as wool, alpaca, cashmere, and cotton. They also had some of the traditional Korean paper yarn. All natural fibers! As you can see from the photos, some things are labeled in English, but there is still quite a bit in Korean, so if you are in Korea but haven't yet learned to read Hangeul, do it! In the case of yarn fibers, if you can just sound out the words, they will sound the same as their English equivalent, so it really will make things easier. Additional tools and supplies In addition to a great selection of yarns, there were quite a bit of tools and other things to complete a variety of projects. Some, but not all were: knitting needles crochet hooks buttons safety eyes embroidery needles snaps tags bag bases and straps rings stitch markers Banul Cafe After you've gotten all your supplies, you can head up to the second floor to the cafe, which has your usual selection of drinks, and cakes that look like buttons, or ice cream that looks like yarn! I did get a little over-stimulated trying to make a wise choice and excercise self-control with my purchase, so the cafe was a good place to unwind (and knit my gauge swatch) before getting back on the bus. Overall opinion: I think it's safe to say I'm a fan and will be back. I have to also give bonus points to the girl who rang up my yarn purchase for asking me if I remembered to check the dye lots on my yarn. So check it out if you get the chance, and let me know what you thought!

I got to go on a fun trip into Seoul with my husband when some friends agreed to watch our kids for us. In case you’re new here, Hi! I’m American but have lived in Korea for about 2 and a half years. I don’t go to Seoul a lot, but it’s not hard to have a completely different experience every time. This time my husband was excited to take me to a hidden yarn market he accidentally found on a trip without me. He called me that day and said I HAD to go there. He saved the location and took me the first chance we got. Sweet, right? I know. But first, baffle. If you haven’t watched all the Street Food iterations on Netflix, Do it. Because we’re in Korea, we particularly enjoyed the Korea episode of Street Food Asia. We took my parents to get the knife-cut noodles (delicious, and the lady making them is a delight.) The Baked Baffle was a little more elusive. It was harder to find and we went at least twice to find that the stand was closed. It was on the way to the yarn market so we tried again and finally it was open! Baffle stand location: Address: 서울 종로구 종로6가 314-15 (a quick walk from Dongdaemun Station, where subway lines 1 and 4 converge) Kakao Maps Naver JP thought it was amazing and I thought it was okay. Do with that what you will. The Underground Shopping Center After that, we headed to the main attraction. One of the most fascinating things about Korea for me is the crazy amount of underground places that exist. Some have flashy signs and some look like nothing. This one is just some stairs that lead down from street level. It feels like walking into a bomb shelter but suddenly you’re in this hidden world full of yarn, records, antique cameras, jewelry stores, and clothing boutiques. Obviously I was there for the yarn. The outer display of just one of the stores in this shopping center. Shopping center location: Address: 서울 중구 소공로 지하 58 (우)04535 (halfway between Hoehyun Station and Myeongdong Station on subway line 4) Kakao Maps Naver Keeping it under control I of course had specific yarn needs for specific projects. I’m still dedicated to intentional yarn habits. See this blog entry. I needed yarn for a sweater in my queue and also for a collection of stuffed animals. I had noted weights, amounts, and desired colors, so I knew what to look for. This is a practice I highly recommend. It helps keep you from spending too much money on yarns you don’t know what to do with. I was successful in finding yarns for the stuffed animals, but had a hard time finding enough for a whole solid-color sweater. The most I saw of any one yarn was 3 skeins per color. I bought 3 skeins of a periwinkle blue mohair-type yarn and was nervous because I didn’t see the yardage on the label and wasn’t sure it would be quite enough. I used it all up and ended up having to do a couple rows without it on the inside of the collar, but it was okay because I was stranding it alongside 2 strands of another yarn. It was quite the adventure and I got a little overstimulated and sweaty in there, but am happy with most of my purchases. One I thought was another mohair-type yarn but it turned out to be the shiny stuff they use for scrubbies that I can’t stand. Oh well. Vinyl Records! After I had my fill of yarn, I found my husband digging through records, something we both share a love for. He was really excited about Journey’s “Frontiers” LP for only 10,000 KRW. (That’s about $9) I looked with him for a while and we ended up leaving with the Journey album, Eric Clapton Unplugged, Jim Croce, and Elton John “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” Japanese pressing! All very enjoyable, minus a surprisingly offensive song from Sir Elton. There were SO many, pretty much all in great condition. They weren’t priced cheap but for the most part it was reasonable. I really wanted to get a good retro Korean pop album, but to be honest, I didn’t know where to start. I need recommendations. I’m talking pre-1990, preferably. I bet you wouldn’t expect to see an Andy Griffith cassette tape in Korea!

If you have a goal of shrinking your yarn stash, but never feel like you make any progress and also can’t find yarn you want to use, you’re not alone. I’m going to help you break it down so you can identify the yarns you really want to use. Hi. I'm Becca I’ve been knitting for about 25 years. I’ve accumulated quite a bit of yarn over the years, gone on prolonged yarn-buying fasts and reduced the stash, but still have more than I would like. If you’re not sold on the idea of even trying to have a smaller stash, check out this blog post where I get more into the why behind this. Getting Ready to pare down Before you even get into the yarn, I want you to look around your house and notice what colors you see. Are there any themes? Are there a few colors that make more appearances than others? Then look at your closet and do the same. If you have family members that you knit for, think about their colors also. I wanted you to do that because most of us have a favorite color or 2, and there are usually some colors we aren’t as drawn to. Knowing which is which will help with the process of sorting through the yarn. An example of my family’s general color scheme. It includes all our favorite colors, and each one works well with several others. Gather it all up. Actually, first get the floor nice and clean in the area you’ll be working, so you don’t get your precious yarns all dusty and hairy. Once you have all that yarn out of hiding, dump it all out in one spot. You know I’m a Marie Kondo fan, and this is literally straight out of her book. Then get a box or bin of some sort to toss the rejects into. If you don’t want to have to think about it again once you’ve made the cuts, then get a big cardboard box and tape it up as soon as you’re done. Make a rainbow. Arrange the yarns into a color wheel of sorts, in ROYGBIV order, and then place the black, white, grey, and multicolored ones either in the center or on the outer edge, depending on how it will fit better. Once that’s done, stand back and admire how pretty it probably is! See how this looks similar to my family color palette? That’s what we want! Sort. If it looks overwhelming right now, just take a deep breath and trust me. We're going to sort through it systematically and apply a few different filters, one at a time. Color scheme How does it compare to your household color scheme? Do you see any color families that you could eliminate? Think about not only the hue, but also about the values and saturation. Do you like bright colors? Pastels? Earth tones? Certain combinations? If you get overwhelmed and forget everything you ever knew when you’re staring at this massive rainbow of yarn, take a few minutes to look at the other parts of your house again and remember which colors are important to you. (Also don’t forget to breathe) Now for the hard part: Whatever doesn’t match that, grab it and toss it into your designated rejects box. Feel Once you’ve separated them by color, touch everything that’s left. This is kind of like the KonMari “spark joy” philosophy. If you don’t like the texture and feel, you won’t like knitting with it either, and therefore probably won’t ever use it, so why keep it? Again, toss everything that didn’t feel great to you into the bin. Weight Think back on things you’ve knitted. Do you have a favorite weight? It’s okay to have many different weights in your stash (I do), but if you know you prefer delicate lace weight projects, you could probably get rid of anything worsted weight and up. Conversely: maybe you hate fiddling with thin yarns. Then those can go. How does it feel now? Does the remaining stash feel more like you? More like home? It should. Thinking about the future I want you to think about the projects you want to knit. Do you see yarn in your stash that will work for them? If not, what’s the missing element? Not enough of a certain color? Not the right weight? Is there a way you can adapt the pattern to work with what you have? If you have a list of “to knit” patterns, like in your Ravelry queue, take a look in there and see if there’s a way to use what you have for any of them. (Side note: try to keep your queue to 15 or less.) I’m not saying you need to have an exact plan for every bit of yarn that you keep, but you should at least be able to visualize how some of them could be combined. Update your inventory. Before you put it all away, take some time to update your Ravelry stash, if you use that. If you haven’t ever done that, check out this old video to see how. I think it’s worth doing. If you already use the stash section of your Ravelry notebook, go through it and change the status of the ones that didn’t make the cut. Change them to either traded/sold/gifted or will trade or sell. Don’t delete them, or you’ll lose the yarn information from previous projects. For the ones you’re keeping, make sure the yardage is up to date. Learn how to do that here. This will make shopping from your stash much easier, and if you find yourself one day in a yarn store, tempted to buy everything, you can easily pull up your stash right then and there to see if this new yarn is really necessary. Get rid of the rejects. You can either donate or sell. Trading is also an option, but I would caution against that because the reason you’re doing this in the first place is because you had too much yarn. First, this will add more back in and defeat the purpose. Second, if you wouldn’t pay money for it, why take it for free? If you had to pay money for it, would you still want it? Before you donate, take some time to untangle knots and wind things into nice little balls. Ziploc bags are good for grouping compatible yarns together and keeping the yarn from getting jumbled up and dusty. If you’re selling it, obviously do the same. Donation ideas: You can offer it up to your local knitting group, take it to a thrift store, or check to see if there’s a domestic violence shelter or children’s home in your area and call to see if they would take this sort of donation. Selling If you’d like to recoup some of the money originally spent on these yarns, and maybe set it aside for future, wiser yarn choices, Mercari Is a site that I like to use for things like this that don’t weigh much and are nicer and/or a larger quantity. Once, I listed a bag of low-quality yarns on Facebook and titled it “Crappy acrylic yarns” for $5. It was claimed within the hour. If you try this, I’d love to hear about your experience and how you feel afterward. Share it on social media and tag me so I can see it. I’m @becca.j.norman on IG, and I don’t use snapchat, tiktok or twitter.

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 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

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