a very exciting work-related announcement.

for those of you that dont know what i do for work outside of the house, i work very, very part-time as a knitting instructor at joanns. as far as "real jobs" go, its a pretty perfect fit for me and our lifestyle: i get the benefits of legitimate employment (easy taxes, 401k, employee discount, etc.) while doing something that i love and getting to set my own schedule. really the only downside is that all of the classes are designed and distributed by corporate to ALL the stores in the country and sometimes theyre kind of boring, or ugly, or way too complicated and labor intensive for the difficulty level and time constraints of the class. 

one really cool thing us teachers get to do though is to offer what they call "store trend" classes, which are basically classes that we choose to offer in addition to the corporate offerings. i think the main intention is for us to offer classes in techniques not covered by the main classes that customers have requested, but my main goal is to offer some classes for beginner-friendly pieces that people actually want to wear. in the past ive offered a couple trend classes based on my own designs, but for the may/june session im really excited to announce that ill be teaching how to make this chunky headband/cowl designed by lorna of knits for life:

source: knits for life

 i LOVE this project so much, its quick, simple, versatile and super cute all rolled into one! i am SO thankful that lorna was so nice in letting me offer this class, i am super excited to get to share it with my students (i seriously cant say enough about how great this project is, ive made three as gifts in the past few months). anyways, the class will be offered a few times through may and june (you can get more information about signing up here, or in person at the torrance joann store). 

source: knits for life

if you cant make it to a class (or would rather make one on your own), the pattern is also available as a free download here, or if youre not the crafty type, you could also buy a finished one from the knits for life etsy shop (or one of her many other fabulous designs, i wish i had the extra money lying around to get this chair, maybe someday). i also highly recommend checking out her blog for even more projects and inspiration (i cant wait till we have a little extra space so i can store my yarn like this, how great is that?), its one of my favorites.