As you may know, we’re running a giveaway for your own Yarn Tenders!
We give you a link for how to get your own at the end of this interview, but first, we thought you might like to read a little about the person behind these fun and useful notion accessories!
Is the sale of your “Best Darn Yarn Tenders”™©(BDYT) your full-time business? If not, what else do you do?
Well, this is a short question with a long answer!
I have multiple business which I run simultaneously. They often merge into one another.
I do professional repairs and restorations of knitting and crochet items, bringing treasured heirlooms to whole condition again with seamless repairs – like holes in lacework, afghans, clothing, etc. I have done projects from all over the U.S.
I am a professional designer in knitting and crochet working out of my office/studio in my home. You can find me at SkerinKnittingandCrochet.com. I have won multiple design awards; my work has appeared on the fronts of national catalogs and publications.
I am a professional writer/editor. I love words and their organization. As well, I manage, write, and create the content of my website, including photos and graphics. This also dovetails perfectly with my pattern writing.
I am a professional organizer.
Lastly, I also have one other exclusive knitting notions item, my “Best Darn Needles and Hooks Tubes”™©.
What made you feel the need to create your exclusive Best Darn Yarn Tenders?
I’m very creative with most things along the lines of ease, efficiency and organization in most everything I do. I applied these when it came to taking good care of my yarn – before, during and after project use.
Creating the BDYT fit the bill. I also wanted it to be soft and pleasurably easy on the hands at the same time. Before the BDYT, there was nothing like it.
What is your hope for how people use Best Darn Yarn Tenders?
Yarn and BDYT’s go together like bread and butter. Each new tender can accompany a center-pull yarn skein, ball, or cone for its lifetime of ownership, from its opening to the last stitch created with it (tenders come in size large and size small).
During a project, they care for the yarn from the first pull to the last, accommodating yarn barf when it happens with easy fixes that allow the tender to continue hugging the yarn. Here are the steps in using Tenders:
- Before any project start, Tenders STORE NEW YARN, neat and tidy preventing yarn tangles.
- Skeins IN USE during a project pull smoothly from Tenders, remaining separated and untangled.
- At project COMPLETION, rewind remaining yarn as center-pull ball and reinsert into the Tender for stashing.
In addition to creating products for fiber enthusiasts, you’re also a designer and teacher. Which is your favorite and why?
Designing is the creative process. For me, teaching is also that. I rank them equally and they dovetail. The ability to create something that never existed before in a design is nothing less than exhilarating and is totally fun to share.
Components of the design process become subjects for teaching. Likewise, while teaching, students identify further learning needs.
Hence, both designing and teaching fully inspire the writing process. They have also facilitated the development of my special written pattern interpretation tools as well as my pattern writing methods which focus on ease of reading and interpreting pattern instructions.
I am excited to be a teacher of these fine arts. It is a labor of love to teach people from neophyte to advanced skill levels. I have been doing it more than fifteen years. The availability and variety of yarns and needles is huge and affordable to develop a satisfying, lifelong hobby. Project work is as simple or as complex as desired.
When I look at students, I compare them to golfers. Some are self-taught and sometimes that works well; but many need a teacher. Some are labeled “hackers”. Hackers could enjoy the game so much more with lessons, enabling them to move from a 30 handicap to a 20 or better. Applying this philosophy to knitting and crochet students provides to them the ability to increase their skill level, pleasure, and self-satisfaction.
In learning, you get out what you put in. Learning to knit and crochet is no different. Practice takes time and results are always worth the effort. “Students” realize that simply knowing fundamentals of stitches and patterns is one thing, but skilled execution and interpretation is another. Those with the benefit of lessons become confident in working more advanced skill level projects.
Written patterns must be understood and executed correctly if a project is to “turn out like the picture”. Instructions are just that, instructions. They do not tell “how” or the “best technique” to use. There is always more than one way to skin that cat in knitting and crochet. Lessons provide students with an arsenal of knowledge, a bag of tricks newly practiced, which are learned from an expert. This gained confidence kicks in easily when an instruction needs dissecting.
Teaching and learning is a win-win setting; students inspire me as much as I inspire them. It catapults me into my own special world of research and study, design and sharing knowledge.
What are your favorite fibers?
While natural fibers are just that, “natural” and can usually be the optimum choice for projects, I usually use man made yarns. Fibers have come a long way in color and texture over the years, lots of it feeling as yummy as natural.
I have lost too many good wool pieces to moths and silverfish, and don’t like wrapping my life around the life of an inanimate object that needs so much extra care and attention.
Forgive me, wool lovers.
Which types of projects do you design most often?
My main interest is creating multiple new patterns and textures in the design of afghans, both knit and crochet.
Which types of knitting and crochet projects grab your interest the most?
I like knowing that I am usually able to say I can do most anything or have at least a good level of familiarity or keen knowledge of any subject area. To this end, I keep up with new trends, tools, and design work, knowing that I am always in tune with any conversation at hand.
All the while, my favorite genres are 1850-1950 knitting and crochet. I am big on the evolution of needlework. I am a bibliotheca, with a diverse needlework library of over 3,000 books and publications, including first editions.
So, the big question – Knitting, Crochet or Both?
I am passionate and deeply rooted in both. They each allow much creativity. My library includes equal numbers of both subject areas as well as related genres and fields.
What’s your Ravelry username?
SusanKerin (all one word).
Win your own Best Darn yarn tenders
Enter to win your very own package of Best Darn Yarn Tenders (read how to do it in that post). The giveaway runs through the end of February, 2018.
Good Luck!
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