VK Live! (LA) - Photography for Knitters with Amy Swenson

My 2nd class for the day was with Amy Swenson of Indi Girl!

Amy is a knitting and crochet designer as well as photographer extraordinaire AND a software engineer (which El Hub focused and fixated on ALL the rest of the day as he is a programmer!).

Automatically, she was tops in his book 'cause she's a software engineer.  Nevermind that she's a fabulous designer and takes amazing photos...

ANYWAY!

 This was a nice sized class and I'm amazed more people didn't take this class.

With all the Ravelry posters and bloggers out there, we all need to improve our crafting photography skills!

 Amy's class was great but thing I loved most about it was that it was Hands On!

We got to go outside and try to photograph our works or works in progress so we could get feedback and help from Amy.

Afterward, we came back and shared/discussed what we learned.

Four gals in the class grouped together and really took off with what they learned!  They took some amazing photos that I would have believed to be professional. 

They were great!

I only had my swatch to photograph plus the yarn I received in Josh Bennett's class so that's what I have to show you.

I'll show you pictures that I took before getting feedback from Amy. 

If you've been following my blog at all, you know that my pics skills can use some upgrading!

Pre-feedback:

Bad...

Bad...

Then after feedback...

Better, huh?

Not bad!

:)

I really learned a lot from Amy (so expect to see some fancy photos on here from now on)!

:)

I know this is going to sound so dumb but, it's even the little things like taking your work outside to photograph, that I never even thought to do!

I always just plop by Finished Object on the kitchen table and take a few pictures to post!

Sure it may give a fair representation of what the Finished Object is but...

is it exciting to look at!

Already after this class, I've started looking differently at how I photograph everything.  Not just my knitting.

Amy really taught me how to see things differently compositionally.

If you can, take a look at Amy's patterns and you'll get to see her beautiful designs as well as her photographs.

Thank you, Amy! 

VK Live! (LA) - Custom Knitting Design with Josh Bennett

I took two wonderful classes at VK Live in LA and my first class was at 8 a.m.!

(Zzz...)

I am not a morning person AT ALL but I was up at 5:45a to be out the door by 6:30a and get to Culver City by 7:30a so I could register for my classes!

(I didn't want to be late for school!  :)

Fortunately, a few cups of coffee helped... and this class was AWESOME!

 Our class was taught by Josh Bennett of Boy Meets Purl.  He came from New York for the weekend to teach and he was an excellent teacher!

Our class was three hours long and while that sounds like a long time, it went by sooooo fast!

He took us through the basics of using gauge and body measurements to create a basic sweater pattern!

Now... I'm not gonna lie.  I suck at Math.  :'(

So I was a bit confused throughout the class.

Not because of Josh.  But because I am slow (and I'm not ashamed to say it!).

The class moves fairly quickly, as it should.  I just need to be taught like a kindergardener.

But I still learned sooooooo much!

I learned so many tips and tricks that are priceless and not found in any knitting book.

 I brought all my notes home and El Hub is helping me understand the math better which is great because...

my first project is to make him a basic sweater vest!

(he has been asking me to make him a sweater with a 'computer image' on the front since forever!)

So we'll see how it goes and I'm so excited to try my new design skills!

Josh has a lot of exciting things going on and his story is pretty amazing!  (he's pretty much living my dream life... you know, the one where I live in New York and I knit for career).

Anyway, many of his designs are featured in Vogue Knitting.

He's currently teaming up with Rowan (Per their request!  They sought him out!) and he was sweet enough to share some of their yarn with us!!!

YAY!!!!

If you happen to be in NY for the next VK Live 2012, sign up for his classes!

You will have so much fun AND learn a lot!

Thank you, Josh!

:)