Taught by Claire of We Love Knitting Yarn from Melbourne, Australia!
Learn to use Instagram to its full potential!
In this workshop, you will learn to use Instagram to share amazing photos of your knitting and connect with the online knitting community in a truly meaningful way. I'll share my story about how Instagram changed my life and give you the secrets on how I built my hand dyed yarn business from the ground up, using only Instagram to get the word out, how I traveled the world to meet amazing knitters from distant lands and made lifelong friendships that started on Instagram! You will be inspired to use Instagram to its full potential so that you can enjoy all of the amazing things that come from being connected to a huge community of people that have the same interests as you. Whether you are in the knitting industry and want to build a following and make professional connections or you are a knitter and just want to share your work with a larger group of like-minded people, this course will give you all the resources you need.
Claire's knitting journey and why she teaches the Instagram for Knitters Workshop:
I started knitting in 2013, while I was having some time off from work due to illness. I had to move back in with my parents and left my job, in fact I stopped doing most of the things I once enjoyed and spent my time at home in bed. It was a hard time but I had discovered knitting and it changed my life in a big way. It got me through my illness and now continues to motivate me every single day. Knitting has had such an impact on me that I can confidently say my life is infinitely better and I'm more complete. Nothing has ever made me feel so whole, given me so much purpose and satisfaction before. The first thing I fell in love with was the aesthetic of knitted garments- the softness and warmth that gave me a comfortable feeling. At that stage I could only knit very simple things so I looked at knitted pieces that were outside of my skill level in awe and aspired to one day be able to knit a sweater. I particularly wanted to knit cables and fair isle.. but before I even got to that point I discovered another thing that I loved about knitting- the rhythmic tactile bliss that came from my newly found muscle memory. I couldn't do anything beyond basic stitches but I had already gained so much. Knit and Purl. So very simple but so perfect. My hands moving without needing to think too hard about what I was doing-Meditation. I never looked back and I continued to learn new skills with enthusiasm. That's when I started to discover the online knitting community. I had an Instagram account and I posted photos of my knitting, I found that there were people out there that enjoyed seeing them. It didn't occur to me until about a year later that I could use Instagram to find inspiration and connect with other people in a meaningful way. When that light bulb turned on, my entire world changed. I'm now part of an amazing community that shares the same love and enthusiasm for knitting as I do. I have a place to share my passion for knitting without being shrugged off or called a grandma by non-knitting folks. This community gets it. Knitting is amazing and there are a huge number of people in the world that understand that. When I started making efforts to connect with more knitters online I realised that I'd never feel alone or out of place again. I've made true friendships with people from all over the world and have been to some amazing places just to visit the people that I met on Instagram. I even went all the way to Russia with the sole purpose of meeting an Instagram friend! How often do you meet someone that you would go to the other end of the earth for? I'll tell you one thing, it's far more often if you have an extremely amazing like-minded community to find people in!
