avg_rating: 4
name: Sally Melville
about: This is the space where you are to hear about me, Sally Melville—knitting designer / teacher / author. These spaces are usually written by people other than the person who is written about—for objectivity and all that good stuff. But I suspect what you’d then get is my story as told from the end and with all its ‘high points.’ And I don’t think that’s either inspiring or particularly truthful. Because while the ‘high points’ may define us (to the eyes of the world and in our obituaries), isn’t it really the early stuff with its ‘low points’ that make us who we are? So here are the truly important events that made me a knitting designer / teacher / author. (I’ll write about these in detail in my first five blog entries, but here are the bare This is the space where you are to hear about me, Sally Melville—knitting designer / teacher / author. These spaces are usually written by people other than the person who is written about—for objectivity and all that good stuff. But I suspect what you’d then get is my story as told from the end and with all its ‘high points.’ And I don’t think that’s either inspiring or particularly truthful. Because while the ‘high points’ may define us (to the eyes of the world and in our obituaries), isn’t it really the early stuff with its ‘low points’ that make us who we are? So here are the truly important events that made me a knitting designer / teacher / author. (I’ll write about these in detail in my first five blog entries, but here are the bare bones.)As a young girl, I couldn’t get gauge so had to write my own patterns.As a young woman, I made a truly weird sweater that, when fixed, was oddly appealing . . . enough that I could begin selling my work.The subsequent purchase of a knitting machine taught me how much I truly did not know.I enrolled in a one-day, knitting design class . . . where everyone wanted to know about the sweater I was wearing (referred to in point 2) and where I was thrown out for passing notes (the pattern for the sweater referred to in point 2).Back to my knitting machine where my math and writing (both studied in university) got to work and taught me what that class should have.Soon enough I started my own knitting design class . . . from which no student would ever be thrown out! This became an ongoing group and then the K-W Knitters’ Guild.I developed more classes—to stay one step ahead of the guild members.One of our guest teachers pushed me into the light of the public of knitting world.In 1993 my husband died, and all knitting came to a halt. I took a job as Study Skills Advisor at my local university.But my daughter asked me to knit a sweater for her boyfriend. So I did—out of leftovers. And it became the centre piece of my first book: see Styles in books.Styles was wonderfully successful. But what would I do next?I had a desire to teach the world to knit. The result is The Knit Stitch, which sold really really well and probably led you to this website.So thanks for coming. Keep in touch, play safe, and keep knitting!(from her website, listed below) ...more