Now that the two 2020 virtual seminars are over (whew!), I wanted to announce that their contents are available on USB flash drives. We have caught up on these and have plenty in stock.
This is VERY new and different for me. Let me tell you the Readers Digest version of what happened.
In the springtime, with the pandemic, machine knitting seminars all over the country were cancelled. I was very disappointed, since I had some great seminars planned, and I started to think about doing a virtual seminar. I asked several very knowledgeable people about how to go about it and whether it could work for me, and then I recruited my son and husband to figure out the technical set up for the knitting video. Gradually, it started to look quite possible, and with just a few announcements on social media, the first seminar, Summer Seminar 2020, filled up.
As the summer went by, we solved our technical issues, putting a studio setup in the house with a new video system and a new sound system. I figured out how to run the seminar on Facebook, how to enroll people, and I worked to create an experience, not just a class. We had vendor advertising and discounts, online discussions, socials on Zoom (after trying and abandoning Facebook Rooms, which didn't measure up to Zoom at all). I put on extra sessions both before and after the main curriculum, and we worked out all sorts of minor technical issues.
Summer Seminar ended up huge - four planned half-day sessions plus two long bonus sessions, detailed handouts for everything, and a bunch of free patterns. The knitters were amazing, sharing all sorts of ideas, photos, patterns, links, and friendship on the Facebook page. A number of knitters asked me to put out the videos later without editing so they could have a permanent copy of the materials. There were so many hours of video that we had to rule out DVDs and downloads and I finally came up with the USB flash drive idea.
To my astonishment, the USB flash drives were quite popular. Feedback and reviews have been great!
When Summer Seminar was well underway, another club asked me to do a virtual seminar on the ribbing attachment. I went to work on fresh curriculum and offered that one (Rib It!) in early fall to that club and others who wanted to participate in a seminar specializing on the ribber. This was really different material, much more specialized classes, and it turned out great. A lot of knitters don't get nearly as much great knitting out of their ribbers as they could, and I am quite proud of that curriculum. We had four half-day sessions again and a bonus session, plenty of free patterns, detailed handouts again, and all those hours of video and documents went on another 64GB USB drive for sale at a deep discount to seminar participants.
If you couldn't make either seminar, the USBs are both available at www.dianaknits.com.
These little USB flash drives go into an envelope and I just drop them in the mail like letters. Since that's cheaper to mail than the padded envelopes we usually use for books and videos, we've been able to offer them with free shipping.
Keep an eye on this space - I am planning my first 2021 seminar for early spring!
No comments:
Post a Comment