Downside

Let me tell you this. Mostly, there is not a lot wrong with earning part of your income teaching knitting.  Knitters are really, really interesting, and really, knitters are the only people in the world who seem to be interested in talking about knitting as much as I want to, which is a fair bit, and that keeps me from bothering regular people with knitting talk (often), which has been pretty good for my non-knitting relationships.  (I believe Joe is particularly grateful that he doesn’t have to talk about gussets that much anymore.)

It’s pretty cool to get to go to a lot of the festivals and conferences – although having been to them as both a teacher and a student, I can tell you that the student experience is way cooler – but considering I’m at  work? It’s a lot more fun that most people get to have at their jobs.  That’s pretty good.    I’ve gotten to meet some really great people, and I get to say things out loud like "When I was talking with Barbara Walker…" or "When Nancy Bush and I discussed it…" which is a pretty spectacularly cool thing if you happen to have a tremendous amount of respect for and interest in people like that, which I do, and if you’re always trying to learn more about knitting, which I am.

I love going new places, and seeing new things, and I get to spend a lot of time in yarn shops, and well, frankly… I love yarn shops.  I’ve even built up my resistance to them, so that my exposure on a professional level isn’t some bizarre zero sum game where the proprietor doesn’t pay me in money,  just lets me drive away with a trunkful of yarn.   (I’m rather proud of that.)

There’s only a couple of things that I don’t like about teaching knitting.  First, that it means being away from home, and missing family stuff, and driving, and sleeping in strange beds and eating strange food and sometimes it’s a little lonely, and it’s always totally exhausting… but mostly – the only thing that I freakin’ hate about teaching knitting?

You can’t knit while you do it.  That’s the little birthday dress, and the first sock of a pair, and as of today I’ve been away from home for five days, and that there knitting is pretty much the same. 

That’s the only thing I hate. 
I think that’s fair. I hated way more stuff when I worked at McDonalds.