Spotlight On Carole Edelman

If you visit Yarn & Thread Expressions on Wednesday evening for the Knit-Along or on Saturdays, you are bound to meet Carole Edelman. Carole has been part of the Yarn & Thread Expressions team for nearly 6 years. We thought it would be fun to let you get to know Carole a little better.

A Little Background

Carole lived in Rhode Island until she moved to California when she was 12 years old. She graduated from high school in Long Beach and received her teaching degree from Whittier College.

An elementary school teacher for 32 years, Carole taught mostly 4^th and 5^th grades and was always involved in publishing the schools newspapers and yearbooks. One year her class even won the statewide competition – resulting in a class trip to Disneyland.

When she and her husband retired, they decided to move from the Central Valley to San Diego. Her brother and sister, as well as her mom, were living down here and her youngest child was attending UCSD. Besides, they were very tired of living where it was foggy all winter and hotter than heck all summer.

Knitter

Carole learned to knit in Girl Scouts and dabbled in knitting off and on over the years. She used knitting with her students only once during a summer school course. She nearly went crazy trying to teach 30 5^th graders to knit simultaneously and never tried it again!

Once she retired, she became a “full-time” knitter. Her frequent visits to Two Sisters & Ewe (the yarn shop that was in La Mesa until last fall) resulted in her agreeing to teach classes. She wasn’t sure she was cut out for the job but, once she started, she loved it.

She helped out with classes at Two Sisters until 6 years ago, when she asked Carol for a job at Yarn & Thread Expressions. She says it was the best move she ever made. She loves working with Carol and the rest of the staff and helping the customers and students at the shop.

Designer

The first knitting pattern Carole ever designed was the Celtic Cable Hat (bottom, left below). She says knitting it wasn’t too hard, but putting all the instructions into a format that someone else could follow was a real challenge. Carol helped her figure it out and a couple of sessions at the Apple Store helped her get the pattern in shape and include a picture. She learned that writing a pattern is a lot harder than following one written by someone else.

Since that first pattern, Carole has written many more. Here are just a few you can find in the shop.