[Nfb-krafters-korner] The Touch of Yarn

[Blindhands at aol.com]

Here is more information on the book, The Touch of Yarn.  It is a  great 
reference book by a blind knitter.  
 
 
Out of the Cookies and Into the Yarn 
by B. T. Kimbrough
Salem, Oregon 
Davey Hulse has plenty to occupy his mind. As CEO of Braille Plus, Inc., he 
 is a supervisor of ten skilled employees and a provider of braille and 
other  accessible materials to governmental agencies and local school 
districts.  Evidently his hands are full as well, but with something else entirely. 
This is  the story of how Hulse's busy hands have drawn the rest of him into 
challenges,  adventures, and enough writing success to write home about. 
It was just about three years ago that Davey Hulse decided to try knitting 
as  a possible hobby. "I had to have something to keep my hands busy; they 
just kept  straying into the bag of chips or the cookie jar--and that was a 
bad thing,"  Hulse told me during a telephone interview. "I'm the kind of guy 
who's got to  have something going on even when I'm sitting reading on the 
computer." 
He had tried making hooked rugs but gave it up because it required too much 
 sighted intervention. "You've got to label your bundles of yarn, and 
somebody's  got to read you the patterns. I like to be as independent as 
possible." 
It was that possible independence which attracted him to knitting. Knitting 
 patterns are readily available via the Internet, and all the supplies for 
a  particular project can be readily labeled and organized in advance.  
The next question was how to learn. Was there a good set of step-by-step  
instructions out there for a blind beginner who wanted to learn to knit from 
the  ground up? "My wife went out on the web and found some 'learn-to-knit'  
instructions. There wasn't any real guidance in terms of what kind of yarn 
to  use for your first project--needle sizes or lengths--all that kind of 
advice  wasn't around that I could find." 
"I fought my way through it, and also found a blind knitters' group where I 
 could ask questions. But I swore up and down that once I learned how to 
knit I  was going to write it down in a way that was so concrete that anybody 
could  learn it--even children." 
Hulse became so frustrated by the learning challenges with those inadequate 
 instructions that he nearly gave in to the temptation to throw those big 
needles  and twisted balls of yarn into the trash and walk away. But he 
persisted,  eventually progressing to the point where he could keep that pledge 
to write it  all down. 
"A lot of the kits that are out there start people out with a scarf. Well, 
if  it's four inches wide and about six feet long, which is about the size 
of a  usual scarf, that's about eighteen or nineteen thousand stitches. 
That's a long  project; and to my way of thinking that was too big a project to 
start people  on. I decided that I'd start writing down the instructions, and 
I would put in  very short, simple one- or two-hour projects that somebody 
could do, feel a  sense of success, and go show it off." 
Hulse explained that his goal was to craft a simple but multilevel teaching 
 guide. "If they only took the first two or three lessons of the thing they 
could  knit for the rest of their lives and do simple stuff--scarves, baby 
blankets,  and all kinds of stuff. But I also wanted the book to be 
comprehensive enough  that you could make your way through pretty much advanced 
beginner kinds of  patterns on the Internet and you'd also know pretty much how 
to pick your  knitting needles. I have a pretty good sized chapter just on 
knitting needles,  because they are made out of just about anything you can 
imagine that's  hard--acrylic, wood, bamboo, glass and metal of various 
kinds--and they all have  different characteristics. 
"And then what kind of yarn? Anything that has a long fiber can be turned  
into yarn--and that's everything from the regular wool to acrylic to steel. 
And  so there are discussions about that. 
"In the book (entitled TOUCH OF YARN) I start people with big needles and 
big  yarn. That way, they can feel exactly what they're doing, and they can 
see  exactly what they're doing whether they're low vision or not." 
One specifically blind/low vision friendly feature of TOUCH OF YARN is an  
appendix containing suggestions for organizing knitting work without vision, 
 plus a description of gadgets and gizmos which might prove helpful. In a 
further  attempt to make it inclusive, Hulse prepared both a large print PDF 
version and  a braille-ready BRF version of the finished book. 
Members of the stitchers' Internet group helped with fact checking and  
provided lots of positive feedback. One of the group's members happened to be  
Nancy Miracle, the webmaster for Lion Brand yarn. She was so impressed with 
the  book that she asked if she could show it to her boss and pursue the 
possibility  that the company might sell it as an instant download from the 
Lion Brand Yarn  website.  
"Her boss, the lady in charge of the sales and marketing effort, said 'Oh,  
this is good. I hate knitting but I could even do this.'"  
After a suspenseful ten days during which the lawyers and the company  
president had the final say-so, Nancy Miracle phoned Davey Hulse with some  
amazing news. The files were posted and waiting for him to check out using his  
screen reading software. "It worked perfectly; and I said, 'does this mean 
that  it's going live soon?' She said, 'It's live right now!' If I'd have 
gone and  tried to sell the idea to Lion Brand that they needed to do this, the 
chances  are I'd have still been talking to them."  
Before long, one of Hulse's employees heard the remarkable TOUCH OF YARN  
story, and volunteered to set up an interview with the local newspaper, the  
Salem, Oregon, STATESMAN JOURNAL. Although the new author understood about 
the  importance of marketing and publicity, he wasn't so sure he was ready 
for all  that. "I'm not a self-promoter; I don't necessarily want to be in the 
spotlight.  But my wife and I talked about it and I decided if there's a 
couple of people  out there who, whether they decide to knit or they decide to 
take on a project  they were kind of hesitant to, as a result of publicity 
about me and the book,  then I guess it's worth it. I'll put up with dealing 
with reporters and all that  kind of stuff." 
Hulse realizes the phenomenal extent of his good fortune as a new writer to 
 have his first book offered for sale, not as a self-published work, but as 
a  recommended title through a highly reputable entity. Under the 
circumstances, it  is not surprising that he is already hard at work on a second 
book--even though  that means sacrificing some extremely valuable knitting time. 
TOUCH OF YARN by Davey Hulse may be ordered directly from the website 
_www.lionbrandyarn.com_ (http://www.lionbrandyarn.com/) , or it may be  ordered 
directly from the author. The price for either the large print PDF or  the 
braille-ready BRF file is $19.95. Those who want a full transcription in  hard 
copy braille should contact the author directly for pricing of the two  
braille volumes. Contact Davey Hulse by e-mail, _davey at brailleplus.net_ 
(mailto:davey at brailleplus.net) , or by regular  mail at PO Box 3686, Salem, OR 
97302.