Am I serious about knitting but not a serious knitter, or the other way around?

I really love to knit. I've knitted for years and done a lot of projects, but I began with one project in mind. I could see in my mind how cute it would be to have a little Christmas tree covered with mini-sweaters on mini-hangers that were all different. Cute right?

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I may have started out making kite-shaped dish rags, but in my mind it was all just prep work for mini-sweaters. Goal accomplished! I found a great pattern and taught myself to knit in the round and voile!

Here is a close-up of one sweater that I knit recently. Cecily loves them, and she loves her tiny dog that she named Max. So I found this on the counter the other day. Cracked me up. But this gives you an idea of what they look like up close.

While we lived in Syracuse a friend from Norway taught me how to knit Norwegian Mittens. They were easily the most difficult thing I had ever knitted and I thought they would be my first and last pair. Not so. I think we're in the double digits now, and I'm sure there will be many more in my future. I started making my own patterns and that's pretty fun too. Here are some of my recent mittens:

And, BREAKING NEWS: I'm going to be teaching a knitting class for the town of Kaysville in April and May! SOOOO, I'm just saying, I know my way around a knitting needle and I've taught a few people how to knit. All of THAT made me gasp in horror when I experienced what I experienced the other day.

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In addition to knitting I also tat and am fixing a large tatted item, so I need to match the thread before I can proceed. I went to a small needle craft shop the other day to see if they would have what I needed. When I walked in I saw that it was mostly a yarn shop. The shop owner was probably in her 30's but everything about her seemed O-O-OO-OLD. She scared me. I could go on and on about her polyester pants and school marm hair, but I won't. I went to desk and felt very distinctly that I was disturbing her even though she was doing NOTHING. Without looking at what I had or hearing me out she was "sure they didn't have what I needed." I practically had to beg to see what they had and using the lady who was waiting behind me as an escape I said "I'll just look around, go ahead and help this lady." The third time I said that she finally let me by. As I was perusing the yarn I couldn't help overhearing what was going on at the desk. The lady had a knitting question. She read the pattern and did what she thought it said but it wasn't working. So the shop owner painfully slowly explained what should be done. The lady repeated it to make sure she was understanding and THIS is what came out of shop owner's mouth: "YOU'RE....NOT....LISTENING......TO ME!" Just like that!

I had my back to them but my eye's automatically popped open and my head cocked back. Who says that, particularly to someone who is significantly older than them?

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I may not be the sharpest cheese on the cracker, but I learned a lesson that day. When I teach my group class I'm going to try not to personally attack anyone. In fact I think I might even go above and beyond and show a bit of encouragement and patience for the new knitters.

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I think that just might work. And unless they stick their fingers in their ears and sing a song really loud in order to drown out my voice I'm not even going to keep "YOU'RE....NOT....LISTENING .......TO ME!" in my back pocket.