The Blind Leading The Blind

I've been remiss but with good reason - I had friends staying with us from Manitoba. It was a bit difficult to be away from my yarn for two whole weeks but on the final night, one of my friends asked, "Are you going to teach me to knit?" I quickly dug out a pair of needles and my "practice yarn". The slip knot was the easy part. Casting on was a bit less successful but she finally got it down (this was after I started with the "under the thumb, over the finger and pull through" mantra). The hard part was upon us. She was knitting quite well, too well in fact. We started out with 10 stitches but she'd end up with 11 at the end of each row. I'd fix the last stitch and watch her knit the next row. Again she came out with 11. I fixed the last stitch and watched her again. 11. Again! This was getting frustrating. It was also quite funny. Finally we figured out that she was wrapping the last stitch. Finally we started a row with 10 and ended it with 10. She asks me, "What can I make with the knit stitch?" Only just about everything! I showed her the scarf I made for my darling husband. She then asks, "How do get all the stitches for a sweater on the needle?" She's ambitious, that's why we're friends. She asked to learn the purl stitch. I taught her to purl and she was getting confused (quite frankly, when I first attempted to learn to knit, the purl stitch was never a great success story for me). We went over it again and again. I started to chant the little "in from the front, around the back, tighten the yarn and push through" mantra. Luckily, her 11 stitch curse didn't show up on the purl stitch and we got through several rows without incident. We cast off (because there's nothing worse than knitting a whole scarf and not knowing how to cast off) and she was quite proud of herself. I took a moment afterwards to teach her how to read a yarn label. I think I'll hit a local yarn shop to put together a little package to mail to her.

So this is what I learned about teaching someone how to knit:
1. You should have a "knit kit" with needles and yarn so they can take it with them.
2. Teaching someone to knit should not occur without margaritas.

ps, No photo with this blog. Do you want someone to take pictures of *your* first attempt at knitting?