I have never known a ten-year-old boy to be as enthusiastic about knitting as Pat was tonight. I brought some free-to-me acrylic so old that people on ebay list it as "vintage,"* and two pairs of needles so we could work at the same time. He learned how to knit on, and then both the knit and purl stitches so he can do stockinette. He managed about four rows in two hours (we were going for something the size of a washcloth), but decided to rip it all out and start over because somewhere along the line he'd dropped half a row of stitches. I think I was too concerned with him frequently missing the "off jumps Jack" part of the stitch to notice the missing half-row until it was too late to easily fix it. He now has about a month to practice until his next lesson, which will probably involve knit-purl patterns.
His younger brother spent the whole evening declaring, at top volume, his desire to learn along with his brother. If his attention span matched his desire for attention, I might try to teach him, and I will bring needles and yarn for him to play with next time, but I doubt anything will come of it.
So tired. Must sleep.
*Caron "DazzleAire" in "Lemons Ombre"
No comments:
Post a Comment