The Class

As promised here are a few pics of the goings on in the little knitting class I'm working with Wednesday afternoons. I couldn't get around to snapping a photo of everyone's work but I'll be sure to get a shot next week of anyone who isn't represented here today.

This is the beginnings of a set of hand warmers...

(She already finished and cast off a striped piece that was about 7" long she reports she is using for a "Doll Blanket" (If the knitters in my class are any indication Ravelry might well consider a new category for Doll Blanket Patterns - they're all the rage with the young knitting crowd!)

I love this red and white version...look how nice and even her tension is already! (That waviness is because she's stretching it out in the photo.) 

This little grade two student is at the end of casting off...at my suggestion her friend showed her how to do it.  (I explained that one way to learn is by doing, another is by teaching someone else to do it.)  The friend was very proud to be able to demonstrate how it was done for a couple of stitches but then it was back in the hands of the original knitter to take it the rest of the way.  Between the two of them they got the job done!                            

Here's another Doll Blanket in the works...I love the colours on this one! 

                                          

This grade 5 student is now onto her second project - that's about 30 minutes of her knitting output you see there.  Her tension is beautiful and here product error free.

Here's the work the "Casting Off" Teacher had done on her second piece - again, check out how even her garter stitch has become. This child is 7 years old.

This quiet knitter has been busily working away each week, needing nothing from me in the way of help.  I've chatted with her about her colour choices and how she is enjoying the process and how much she knits at home but I haven't examined her knitting.  I want the kids to develop their own eye for accuracy and mistakes.  I also don't want to flag something as "wrong" if they are comfortable with what they're producing. Yesterday, however, this child asked me for help because her work kept falling off the needles.  When I went to see what the problem was I was stunned to see she had multplied the number of stitches she was working to the point of running out of needle room!

                       

It turns out from the original 30 stitches she started with, she now had over 100! Here it is released from the needle...

                                    

To save her work (aren't the colours fabulous?!) I brought it home and got the number of stitches back down to 30 but without ripping all the way back. Instead I made a few corrections and then knit a couple of rows with some drastic decreases. She's keen to have her knitting back before the weekend so I'm going to return it to the school this afternoon. I'll be interested to see next week what she thinks of how it looks now and how she has proceeded in the meantime.

Once I saw her compounded stitch count error I asked everyone to count their stitches and check their number against their pattern to see if they had the right number and it turns out only a couple still had the quantity with which they started - nothing more than a couple of stitches in any one case though.

So I launched into a lesson on decreasing and spacing out decreases across a row. "Knit two together" was demonstrated and then quickly picked up. They did the rest of their necessary decreases themselves and soon they were back on track and knitting happily away.

After last week's class there was too much lingering (according to the janitorial staff) so I had to rush everyone to be ready to walk out the door the minute our hour together ended.  This really ate into our knitting time  forcing everyone to stop before they were either ready or willing.

But then isn't that always the way with knitting?!

Thanks for dropping in today! (To my blog and (kind of) to my class as well. I wish you could all see them in real life, clicking away together - its absolutely wonderful to watch! )