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Today's post was going to be about the fun Thanksgiving that we all shared, but I decided to leave that for another post as I was excited to receive a group of photos today and wanted to share them with you.

Remember that new knitter that I talked about in this post? 
Well she has been a diligent student it appears.  I haven't taught many people how to knit and truly if you want to know it has been exactly 3.  Hannah when she was super young and she never stuck with it.  McKayla, my granddaughter who wanted to make a scarf, and my daughter Ashley, who really wants to learn.

With Ashley I changed my tactic as knitting a scarf can be super boring, especially when you are learning because you want some gratification that you are actually doing something.  This time around I gave her small challenges. 
Swatches!   Genius..rignt?  Never to early to explain how important a swatch is.
A swatch is not too big to be overwhelming or boring but just big enough to learn skills.

So, with Ashley I was a task master.  I showed her how to cast on (I cast on the first one) and had her knit, knit, knit.  She had to rip it back a few times, but I gave her the website, knittinghelp.com, which has some wonderful reference videos to study and they helped to reinforce her casting on skills.  I can't say enough good things about this website.  I have used it many times myself as an experienced knitter.

Once she mastered the knit stitch, I showed her how to cast off as she and her husband were getting ready to head home after Thanksgiving dinner.
Her next assignment was to cast on and purl a swatch after I demonstrated the purl stitch. Even though I told her it would look exactly the same, she called me the other day worried that she had done something wrong because it did look exactly the same.

When she called me, she asked me why she wasn't seeing the "v's" that she had seen mentioned in things she had read, so I explained to her that was referring to stockinette knitting, which is knit one row then purl one row. 
Today she sent me the above picture, with the comment, What is my next lesson. 🙂
I think she is ready to learn how to knit in the round and make that hat she really wants to knit.

As the Mom to 4 daughters….this makes my heart very happy!
I will have to use this method to help my granddaughter learn as I know she is eager to succeed as well.

Seeing those nice stockinette stitches done with my "Grace" yarn reminded me that I wanted to bring this yarn back in a limited quantity.  It's not an easy yarn to dye consistently in some colors, but in other colors it comes out lovely, so I will dye up a few colorways and list them after Christmas.
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Knit on!

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