I have a good number of deadlines this week. I’ve accomplished one entirely. I have finished another, other than delivering the final item to its intended owner.

I’m now working on something that probably will take until Friday night. The good news is that I do have things that take me out of the “nose to the grindstone” mode in the middle of all this.

Staying Grounded During Deadline Week
I’m staying with my “Lovely Little Things” awarenesses. We had a lovely subtle sunset today. My husband shoveled not only the sidewalks, but a little path I’d tromped down in the snow (through the yard). I got a wonderful little message from someone I like but don’t interact with enough. I got a note from someone who just bought my Keys & Coins hat, and thanked me for taking the time to make it so clear. My mood can not stay grumpy for long with these things in my life.

Teaching is the best equalizer for my mood, of all. I had one kid today (had 4 last week). K. finished all the knitting and working-in of ends on her netbook cover. She’s ready to felt it, and quite pleased. She’s in elementary school. this pattern required knitting, two sorts of decreases, knowing the right and wrong sides of the fabric, slipping stitches, and making a buttonhole.

She is proud, and she should be. After finishing today, she said “I rock!” and I echoed “You rock!” When K. came to me she knew how to make a knit stitch, but  no purl, no knitting in the round, no decreases, no buttonholes. She is a quite accomplished knitter. She knows more about knitting than I did 20 years after I learned. Go, Kid!

Counting My Blessings
I’m grateful for that break in the middle of the deadlines. I can really get over-focused and grumpy but teaching, particularly children, fixes a lot.

The Rush
Tomorrow I teach adults. I am sort of going wild lately with semi-private lessons. Often this is how we teach beginner knitters, but sometimes folks bring in hiccups they are having on projects. I don’t work with lace, but most other things are fair game for these sessions.

Tuesday I had five folks arrive at different times over a 2-hour period, to get their hour of assistance in. Last Thursday I had five others. I know I have at least four scheduled tomorrow/Thursday. This is incredibly satisfying. And after that, I have the final session of “Fix and Finesse” which is equally exciting to teach.

Tonight’s Plan
But in between, I’ve mostly turned off my computer to stay on task. I’m going to do that right now after I hit “save” on this post.

The photos here are all adult-student works. Hat (my most common beginning-knitter project), Chippy Socks, Buttons/Beads from my “Polymer Clay with Sparkle and Shine” class. You can see why I get energized when I teach.

OK, I’m off to work at the grindstone for a bit longer…

The young knitter, K., who attends my Knitting Rocks! program most regularly, brought me a little gift for our last session in 2009. Check this out:

It’s a gift card to a Biggby Coffee. This company is now franchising all over the USA, but it started in Lansing, Michigan, where I live. It’s a favorite spot for artful folks, I love it there.

K. wrote the inscription inside, by herself. Good kid. (She is in 4th grade, if I remember correctly.)

I did not realize until I got this home, that the Candy Canes are taped to the card in such a way as to make two hearts. HOW SWEET. Awwwww…

I have never been tidy. For many years, I have had many friends.

Tomorrow a beloved friend is coming to stay for a few days. This means I need to do a whirlwind in the house so our friend will be relatively comfy. There’s no time to post much.

However, I’ll share this photo. It was taken of me in a Knitting Rocks! class at Rae’s shop. This is my group of young knitters.

I put the camera down and invited the kids to take turns snapping photographs of the session. Someone, I don’t know who (A?) took this shot. (Edited later: Yes, A. took the photo.)

I like it. I’m knitting, chatting, fixing someone’s mistake, and wearing bright color. That’s me.

Kids are the best. I like them more every time I spend a few hours with them.

See you tomorrow.

I can not tell you how wonderful my time was with the 3rd graders this year. I started out in late fall, absolutely certain that I would go twice a week for maybe a month, and then I would set them on their own. Then I found myself charmed, just in love with being in their presence. And I couldn’t bear to quit.

This was a volunteer thing. I can’t really afford to give up time every single week to volunteer at this time in my life. I am self-employed without a secretary or other helpers. I not only knit samples, write patterns, write class handouts, schedule, do publicity, teach… I dye yarn, wind it into skeins, print labels, attach labels to skeins. I also invoice clients, make the bank deposits, package mailings and take them to the post office. I lay out my advertising, print my patterns, deliver patterns to shops within driving distance.

There is sometimes not quite enough time to sleep. I have volunteered a lot in my life, but right now is not a good time for it.

Yet regardless of what made good sense for my business, I found it impossible to say goodbye to these energetic, young, wonderful, joyful people. And now that school is over, I find I miss them very much. I’m very sad they are out of my life.

Musings on Teaching Kids

I feel inspired to talk here about teaching kids to knit, in general.

I have taught probably hundreds of young people to knit, from age 5 all the way through high school. Most of the time, by about age 10 or 11, they become so busy after school that they find no time to knit.

Occasionally I’ll have an amazing young teen or two stick it out (these almost always have parents who encourage and support the knitting in the busy schedule). The teens are a lot of fun, because by then they can accomplish whatever they choose to do. They are rare, though. I do enjoy them when I have the luck to teach them.

I must say that my favorite age to teach (kids, that is) would be 3rd grade or so, about 8-9 years old. At this age, they are rather fearless, in part because their job in elementary school is to deal with learning new things all the time.

They learn to write, first printing and then in cursive, they learn to ride a bicycle, they learn their math basics, they learn to spell, they master their limbs in physical education. They start to piece together how the world around them works.

At this age, they are not yet self-critical. They are not playing it safe so that their peers will not be mean to them. They don’t need to conform. Yet.

A third grader does not usually expect to do something perfectly. They expect to make several stabs at a new skill. and get better as they continue to try. This is an excellent mindset for learning to knit.

LynnH’s Rule #1 of Kids’ Knitting: NEVER RIP a Child’s Work!!!!!

A child has to work very hard to master the movements of knitting. They are using two tools (one in their non-dominant hand) and a floppy string/yarn, to make something that requires a bit of fine motor skill mastery. Some kids struggle to make a few stitches. No matter how bad it looks, don’t rip!!!

A knitting teacher’s best tool working with students this age, is a sewing needle. If you can not fix the piece by chaining up a dropped stitch or knitting a few together to un-increase above the spot where increases were not needed, you need to sew the piece together and let the child keep working.

It does not matter how much you need your own work to be right. A child who watches you take out his/her hard work, will almost always stop knitting. For the sake of your young students, you need to leave your perfectionism at home in your own knitting basket.

“Perfect,” as my friend Howlin’ Hobbit says, “is the enemy of Good Enough.” Well, he says it something like that, anyway. Elementary kids are all about “good enough.” Honor their intent.

The Successes that Can Emerge

You have seen two hats (here–scroll down, and here) made by boys who started out making a five-stitch wristband. I should have taken photos of the knitting before I sewed them into hats. They were incredibly messy, very large triangles. Where one side of the triangle could reach all the way around the boy’s head. Yup. Not what was planned at all. Cool, anyway!

It took some head-scratching for me to figure out how to make these pieces turn into something real, but it worked. It’s all about hand-sewing, my friends. About 10-25 minutes per hat, and worth every stitch!!! The boys were beside themselves, delighted to have made something that could actually be worn.

Follow Inspiration

So today I bring you before/after photos of another project. Sometimes kids notice that a small bit of knitting on a long knitting needle, can look like a flag early in the knitting. This term, I had two boys who wanted to make flags. One finished, one did not.

Many of the kids in this classroom were not born in the USA. They are in Lansing because their parents are studying (most of them Graduate Students) at Michigan State University. In fact, in this room I am quite sure that a majority of the kids do not speak English at home.

I just love this cultural diversity! It makes me very happy to be in a place where we have a sense of the largeness of the world and the alikeness of the people upon it. (Yes, I’m an idealist, and it’s quite lovely!) In this room, sometimes a sentence will start with… “In your country, how do they….?” I eat that up.

The Process of Completing a Flag

The boy who made today’s photographed project, was born in Pakistan. He wanted to make a Pakistani flag. I did not know what they looked like, but the school has flags lining the halls and so he could take me down the hall to see one.

He needed a moon and star. There was no way to knit these in, given this child’s knitting skills.

I went home and got a piece of white wool felt that I’d made while teaching a wet felting class some time ago. I took it in, we cut it up, and we glued the bits to his acrylic-worsted-weight-yarn flag. It worked enough for the child.

He then bound off the flag, and it was quite the mess! It turns out that two edge stitches had raveled all the way down to the cast on. I took his flag home to make it work.

I used a sharp-pointed needle with a large eye, and I worked all the green ends to the back of the fabric where they were hidden.

Then I used his white yarn tail to sew the flag to a chopstick. I finished the end and then used some white glue on the back side, to stick the yarn to the chopstick.

Smiles All Around

I think it looks great. Mind you, all of those knitted stitches, he knit himself. He guided me through cutting the star, and helped me cut the moon. He stuck the felt pieces on (with my help applying glue). So, he did in fact knit this piece. I just sewed the ends in for him. I admit there were a LOT more ends than I expected on this project!!!

He was a happy kid. I was proud of him.

I miss “My Kidz.” Pout.

I saw my 3rd grade knitters today for a short while. It was their last day of school, and it was an intense experience to be there when the final bell rang for the year. There were a lot of goodbyes, a lot of happy faces, and one very sad one. I gave encouraging words and caring to the sad child, and did what I could to be a loving and cheerful presence to the rest.We did not knit today. I had been working on sewing pieces of unruly knitting into recognizable shapes, so that I could get the kids finished products when I could. I have more photos for a later blog post, but here is a project I helped a boy finish about a week ago.He was another of my kids who started with 5 stitches, and kept increasing accidentally until there was a substantial piece of fabric. The only thing this would agree to be turned into, was a hat. So I made sure it reached around his head, and then I took it home. I put it on this wig head and sewed edges together (tucking extra fabric inside the hat). It became something he could wear with pride.I love 3rd grade! Most of the kids are not perfectionistic, they just like the process of making something. A few will always be pickier but they tend to be more aware of what they might be doing wrong. The others, they knit for the joy of doing something with their hands.I’m still trying to catch up on that incredible, ominous to-do list. For now, contemplate what it might be like to just create for pure joy and NOT NOTICE the “hiccups” in the product. After all, the child got a hat when he started a wristband. I can’t see that as anything but a big success.I already miss “my kids.” I really need the time that is now free in my schedule, but I find myself loving all the kids I work with. Today is bittersweet for that reason.Keeping on keeping on, learning as we work, that is what 3rd graders do well. I think I will contemplate that lesson today… just keep doing it, don’t worry about perfection, just keep practicing. Mastery follows practice.Happy summer to those who were set free today!

I have three hats to show off today. All were knit by kids I work with.

Example 1, A. (age 14) knit herself a Topper-Down hat with lovely self-striping yarn (I believe this yarn was a gift). It fits her perfectly and goes great with her “I love it” coat.

Example 2, M. (age 13) HANDSPUN some yarn with rovings gifted to her. She held two strands together and knit an EZ Fit Hat (pattern by my friend, Rae Blackledge). At the top of the hat, she was getting low on handspun so she held one strand of handspun with alternating stripes of dark blue Nature Spun yarn and green O-wool. I think it looks magnificent! It’s worthy of two photos.

Example 3, B., a boy in the 3rd grade class I volunteer with, started a wristband on 5 stitches late last autumn. He found himself increasing by many stitches on every row, while I was working with other kids. The next thing we knew, he had a very large triangle with many stitches per row.

To his credit, he did not give up and he kept knitting. He changed colors when he started getting bored, so there are many stripes.

A few weeks ago he really wanted to be done, and it was no longer a wristband. He was hoping he could make a wristwarmer like his friend, but the triangle was much larger than his hands. I told him we could make it into a hat.

So I found the largest side of the triangle and made that the bottom of his hat. I sewed together the 5 beginning stitches to the bind off at that point. Then I put the hat on his head and figured out how to fold the piece of fabric to fit his head. I took it home, and continued to sew with the hat on my styrofoam wig head. I had to put some excess fabric on the inside, which makes a little sculptural bump at the top of the hat.

In the end, it fits him and he’s pleased. We are talking first project, friends. There are “hiccups” because he was learning, but he finished something pretty big!

A boy in 3rd grade, I think that is about 8 or 9 years old. This is quite a lot of stitches for a child of that age. Go, B.!!!

Cool, Cooler, Coolest Kids

I continue to be amazed and delighted by what kids can make if we let them follow their own “star.” They can be amazing, and very unique in the projects they choose to express themselves.

Here is a project by a THIRD grader. We are talking elementary school, my friends.

Do you notice how even his stitches are? This was his second project, ever. And there were no “hiccups” I needed to fix or disguise with a sewing needle when he finished. He really does knit this well.

This boy came to the US (in early 2009) from western Africa and I met him on his 3rd day here. He was still trying to figure out what was going on around him (it is so different here) that he was not yet speaking out loud, though he knew English. He was soaking up his surroundings silently, yet he did indicate he wanted to knit with me.

I stood behind him as he sit in a chair. We both held the needles at the same time (my hands on top of his, which were on top of the needles). I said “Up,” “Around,” “Down,” “Off.” And every time I made a motion to create a new stitch, I repeated those four words.

Then I let go of his hands, continuing to say the words for a while, then letting him work alone. It was like he was a fish taking to water, he took almost no time to learn.

Never Stop Making Stitches…

First he finished a scarf. I mean, a pretty wide scarf long enough to wrap around his neck and stay wrapped because the ends were long enough to weight it down. He avoided boredom on the scarf by changing colors many times, which created colorful stripes. Here is a photo (with another boy standing on the right in the photo, knitting what is today almost a hat).

He was the first in the class to finish something he could wear. The whole group now sees him as a knitting leader. Sweet!

So on a very cold day, he told me he wanted to make gloves. I recommended that he might not enjoy the process of making gloves, but he might like wristwarmers. I let him try on my own pair, and he liked that idea. I let him know he could even layer them on top of other mittens or gloves on the playground.

He wanted wool. The only wool we had was some Lamb’s Pride Worsted wool/mohair, very warm yarn… in mauve.

Remember, he comes from Africa where all colors are worn by all people. I saw mauve school uniforms in Ethiopia, worn by both girls and boys. This boy decided he would like wristwarmers of this yarn and we started in.

International Awareness

Now, this is a very special classroom. There are maybe 4 kids in the room who were born in the USA, so the kids routinely ask questions that start with “In your country, how do they…”

So I just told the group that in Africa, boys and men wear all colors, and schools often use this color for their special uniforms. And the other kids said, “Oh, really?” No hassles with the color choice. Love this classroom!

Leader of the Pack

So now he has finished (first photo). And now, all the other boys want to do what this boy has done.

They pick the yarn they like best, and ask him how many stitches to cast on. He has the answer… and they are many in this “pack” now, seeing if they can finish their own pair.

For third grade, this is a LARGE project. Some will not finish two. I hope that most will at least finish one.

Can you see why I keep doing this work? It is the coolest thing, ever.

And There is More…

And, not to leave out another talented young lady… my student at Rae’s, M, finished this shawl.

She worked on it off and on for about a year. She was age 12 when she started, and is now 13.

It got very boring for her (this is the girl who made the Debbie Bliss baby bolero). Yet, here she is!!!

Beautiful, don’t you think? Both the girl and the shawl!

My 13-year-old student, M, completed a “Tweed Beret” from Interweave Knits (Winter 2006) magazine. A few copies of this issue were donated to my “kidz” a few years ago, and they have really enjoyed them.

She really loved knitting this, and for the most part she worked alone by figuring out the pattern without me. I did help her through a few spots, but she is really growing in her ability to follow very brief pattern instructions.

She enjoyed knitting this hat so much, she has started another. One of my adult students donated some soft mohair in greens (thank you, S). She is ready to go already!

I think M. did a great job. She’s delighted with the results. All right!

Last Wednesday I was teaching my “Knitting Rocks” kidz’ knitting program at Rae’s. My newest young knitter, K (I met her at a Jen Sygit concert, we were both knitting in public), realized not long before her mom was going to come and get her, that she needed to have Valentines for her parents.

There was no way I could teach her how to knit a heart in that amount of time. My mind raced, and came up with an idea.

We have some sweaters in the storage boxes for the kidz, that I shrunk several times in the washing machine. They can use these for anything they want. Often, my knitters would rather knit than cut and sew, so we access the sweaters infrequently.

I figured maybe we could cut hearts out of a felted/shrunk sweater, if we had any colors that seemed suitable. I thought maybe we had a burgundy sweater.

So I descended the stairs in Rae’s store, and went to the three boxes which store the kidz’ supplies. And we found better things than I had remembered!

There was a small part of a red sweater remaining, and a burgundy sweater that was partly already cut up, some neutral sweaters, and most of a lavender/purple sweater with embroidered flowers.

I could see immediately that the lavender sweater would fit the newest knitter. It had been cut down the middle front already by another child, and the sleeves were cut off at a good short-sleeved length. The fronts were chopped up from someone making a pair of mittens once, but the top section was whole.

I put it on the child and she liked it. We took it off her shoulders and I cut the bottom as straight as I could, and then we decided to round off the corners of the front like a bolero or shrug. She LOVED it. I think she looks adorable, don’t you agree?

Oh… and after the fun shrug adventure? We cut out red felt hearts. Those turned out great for her Valentine project.

Everything turned out even better than we could have imagined. Isn’t it nice when things work out so well?

I am delighted to present to you, the product of many months of hard work, learning, mistake-making, ripping, and re-knitting. My student, M, age 13, just finished this adorable baby sweater this week. I think it’s time for a party. What an amazing accomplishment!

She used a pattern from a Debbie Bliss baby book she checked out of the library. Debbie Bliss makes high-quality designs, but they are not as simple as some other patterns. No problem! This kid could picture herself finishing the project, and she kept on focusing on that finish line. For the record, she used Berocco Comfort (I think the DK weight) for her yarn.

The scarf around the sweater in this photo was a little fun project she made up in the last week. She had some tiny balls of luxury yarns, one of silk with sequins. She made a fringe-to-fringe scarf in the luxury yarns and it was done in no time.

But the sweater? There are adults who would have given up. This sweater is cast on at the bottom of the back, you increase to make sleeves then split for the neck and decrease sleeves and front to make the shaping. After that you pick up and knit ribbed trim for front and back. There are two seams, one  under each arm.

Wednesday she learned to do mattress stitch to sew the sides together. I had her sew the straight parts on each side, and when it got curvy I did the sewing for her.

The truth is, she will meet the baby, on Friday. She had to finish this week. Nevertheless, she put off the sewing in our Wednesday class until it looked like that baby would not get the sweater… so I made her sit and sew the sides. The curves were an experience in playing it by ear, and I figured I could do it myself but I was unsure I could explain/teach what I was doing.

M, pat yourself on the back again. You did a fine job and it is good to be proud.

About a week ago, a young knitter came in to Rae’s shop with her mom and they hung out a while. I was delighted to see the child’s creative project. She figured out how to make a sweater/coat for her stuffed horse.

I asked the child and Mom if I could take a photo for my blog. They decided that might be fun! They know my regular kid knitters and perhaps they have seen photos of the other kids here before.

So I present to you a very creative kid, who made up her own project without a pattern! She’s a winner in my book.

My young teen knitters are cranking out finished objects these days. First, I must show you three projects by one young lady, M. She knit my ZigBagZ Mini Collection/Baby Zig, at top left. At right, she knit a variation on my Wristwarmers/Handwarmers pattern, using two yarns.

You may not see it, but the yarn for the light green thin stripe is a luxe single-ply silk with sequins attached. Someone last year donated two very small balls (or one that the girls divided up, I don’t remember) of this lovely, extra-special yarn. This young lady has been trying to figure out a good way to use it for months. I think she made an excellent choice!

M’s project at center in the same photo is a pair of First-Time Toe-Up socks knit in a worsted-weight wool, for her mother. She started these at age 13 and proceeded to knit them in fits and starts for a number of months. This young lady is so busy with so many projects that she can (and should) rotate between them. Her mom really appreciates these socks now that it’s chilly here.

This next photo is a gift from the 2nd young teen who comes regularly to my program. About a year ago, I discovered Anna Hrachovec’s Heart pattern and introduced the kids I had then, to the pattern. This young lady has knit a good number of the originals. I am guessing what she did here was to knit something like Anna H’s pattern but on super huge needles (she told me they were size 32) with many, many strands of yarn.

You can not tell the size from this photo, but it is probably about 9″ (22cm?) tall. I pinned it to my sweater as a motif/decoration the day she gave it to me, it’s big enough to cover much of the front of a short top.

She knows me well. She picked colors she knew I would like. I’m relatively easy to figure out, but she did a better than average job of getting it right on! Notice in the last photo here, I show a huge ball of yarn and a swatch of knitting (two or three sections of a prototype “Perfect Hug Shawl” from a few years back) which I handspun myself. The wool was dyed and gifted to me by my friend Traci Bunkers of Bonkers Fiber.

Check out how similar my own yarn color is, to the heart gifted to me by A. Right on, wouldn’t you say?

I am enjoying my young knitters this term. I have a 14 year old, and a girl who will be 13 years almost any minute now. Both are very talented and able to work on their own. They are finding their own styles, something very important at that age.

This first photo is handspun yarn made by the 13 year old. She learned about spinning from Rae, and someone gave her a spinning wheel (what a huge gift to a youth). She loves it! This yarn was made of bits and pieces of different-colored rovings, some of which were gifts to her. It is her first finished 2-ply yarn.

She would love her next skeins to be all one color. Personally, I love the energy of all these colors! I’m trying to convince her to make a felted bowl with this yarn, where she will not need two items to match. We will see what she decides, since it is her yarn and not mine!

The second photo is by the 14 year old. She made these wristwarmers with handspun yarn, but Rae spun it and the young lady did the designing and the knitting. I’d say she did a pretty great job!!!

Question of the day: What sort of creativity did you use for self-expression when you were young? Was it large-motor (sports or dance), small-motor (knitting), intellectual (debate), writing, traditional art, theatre, gardening, cooking?

For me it was a little of all of the above (perhaps less intellectual although I loved English), I think. I was a very social child and so singing in choir and theatre were perhaps most important in High School. Some kids are encouraged to be more practical than creative, and they find fascinating outlets when they need to feel creative. What did you do or not do?

I’m tallying all the comments from my birthday/blogiversary week contest. The tension builds…

It is fully winter now in Lansing. We awoke Monday to several inches of wet, heavy snow. One tree near our house lost a branch because of the weight. It was white on the ground and the sky was white from corner to corner.

In the morning it did not snow much, but things got pretty nasty just as people were going home from work. I had a list of errands to run and only accomplished two. Just stopping at a red light and then trying to start again without sliding sideways, was a big effort. Home was the reasonable choice.

Of course, kids were building snowmen and throwing snowballs in our neighborhood. I did not get any photos of that, unfortunately. It was great that someone could enjoy the weather!

Monday morning I knit with the 3rd graders, again. They are so excited to knit! At this point every child has learned, each child has his/her own needles and yarn, and they are very happy about it. Some of the kids are truly amazing. I have two girls and a boy who picked it up so quickly, even faster than some adults catch on.

The personalities are so fun in this room. One boy loves the idea of knitting and can do it properly when I watch, but he is doing all sorts of creative things on that needle when I walk away. He started with 9 stitches and now he probably has 30, even with much help. He likes asking for help, so this is no problem, at least not to the child.

Another couple of the kids are in a big hurry as if it is a race. Some are so strong they pull their hands apart when working, which makes huge loops and see-through fabric. It’s still knitting, so I’m good with it. All are delighted to be part of the magic of making fabric with yarn and “sticks.”

Since this classroom is quite international, some of the kids have not seen snow like this before. They are enjoying that part, too.

So here I present to you, two photos I took this morning from the front yard of the school. Make special notice of the bright colors of ordinary things, really popping out. In one there are red fire hydrants, the other yellow gates. The yellow is a bit hard to see in this small version. (You can click on these snow photos today, and it will take you to a larger version on my Flickr page.)

You should have seen how bright the orange construction signs looked on the way home! All color becomes bigger than life when the sky and ground are fully white. Of course, a photo cannot capture the immediate surprise and color of these things in real life. Even a street sign can appear electric green on a snowy day, where we might never notice it in midsummer.

I am prepared to take it one moment at a time… I will make a point of noticing small colorful bits and other small comforts (such as the hot water bottle currently warming my feet). If I need a blue sky, I will need to wait another week. Check out our weather as predicted through Friday Night:

I get the hint. Looking for small delightful things will be the order of the day, and the next day, and the next!

Where do you find surprises, color or otherwise, in your life? Is it a garnish on a restaurant plate? Berries on a bush covered with snow? A child’s laugh in the next room? Remember, any comment this week is one more entry in my Blogiversary contest, so don’t be shy!