I’m teaching a free beginning knitting class tonight to about 10 women at my church. It is 2 hours long. I’m wondering if I should cast on for everybody and just focus on the knit stitch, and possibly the pearl stitch as opposed to jumping right into casting on. My thought is that casting on can seem confusing and overwhelming at first, and by the time we get to actually knitting, they’ll already have the “this isn’t something I can do” attitude. Plus, they won’t remember how to do it when they get home anyway.

Knitting itself is easy, and if I can get them going on that, then if they ever want to cast on for another project, we can address it at that point, and they’ll already be comfortable handling needles.

Or, maybe we can start knitting, and if things are going well enough, we can stop towards the end of class and do the cast on bit.

What do you think?

I haven’t taught a group this big before. I’ve taught plenty of one-on-one’s, and that’s easier because when the “I just can’t do this” crap starts, I can get on their case. In a big group, I don’t think I’ll have that luxury.

Well, by necessity, I’m still photographing on my front porch to get enough light. However this time, to keep things interesting, I brought a prop.

Behold, the zigzag scarf.

After messing around with what felt like a zillion side edgings to open it up, I decided to just pick up stitches and do 2 rows of stockinette with a bigger needle, then bind off on row 3. It made for a tidy little edge that didn’t detract from the lace, and achieved the desired goal of getting the sides to lay flat and not roll. Hehe. Sometimes, simple really is better.

I’ll post the pattern soon.