Missionary Work

By definition, a missionary is:  1. One who is on a mission, 2. One who attempts to persuade or convert others to a particular program, doctrine, or set of principles; a propagandist.

Today, I did some knitterly missionary work.

My friend, Suzanne is an administrator at the local Continuing Education school. One of the teachers, Erin,  is teaching a fashion design course this semester. Suzanne put us in contact with each other to arrange for me to teach the class how to knit. We've been emailing back and forth working out the logistics. I outlined our planning activities here.

On Monday, I met with Erin and wound the 100g balls into approx. 20g balls as each prototype project I knit used about 17g of yarn. Erin scrounged (or 'snaffled' as my spinnerly friend, Jennifer would say) enough sets of 4mm, 4.5mm and 5mm knitting needles for the class of 28, as well as a few tapestry/darning needles for the whip stitching of the sides once the knitting is completed.

 

Yesterday, I asked my fibre-obsessed friend, Julia, if she would assist me today. I thought an extra knitter/aide in the class would help minimize student frustration while they learned this new skill.

Erin, the teacher, got right into it and started her own iPhone cozy. She was really geeked up about learning to knit. (Today was Wild West day at the school - a fund raiser for cancer - so Erin was sporting her pink bandana.)

The student in the foreground is making sure she has the right number of stitches on her needle after completing a couple of rows. At the back, Julia (in turquoise) is checking the girls' progress and clarifying for one of the students.

They then continued on with the garter stitch project.

At the break, I took this photo of one student's work thus far.

And this is the same project a little while later. Progress!!

This is one of my favourite photos I took. This tattooed young man tackled the task at hand and persisted. His positive attitude will serve him well in life.

As the classes are 2.5 hours long, I knew most of the students would have 'got it' by the end of the first class. I'm hoping several will continue on for 'homework' and get close to finishing by the next class in two days. I did refer the students to online videos on www.knittinghelp.com and YouTube which they can peruse in the privacy of their own homes, as sometimes, a review of a new task is needed before carrying on.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how many actually worked on the project between today's class and Friday's class.

I hope to take some more photos and give a full report. 

Thank you, Julia!!!