"Say, Uncle...."

Before I get to the main point of this post, I just had to share this picture I took with my phone Saturday morning. My knitting group got together as we often do of a Saturday morn, and we took the occasion to celebrate a couple of recent birthdays amongst us. The lovely tableful of haute cuisine before me just begged to be photographed. I think I was the only person who partook of all the delicacies. Definitely not the sort of thing one should do every day...

Last night, Jeff and I had my sister's children at the house for a sleepover. We had a blast. We went out for burgers, played Sorry!, watched a DVD, laughed, and stayed up way past all of our bedtimes. But, the most fun I had was teaching my niece and nephew how to knit!

For some reason, when I asked them if they wanted me to show them how, they said yes. I guess I finally wore them down.



And they took to it rather well, if I say so myself. I tried for a minimalist approach. I cast on for them and did the first row, showed them how, and then let them do their own thing, stepping in from time to time when questions were asked. True to their personalities, Christopher became very focused and concentrated on nothing else while Kathleen put hers down after a few minutes, but came back to it later. I was impressed with her stick-to-it-ness. He, being a leftie, gravitated to continental knitting, while Kathleen preferred to throw.

It was interesting seeing them make the same mistakes I made when I started knitting at the grand old age of 39. Holding the needles proved a challenge, like they did with me, and, much like their uncle, they ended up with several extra stitches at the end of a few rows. But what great jobs they did! When I got up this morning, they were both knitting. (I think I'm getting choked up...)

They wanted to take their knitting home when their mom came to pick them up this morning, but she reminded them that there would be no one there to help them if they got seriously messed up. So they decided to leave their projects here for the next time they come over. Now I need to come up with lesson two...