The Learning Curve

On Wednesday, after my workout at Curves, I was getting ready to leave and I happened to see a basket of scrunchies for sale that were hand made. The lady sitting next to me (also changing her shoes) commented on them and we started talking about knitting and crochet. Then I saw a scarf hanging from a coat hook. It turned out to be hers! She (we'll call her R) said that although she had not made that one (pointing to the scarf hanging up) she had made others, and was in the process of knitting a black and white one, but she needed to purchase more yarn. This led to a discussion about yarn shops. She mentioned one called Unraveled that she was going to. I had never heard of it. It turns out that it is a fairly new shop with a young owner & workers (she is in "young" her 70's so I don't know what her definition of young would be). That they were super nice not like that lady at the "Phoenixville Store". Right away I new what store she was talking about. You see I had talked to the owner of the yarn shop about knitting lessons. She was going to charge me $75 to learn to knit. At the time I had no idea what knitting classes were going for, but was unable to work the class into "mom-life". When I told R about this she was quite outraged. I told her that I had since found out that I could take a knitting class at AC Moore or Michaels for $10 to $15 dollars and learn the same stuff for much less. I told her of how my hubby had purchased a CD Rom for the computer one Christmas for me to learn how to knit. But that when I tried, the work kept twisting around the needle, and that I was pretty sure that was not supposed to work that way. R looked at me and said "I can show you. Will you be here on Friday?" I said that I would be, and she told me to bring in my yarn and needles and we could have a quick session together. I thanked her and told her that I was looking forward to Friday. When Friday rolled around I was impatiently waiting for hubby to come home from work, after all I had an appointment with some yarn, some sticks and a very nice lady. Hubby got home from work late and I raced on over to Curves. Luckily just as I arrived she was finishing up her workout. She sat down and showed me how to cast on (using the long tail method--I later learned what it was called). I picked that up really quickly, so she moved on to knitting. At first it was awkward holding the two needles after so much crochet. But then I got the hang of it. She moved on to purl and that seem ed to be easier for me to pull the yarn through. Then I just worked on both stitches for a little while. She was amazed that I picked it all up so quickly. And I told her that it was because she was such a great teacher! After my 15 minute lesson I gave her a little thank you gift. A potholder that I had crocheted out of cotton yarn in a "springy" color. She loved it so very much and had to go around showing everyone. I think that I made her day the same way that she made mine. Thanks R! Here is a little shot of my practicing. I had ripped out the original and started over practicing the knit stitch. Later on I decided that I cast on too many stitches (such enthusiasm!) and ripped out this piece as well. I am currently practicing with a 20 stitch cast on. Ignore the old, outdated cruddy tile. I can not get the grout white no matter what. They need to be ripped up and new flooring put down. So many projects... So little time!