designing a knitting class

[to_love_a_rose]

So apparently I'm teaching a friend to knit this Sunday. It randomly happened via text message today, and now I'm a little freaked because I have to actually...teach her. I taught myself with magazines and books over a period of about two years, so I know nothing about the process of sitting down and learning to knit with an instructor.

I'm going to buy the needles and yarn for her first project on the understanding that if she enjoys it she'll buy them from me and if not I keep them for myself. I want to keep things simple and easy and inexpensive for both our sakes. I was going to make her first project a knitted dishcloth with a ball of cotton yarn. I'll grab a ball of Peaches and Cream and some size 7 or 8 needles.

I was hoping for some advice on teaching someone how to knit. What worked for you? What didn't? Wood, metal, or plastic needles?

Also, I've made up the pattern for the dishcloth since I couldn't find something that was quite what I wanted. It's a basic basket weave pattern. I've created things without a pattern before, but I've never actually written a pattern, and I was hoping you guys would glance at this and tell me if this seems easy enough for a beginner to read and work on on her own.

Rows 1-3: k48
Rows 4-10: k3, (p7, k7) 3 times, k3
Rows 11-17: k10, (p7, k7) 2 times, p7, k3
Repeat rows 4-17 3 times more
Rows 60-62: k48

Comments

[seryn]

I generally prefer to have people make something they can wear. So I do foldover handwarmers. The kind where you knit a square, fold it over, seam the first inch and the last inch, leaving the rest open for a thumb hole.

This works well in garter stitch, stockinette, it does well with early color-work projects, texture motifs... anything you'd want to practice in a gauge square can become a vaguely useful thing.

When I teach children, they work with acrylic yarn because it's non-allergenic, thicker, sturdy, washable, and comes in vibrant colors.

The children learn the knit stitch, make a garter stitch square, then are encouraged to choose another small project. Like a narrow scarf, a small purse, handwarmers, square-into-bunny, etc. After that we encourage them to learn something new. Stripes, purling, two-yarns-at-once, drop-stitch for scarf...

It's my opinion that you should cast on for the first project for your friend. Obviously there is a need to know that to be self-sufficient, but getting someone hooked first is the idea before you add in all the other things.

[labellementeuse]

I generally prefer to have people make something they can wear. So I do foldover handwarmers. The kind where you knit a square, fold it over, seam the first inch and the last inch, leaving the rest open for a thumb hole.

Brilliant advice. I would get them to do a pair of these garter stitch (which looks really nice in handwarmers if you sew them so the garter rows run up and down the wrist). Then maybe a hat knit flat, starting with a bit of ribbing - this was my first project ater many years away from knitting and I found it super useful. Learning to rib straight away is good because you instantly learn to recognise knit and purl stitches, although I admittedly did make a LOT of holes.