Knitting group update

9 adults, 3 kids yesterday! Great turnout! I really don't consider it to be a class, it is a group. We have all levels, and it is a lot of fun. The group is working on:

• a sweatshirt in sugar n cream,
• a sport weight cotton pullover,
• sleeveless top in a nubbed cotton that just divided for the underarms,
• a purse,
• a pair of gauntlets that just finished the first one on double points (YAY!),
• an afghan using twisted stitches and yarn overs (!),
• 2 scarves,
• a paperback loom with handspun wool, learning to weave instead of knit,
• and several other projects that come and go so fast that it is hard for me to keep up! LOL

So you can see, a lot of levels are coming together, and we are having a great time, talking about life and knitting!

Yesterday I brought in an object lesson called, "When Good Sweaters Go Bad!" I'd bought some yarn for $5 a pound, knit up a sweater for myself, and it pilled. Badly. Horribly. Terribly. So, I fulled it lightly. Trying to control the pilling. But then, it went through the wash again, wish controlled the pilling for good, but did it for me being able to wear it. I had the 4th grader try it on (thankfully no pictures are available of the desecration) and showed how the sweater, though it fit her, actually wore HER, instead of her wearing it. We discussed terms of fit and style. And that it was NOT her fault that the sweater did not cooperate.

I then discussed what had brought the sweater to this point, what had happened, and two former sweaters that had also failed to behave. and pieces of them. One, my Mom's vest that had been knit on a very fine singles (bad Mary!) and biased badly so was fulled severely. The other was a jacket knit from Paton's Rustic which was downright miserable for me to wear. I fulled it too. They both were cut up into potholders and hotpads. The misbehaving sweater was then passed around with a pair of scissors for everyone to make their own potholder from it. We talked about why you can ONLY do this with wool, what would happen with cotton or acrylic, etc. It also sparked a discussion about, "oh, so this is what happens when you felt a sweater!" When everyone had gotten a large potholder, someone cut up the rest of the sweater and was able to make enough to give each person one more!

At the end of three hours, everyone reluctantly packed up to go home.