Like The Queen
Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.

3 Comments:

As someone who has been taught by you, I can attest that your love for teaching shines through, and manifests in your being a warm, encouraging, patient, desciptive teacher. Lucky, lucky students!

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:34 AM  

Bess, I share your love of teaching. I can just tell from your posts here and on KR that you are a born teacher. I look forward to the day we will finally meet and I can learn some of your wonderful techniques, especially for spindle spinning.

I love reading your posts here, your blog is so unique. It's like following someone through their day with thoughts included. :)

erica :)

By Blogger erica, at 11:16 AM  

Do you use a dust mask when you rake leaves? I have fairly strong allergies and when I used to cut grass, I had to use one if I hoped to breathe later. You might want to try that before you destroy all your gardens and plant them with boxwood. And why boxwood?

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:21 AM  

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Tuesday, March 22, 2005  

The first day of spring brought me the ubiquitous March AllergyAttack. I still had one allergy pill left and called my doc to re-up the prescription, but too late. The eyes are bulging, the throat is on fire, and I am praying to every helpful spirit out there to keep my lungs free. This bodes quite ill for the garden. I swore last year that if I got sick again in the spring the whole thing was going to be dug up and planted in boxwoods. That future looks pretty certain.

But when I log off here I am going to write in the calendar for November, to hire someone to rake up all those oak leaves. I suspect it is they, with their evil secret coating of mold, that has done me in. I have been raking in snatches of time for 2 days now and they have had all winter to grow their nefarious Spores-O-Death. Trouble is - by the time enough leaves have fallen to justify raking, I am deep in the arms of indoor pleasures. The thought of yard work never even impinges on my happily creative brain, all busy with thoughts of knitting Christmas gifts. A little planning is called for.

Last night was the last class for my beginner knitters. We’d had to postpone two of the classes because of OtherThings and then had to switch the day to Monday. I believe last night’s class was the most fun of them all. My beginner class always involves making a hat, which takes 3 sessions. The last class is supposed to be a review of the basics: cast on, knit, purl, increase, decrease and bind off. As we worked on the little swatch/book mark I showed them tips, let them experiment with different sorts of increases, went over how to identify mistakes - there was even time to show them how to make a basket weave pattern with knits and purls. It was the most leisurely class and yet one of the most productive.

La, I really do love teaching. I love the intimacy you get when you share the tiny movements of the hands and end up with beautiful knitted fabric. I love the swell of pride that beginners stretch into as they master something new. I get an enormous high just being the one to pass on information. I am - truly - a closet teacher. If I know something I absolutely must pass it on. I see people at the gym with their feet lined up wrong on a weight machine and have to whisper, as I walk by, "Line your toes up with the top". The first time I dyed fiber up at Stony Mt. I drove away thinking "Man I have to hold a dye workshop in the back yard!" There is a constant refrain running in my brain. Something like "Lookee lookee lookit! See how you do this?"

Hmmm. What am I talking myself into? More classes? But it’s getting hot. Who wants to knit in the warm weather. Hmmmm. I see I must design a warm weather beginner knitter class. Of course, most folk seem to want to learn to knit those tiresome eyelash scarves. I don’t mind teaching them, even if the yarn is difficult, you can’t see what you’ve done, and you don’t learn anything but cast on, knit stitch and bind off, but perhaps I can think of something a bit comprehensive to do with them. Hmmm. Yes. The brain is clicking.

In the mean time, I have 2 more classes in the My First Sweater series and one of them is tonight, when I am supposed to show them the crocheted steek, so I had best dash and finish knitting the baby sweater so I can steek it tonight. Ta.

posted by Bess | 7:53 AM
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