Saturday, July 12, 2008

Brain melt

Today I taught a class on how to do Judy's Magic Cast on. From experience I know all the toe up cast ons seem a bit like learning Martian, but after you've done something for awhile you forget just how odd it seemed while you were learning it.

I'm really proud of my students. Every single one of them learned how to do it. I'm just wondering how many of them went home and had a drink. Well, I could have been much more cruel to them. I could have taught them the Turkish cast on instead. (When I was teaching myself how to do it, I bet I cast on about 15 times before I could get it right. Even now I would still need to pull out the book and look at it. Judy's Magic Cast on is so much easier and makes a nicer looking toe.)

As for me, my brain feels a bit fried too. Doing the cast on in slow motion on larger than usual needles over and over again had me wondering if I was still doing it correctly. It's amazing how strange things can look in different yarn gauges. I would have to look at mine, look at the student's, then look at mine again to see if it was correct. By the end everyone had cast on several times and knit a few rounds to get the hang of it. There was a lot of "does this really look right?" Yes, it's just like all knitting. Practice makes you better. What people forget is that none of us were born knitting. Those of us who teach knitting have probably made all the same mistakes you're making now. Actually, we still make some of them, and we've had enough practice to make larger flub ups.

As for me, several days ago I realized that we had no white wine in the house. I remedied that while at the grocery store, and I think it's time to open the bottle of Pinot Grigio I've got in the fridge. If my brain is melted, maybe some chilled wine will revive it. (Or we can take bets on how long it is before I'm snoozing on the bed with a cat or two draped over me.)

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