Each One Teach Two

I have a close friend that I tend to drag into my current obsessions. We met through scrapbooking, and then when I got into rubber stamping, I taught her to stamp. When I started playing with polymer clay, I quickly got her hooked. When I sold my work at craft fairs, I quickly got her into doing craft fairs, too. I'm sure she will admit that she goes along willingly, but it's just funny how I manage to pull her along.

So last summer, when I returned home from visiting my grandmother, I called her up. "Guess what?" I said. "I learned how to knit and I am totally obsessed."
I was thrilled when she said that she and a friend had been discussing that they wanted to learn how to knit, too. So at that point, all bets were off.

At that stage, I knew how to cast on, knit, purl, and bind off. That was it. We made plans to meet so that I could help her choose yarn and needles and teach her to knit. We decided to meet at Michael's Craft Store during my lunch hour. In retrospect, it was crazy, because I had a meeting right after lunch, but I wasn't going to wait any longer to have a knitting buddy.

I did some Googling to get some tips. I came across the Craft Yarn Council's Each One Teach Two site, which had some great ideas. The program encourages knitters of any ability to teach 2 new knitters, who in turn will teach 2 more, etc. I was heartened by their advice that you don't have to be an expert knitter to teach. Specifically, the site states:

You don't have to be an expert knitter to teach the basics. Whether you've been knittting for two weeks or twenty years, you can join the Craft Yarn Council of America in its new campaign—EACH ONE TEACH TWO. If you teach two people, and each of them teaches two more people, and those all teach two more—well pretty soon everybody will be sharing your love of this fun and rewarding skill.

Since I had been knitting just a shade more than 2 weeks, I found this very reassuring.

I had planned on spending 5 minutes in the store to choose yarn and needles, but, well, it was quite a bit longer. And then I thought that she should have a book to help her when I wasn't around, so we browsed the book section for a bit (ended up with Knitting for Dummies, which is the book that helped me to learn).

When all was said and done, that left 10 minutes for the knitting lesson. I hopped into the passenger seat of her minivan, and demonstrated the cast on. Then I taught her the knit stitch. Thankfully, she picked it up right away, because at this point I was going to be late for the meeting. I abandoned her in the parking lot with her yarn and needles, and rushed off to my meeting. Later that night, or perhaps the next, I went to her house and taught her to purl.

I realize now how lucky I was that she "got it" right away, and just how rare that is. My Monday night knitting class has had 5 brand new knitters in the last month or so, and none of them seemed to "get it" until at least week 3 -- and that is with expert teaching. My friend has zoomed on to be a prolific and fearless knitter, with more FOs in 3 months of knitting than I will have all year. She's now tackling Janet Szabo's Taste of Aran afghan, with great success.

Two weeks ago, while we were visiting, my mother expressed that she would like to learn to knit. I gave her some yarn and needles, taught her to cast on and to do the knit stitch. She made the usual increase mistakes on the first couple of rows, but then by row four was knitting with very even tension and accuracy. At row 10, she put it away, saying that she would do more another time. When I called her two days later, she had just picked it up again, and said that it was going well. I was amazed, since I had to knit constantly for two days before I felt that I was getting it. I haven't seen her progress, since she lives 4 hours away, but I'm confident that she is doing a fine job.

Again, I'm really lucky. Either that, or I'm a great teacher, LOL.

So, I've done my part, teaching two. If you haven't already, grab a friend and share the obsession. And once they've learned ... print out this certificate from the Craft Yarn Council for your "student" and make it official!

Happy Valentine's Day!