Hey, Teach!

I'm teaching Beginning Cables tomorrow (5/9) at Bobbin's Nest Studio. Why, I think I'll wear my newly FO'd Hey Teach! sweater. How appropriate!

I don't get to teach it that often, but cables are my favorite class to teach. When I was learning how to knit, I thought cabled things were just the most complicated things I had ever seen. (That was before I realized what a pain intarsia was.) And for the first hour-and-a-half of the class where I learned cables, every time the teacher tried to make us understand what was happening, it just seemed more and more confusing. By the time we were about 15 minutes away from the end of the class, I was ready to conclude cables really were incredibly complicated and I would just have to learn at a later time... when I was a *real* Knitter-with-a-capital-K.

Finally, after trying to show us with drawings on a whiteboard and by moving us - human bodies - around like stitches), she showed us what to do with needles and yarn, and it clicked. OH! You just hold these stitches here while you knit those stitches here, then knit the first ones! That's not so hard!

Even now, knowing how easy cables are, I just love 'em. They spiff up plain stockinette even if you're just doing a C6F, and really pop your eyes when making a complicated Aran design. Learning how to un-knit made me feel invincible because I didn't have to start my work from scratch when I made a mistake; conquering cables made me feel like I could do anything in knitting. I hope I can impart some of my wonder of cables in my students tomorrow.

Bring on the weekend!