this idea in my head

So, I had this idea in my head that it might be fun to make one's own knitting needles. I got a few dowel rods at Lowe's, cut them up into 10 inch lengths or so, and sanded them. Here is a page ripped from the employee handbook at my latest job, covering the workbench whilst I put a coat of linseed oil on them. That handbook is great to have around for those times when I might need it! It was hard to figure out the best was to make the tapered ends. My lathe is slowly making its way over from Minnesota, but I tried using a pencil sharpener on the ends. It worked OK. Ideally the points would be long, sloping gently and dull at the ends. Later, I glued some little stones from Lake Superior on the ends. Sort of cute, but need to work on the points.

A few weeks ago, my neighbor's sister was visiting and saw us leaving the house, with me carrying a bag of knitting.

She asked me if I would ever consider teaching some girl scouts, as a volunteer, so that they could earn their knitting badge.

What a blast that was! The girls were about 10 or so, and were all pumped up about making scarves. I made each girl a little canvas bag, stamped with a hot pink heart of yarn and needles, and made a little list of local shops and cool websites for them to check out. The first class was tiring, with me running back and forth between each girl to explain over and over how each stitch goes. I cast on several and did one row for each of them so they could just start right out knitting. For the second class I did, some of them had made some progress and a couple had the most adorable things: a scarf with so many picked up stitches on the end it was on its was to becoming a neckerchief, and one with holes, loops and unintentional bobbles. Cute.

The great part about the class was that they had cookies for sale afterward, and who am I if not a supporter of my local troop?