I can’t be more proud of this little girl that I taught to knit. She knitted this hat and entered it into the Fond du Lac County Fair. She’s in 4-H, and her parents called me for help. It so happened that she was taught how to knit by her grandmother. She had the concepts, but was holding the needles incorrectly, and twisting the stitches. I give her grandmother tons of credit for introducing the art to this motivated young girl. But, she needed to get a project done for the fair, so they brought her to me. Teaching someone to knit is difficult at times. Unteaching them bad habits can be harder. She is only 9 years old, and she caught on so unbelievably quickly. She was persistent. She would do exactly what I told her and stay at it for hours. We had only 2 days to go before she needed to get it to the judges for the fair. She hadn’t yet put it on the double points. So, naturally I was all prepared to tell her that I didn’t think that we would produce a finished product before the fair. I was all prepared to tell her that we needed to finish it but then save it for next year’s fair. I was wondering how I would break this to her. Well, we put the stitches on to double point needles. She went “Oh, I get it”. Then she went to town knitting on the double points with me hanging over he shoulder.
Now, summer is my busy time at the shop. I have a continuous stream of customers all day every day (thank the Lord). So I brought a chair to the front room next to the cutting table and made her sit there. After 4 hours of knitting she finished. As a reward we put a pom pom on the hat. She deftly wound the yarn around the pom pom maker. It was done.
She got a blue ribbon. Anyone who has been in 4-H knows that they don’t give out blue ribbons like candy. You have to work for them. And, she was the youngest in her category. Way to go Ellie.
