Bragging on Grandkids!

I'm so impressed with Kayleigh and Emily! They learned to knit this week and they are really good at it. By the way, I love the picture of them at work, but am so sorry I took it AFTER Emmy ran into a pole on the school yard. She has the most beautiful shiner to show for it. Will her Mom ever let her visit Grandma's again??

Kayleigh is 10, Emmy is 6. They are visiting us from Illinois this week. Kayleigh likes to do handwork and I had promised her we'd knit this week. I found her circular needles and some Lion Brand Cottontots yarn in pink and white. She wanted to make a purse. I cast on for her and taught her the ditty for making the knit stitch. (In through the door, run around the back, out the window, off jumps Jack!). She had it down pat in minutes. The only problem she had was with a few dropped stitches along the way. She finished the purse yesterday. I added eyelets for the drawstring and bound it off. It looks terrific!

Emmy wanted to make a purse, too. She learned to spool knit. (That's right -- now it's called loom knitting...) At first I had her using Lily Sugar n Cream cotton yarn. We set it up and she took to town with it, but kept getting confused which way the yarn should go. That's when I realized Emmy is left handed!. I took the yarn off, and laid the stitches going the other way, then showed her how to work the loom left-handed instead of right. Oh! That was easier. She was off like a rocket.

Unfortunately, that yarn was so thin, she wasn't making any progress at all. We found her some bulky yarn and tried again. That's all she needed! In the course of one evening's movie watching, she produced four inches of knitting!!. No dropped stitches. It's beautiful work.

I couldn't believe a six year old had that kind of attention span. She really enjoys her loom.

They go home tomorrow. I hope to get a picture of them knitting before they go.