What do you get when you combine twenty knitting needles, ten skeins of yarn, twenty four chocolate cupcakes with Nutella buttercream frosting, two bags of chips, one bottle of Valentina, two pitchers of iced tea, ten middle schoolers and one teacher?
My students have known that I knit since last year. I've brought knitting on the bus on a field trip, would whip it out during chapel or while students are sharing book reports. Because they have been exposed to it so often, a few of my girls asked if I could teach them how to knit. Ready for any excuse to have people over and bake, I offered to have a few of them to my house for tea and knitting. In my mind's eye, I imagined three or four girls sitting around my table with cups of tea and cupcakes. Little did I know what was in store!
I've been knitting since eight grade and can knit with my eyes closed (seriously!). I knit during movies, in the dark, and while holding a lengthy, involved conversations. I taught myself how to knit after watching my Grandma Beaver during summer vacations at her house, and have no idea how to follow a pattern. I will see something I want to make, feel it and look at it for a few minutes, and then go home and make it. When these girls asked me to teach them, I was worrisome that I wouldn't be able to explain something that I had been doing for fourteen years without thinking.
When I offered the afternoon to the class, I got an overwhelming response. As I’ve already spoken about on this blog, my house is pretty teeny tiny. We have a large kitchen table that seat eight and juuuuuuust fits in our front room. Because of the space limitations I said that the first ten people to email me would be on the list. I got home from school that day and had more than ten emails already! Surprisingly, I had quite a few boys who were interested too. In the end I had three boys and seven girls descend on the Casa (not so) Calma yesterday.
If I thought teaching was hard, teaching Science was harder, and teaching Science to middle schoolers was excruciating…teaching middle schoolers how to knit? Like the pains of childbirth! The hardest part for me was that I couldn’t easily walk around the table to assist peeps that needed it because our house was too small! My hands hurt all evening afterwards, because I was knitting for about two hours straight. 
It was all worth it though. One sweet girl was so excited that I saw her continuing to knit as she was walking to her car. I was commissioned to make a knit tie for one incredibly fashion forward dude. I could share something I love to do with people I love. Best part? I was told, ‘You’re the best teacher ever!’
