I taught the Two Socks on One Circular Needle class last night and boy was it frustrating — for the participants, not me.  But that’s totally normal. I have taught this class many times now and have come to know exactly what they are thinking as the class goes on.  Because of the fiddly technique, I know they will get frustrated.  They will start saying, “Is this worth it?” or “I don’t think I’ll do this again.”  or “Maybe I don’t want to knit socks.” or “!@#$%^”

So, my job is to keep calm (I’ve gotten pretty good at that) and to let them know at the very beginning that it’s going to be frustrating but also that it’s going to be ok and they will get the hang of it.  Like anything new, there is a learning curve and that’s why you take a class: to learn and get tips and suggestions to get through your project.

For this particular class, I give them one basic question to answer: Where is the working yarn?  It should be in the back, on a cable, not on a needle tip.  By taking a deep breath and looking at their work, they will see, there is only one possible yarn ball/needle tip to work with, even though there are two needle ends and two balls of yarn and the whole thing looks like one big tangled mess!

By the time they come back for the second class after doing inches and inches of practice for homework, they are saying, “It wasn’t that bad!”  or  “I love this!”  or “This is the only way I’m knitting socks from now on.”

Another tip I give is to suggest they work on it a little bit more right when they get home so they can cement what they learned in class.  The ride home gives them a little break and time to think about what was happening in class.

So, while I had those initial “I don’t know about this…” comments in class last night, and even though that picture up there looks like 4 big tangled messes of yarn and needles, by the end of class everyone knew what they were doing. They’ve totally got this.