I have a friend... a dear friend I have known since grade school.
We went to the same junior high together. We went to the same high school together. When I headed East to attend the university, she followed a year later and attended the same university as me. After we graduated, when she moved to New York City, I followed her a year later. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding. My girls were flower girls at her wedding.
We didn't literally follow each other... but our paths have certainly kept us in very close proximity to each other over the course of our lives.
Eons ago, she had asked me to teach her to knit. She wanted to knit something for a friend of hers. And I was very happy to oblige. I love thinking that I was passing along a skill that I was taught by my great grandmother... there is something so special in that. And I'm sure "Little Gram" would smile if she knew.
So when she asked me to help her refresh her memory of her knitting skills (unused for about a decade), I was all on board. Did it matter that we aren't in the same town anymore? Nah! No need for me to fly to my hometown where she lives now and sit down with her... we have Skype, and YouTube, and the internet now.
I had knit a baby blanket for this friend of mine - and it was this same blanket (that she and her daughter love so much) that she wanted to knit for her friend who is having her first baby.
What I so love about this friend of mine is her total faith in her ability to do something that may, at first sight, seem too daunting. I mean, look at that blanket? Doesn't it look complicated? All those holes! All those twists! And she hasn't knit for over a decade!
But I knew she could do it. I mean, knitting is basically about two stitches - knit and purl. You just put them together in different combinations and can get amazingly complicated things. And she had a full two months until the baby was set to arrive, which was plenty of time.
After our initial conversation, and my assurances that this was an entirely do-able project, I sent off an email which had a complete list of supplies she needed for the project along with links to sites she could order the supplies from. Though I had knit the blanket with size 13 needles, we decided to have her do size 15 because she has that typical "new knitter tightness" to her stitches which would make her gauge different from mine. I also sent along a link to a YouTube video for how to wind a center-pull ball of yarn, and said, "Wind 2 or 3 hanks into balls as soon as you get your order."
Within a few days, her stuff arrived and she had three balls made, so we were ready for Skype. Skype is such a wonderful creation. Though I couldn't ever get a really good shot of my hands knitting for a beginner to follow (and had to rely mostly on showing her YouTube videos of the various stitches), it was good enough for me to see what she was doing and help to correct her and give her guidance.
I got her started with a long-tail cast-on and the seed stitch first few rows and we left it at that. A few days later, I sent another mail with more links to videos for how to yarn over and do various decrease stitches needed for the pattern. And we had another Skype session.
Maybe a week after that, I just had to send a link for doing a cable, then Skype to explain how this particular cable differs from the video and have her work it in front of me.
That was enough for her to be able to knit to the very end... which she did. We connected just a few days ago to go over how to bind off and weave in the ends... and now she is done with the blanket. AND (most importantly) the baby hasn't arrived yet. So she finished in perfect time!
