Knitting over the line

‘An intensive knitting course in the summer? No one knits in the summer.  What would we even call it?’

‘It’s a crash course. The summer’s when people have time for that. It will be great.’

‘Hmm.. There might be a couple of people at a loose end I suppose. I’m still not sure. Whatever the case we can’t have the word Crash in the name. How about Summer Camp instead.? ‘

The thing about Helen’s ideas is that even when they appear to make no sense at all, they almost always make perfect sense eventually. I wasn’t yet convinced but she was convincing.

I found a picture of a lovely window display we did in the 20-teens of a knitted camping scene with knitted bacon and eggs and created the event for the website’s denuded list of classes for what was becoming the hottest and driest summer we’d ever known.

‘That summer camp idea you had. Please don’t be disappointed but I’m not sure we can make it work. There’s only been a couple of bookings’

Helen wasn’t ready to give in: ‘It’s early days yet. Let’s wait and see.’

She was right (she almost always is). 2 turned into 4 and within a month all six places were booked with more on a waiting list.

‘The people who’ve booked. I think they all know how to make basic sweaters already. We may need to rethink the premise.‘

‘So let’s take them somewhere new. What about we see if we can  get each one up onto the next level? We never get to work with people every day like this. Let’s make every day really count.’

One by one we got each of the students on board, nudging them towards a pattern that used skills just the other side of the line  they’d reached before.

The more sceptical they were about managing the patterns, the more we encouraged them to go for it.

It was the day before the Summer Camp. I had a final look through the group’s list of projects. I knew all of them by now, but was suddenly freshly aware of just how steep this learning curve would be. We were headed in a well-beyond-intermediate direction. Had we made a terrible error of judgement here? Was this perhaps a step too far? It’s the summer holiday after all. It’s supposed to be fun and relaxing.

I called Helen and discussed snacks for the class instead of my anxieties. Coffee (tick), tea (tick). I’d get the croissants and orange juice on my way in. We weren’t starting until 10 so there might even be time for a swim before hand.

I reached the shop on Day 1 and hung my costume up on the clothes line above the sink, unpacked the snacks and set the table with 8 chairs. I looked around. The morning sunlight drifted in and there was that familiar stillness in the shop that comes before the door swings open. It’s just a moment, but it’s as if the shop is saying, ‘Deep breath now. We’ve got this’.

Helen was first, followed shortly by the rest of the students. Project bags opened, and yarn and needles spilled out onto the table. Patterns unfolded and we were off.  Plunged into swatch measuring, stitch counting, double-stitch-explaining, mosaic-knitting, tubular cast-on guiding, spit splicing, edge picking-up, size recalculating, chart-reading, instruction scrutinising, and before long also  and inevitably stitch undoing.

‘It just doesn’t make sense. The numbers don’t add up.’

‘If I do the number of short rows the pattern says, I’d need another load of stitches.’

‘Whatever I do, I always end up with the chart not matching my stitches at the end of the row.’

‘I might have done an M1R here instead of an M1L. Does it matter?’

‘If it doesn’t tell me to do a double stitch when I turn do I still need to do one?’

‘I think I purled normally and only did the knits through the back loop, but they are both supposed to be through the back loop. Does that mean I have to start again?’

No, you don’t need to start again.. Yes, we do need to undo this..  Let me  count that again.. It’s fine. You’re on track..  No that won’t work. Let’s do this once more.. If you read the chart like this it really does make sense. Look. It matches your knitting, you see?

And so the Summer Camp days unfolded. I began each day going up and down the lanes of the lido, knitting one way, purling the other, mentally unpicking the knotty muddles they’d been in the day before, with the thinking space of the cloudless sky above me. I’d get to the shop, hang up my costume and take a breath.

The students arrived and we checked where we’d got to. Some mistakes were fudgeable, others had to be ripped back . Puzzles got unpuzzled and the confounding techniques gradually turned into familiar repeats. The knitting that went backwards eventually went forwards beyond where it had got to last time. The stitch counts began to make sense and the fabric started to look like the pictures. Something was changing

Day 4 and the fresher morning air of the first days was gone, replaced by the sluggish heat from previous day in the shop which hadn’t escaped overnight. I put the fan on and wedged the door the open to try and get it moving.

‘Black coffee for you.. And a splash of milk for you, right?’

Learning routines was about more than stitch repeats and I was also getting there now. The sweet smell of freshly baked fruit in pastry interrupted my pourings, as F unwrapped an apricot and almond tart, still warm from her oven. The tart was soon joined by a sparkly lemon drizzle cake which Helen had baked. Of course there was cake! For each of us knew in our own way that something marvellous had happened that week and it was the most obvious thing in the world for us to need to celebrate it.  Every single person around the table was doing something they hadn’t known how to manage 4 days earlier.

This was the magic elixir of learning something new and no matter when it happens, it never stops being incredible.

With enormous thanks to Helen Reed for dreaming it up and making sure we did it, and to the intrepid Summer Campers who came and tried again and again until they got it. You are an inspiration to all of us!

If you would like to try something new with your knitting, our autumn classes list is now online with plenty of spaces still available.