I swear, I'm not laughing at you...

As I sit here and type this blog post, I am actively spreading the love of fiber and the skill of knitting.

Patrick has long watched me knit, fascinated by the seemingly easy and fast movements of my hands as I knit his scarf while chatting with friends or watching a movie. When I was working on any kind of knitting, he sat and watched. Not in boredom, but in genuine interest. When I sit at the spinning wheel, and he comes over, he watches. Fascination is clearly written across his face.
So I had him sit at the wheel, I explained how it worked, and showed him how to do it. I guided his hands, helped him fix a few mistakes, taught him how to join fiber. "It's hard," he said with a nervous laugh as he stared at the horribly over-spun Romney that sat uncomfortably twisted on the bobbin. "Of course it's hard," I replied,"you're still learning. It took my mom and I almost a year to get to where we are now." The look of dismay that crossed his face was nothing compared to the grin when he finally understood that his feet and hands have to work together to make the spinning wheel work.
Unfortunately, I have not spun since then, and he is rather nervous but willing to do it again. Perhaps tomorrow, if I have some free time...
Anyway. We've jokingly discussed teaching Patrick how to knit a few times. Tonight, I actually am. His fingers fumble, he doesn't tension the yarn, and he knits so slowly that in the time it took for him to knit ten stitches, I had done about sixty. Granted, I have been knitting for a while and he is so brand new, he stopped in the middle of a stitch and looked despairingly at me when I glanced over and giggled at him. "What?" he asks self-consciously as I motion for him to continue his knitting. "Nothing. I just think it's great that you're willing to learn." Most men wouldn't consider it. But that's a discussion for another day.

So, as I sit here babbling about my excitement that Patrick is learning to knit, he sits next to me, stolidly plugging away at a knit row. The next one is purling. The stitches are sloppy and the rows are uneven, but as I glance over now and again to make sure he isn't knitting with the wrong end (we narrowly avoided that mistake only once), I feel rather proud that Patrick is so eager to learn. Once we have tension down, I'll explain gauge. And then? Fiber.

"You're putting me on your blog now?"
"Yes."
".... Okay.*goes back to knitting"
-Patrick and I, shortly before this entry was started