KNITTING IS SO EASY TO LEARN

Knitting is a hobby that can provide you with:

• A sense of accomplishment
• Something warm to wear for yourself or a lucky friend who receives your gift
• A way to keep your hands out of the snack bowl or the cigarette package
• Stress relief: knitting is a very calming activity. (well, ok, some complicated patterns could negate this benefit!) See this article for some more information.
• A way to do something productive when you have time on your hands:
  • waiting for your dentist appointment
  • sitting at your child’s hockey game
  • being the passenger in a car on a long trip (it also helps you to ignore your spouse’s driving habits and makes your marriage last longer!).

Knitting is back in fashion. And it is way funkier than it was a generation or two ago.

Knitting is easy to learn. There are only four building blocks in learning to knit. There are many different stitch patterns in the knitting world, and they are all variants of the following four stitches.

• Cast On
• Knit
• Purl
• Cast Off

At a session with the instructor of the Crocus Needle Arts School, you can learn the four building blocks, the four basic stitches, in about 2 hours. With this knowledge, you can create some simple projects. The teacher will provide you with some patterns that use just these four basic stitches.

Contact the Crocus Needle Arts School to arrange a class.

If you are right-handed, no problem, because the instructor is right-handed, too.

But if you are left-handed, the Crocus Needle Arts School instructor is able to knit both left-handed and right-handed. Admittedly, she is a bit slower going left-handed, but that will probably help a left-handed person to learn it easier!

Where else can you get both right and left handed instruction? Contact the Crocus Needle Arts School to arrange a class.

Have you ever taken a course where the instructor went too fast or too slow for you? That will not happen at the Crocus Needle Arts School, because all classes are private sessions - no group classes.

• If you need some extra time, you have it, even if the class ends up being more than two hours long for you.
• If you are progressing quickly, the teacher can provide you with an additional bit of instruction that leverages what you have learned, so that you can walk out of the class with extra knowledge.

Where else can you get such personalized instruction? Contact the knitting school to arrange for a class.

There are two reasons:

1. An in-person teacher can observe how you are forming the stitches, and identify any problems that you may be causing yourself. Perhaps you are wrapping the yarn in the wrong direction. Perhaps your stitches are too loose or too tight. A video or other instructional website cannot see what you are doing.

2. One of the problems with learning on your own is that you have to start at the very beginning - at the cast-on stage. If you have problems with casting on, the subsequent rows are extremely difficult to knit, and you might give up the hobby in frustration before you really get into it.

   At the Crocus Needle Arts School, you are given a pair of needles with a few rows already knitted - that way, you can start right into the knit stitch. When you get a good rhythm going with good tension, and when you learn that the way you knit one row can impact the next (for good or bad!), then you are ready to learn the cast-on. This approach has been quite successful.

Here is some feedback:

(C.C., February 2009): "I just wanted to write and say that we really enjoyed the knitting class last night. It was a great help having someone to watch what we were doing and point out where we were going wrong so that we could get the hang of things! We are definitely going to sign up for level 2 in a month or so after we have had ample time to practice what we learned last night."

To have a flesh-and-blood teacher ensuring that you are doing it right, arrange for a knitting class.

Have you ever taken a course where the instructor was just barely knowledgeable about either the subject or how to teach? The Crocus Needle Arts School instructor:

• has been knitting for over 50 years,
• has been teaching it since 2005,
• and is a Certified Knitting Instructor, having successfully completed the Craft Yarn Council of America Knitting Teacher Training course. One cannot get the certification without proven experience in both knitting and teaching knitting.

To take knitting lessons from someone who really knows the subject and how to teach it, contact the Crocus Needle Arts School.

Have you ever had to provide your credit card number and pre-pay for a course? Are you concerned about that loss of privacy? At Crocus Needle Arts School, all you need to do is phone or e-mail to pre-register. You can pay (cash or cheque) when you arrive. We trust you.

It is so simple to arrange a class. It just takes one phone call or e-mail. Contact us now.

The cost is $25/hour. This gives you a private session. If you want, you may bring one or more friends along - that will cost $12.50/person/hour.

The classes are held at a mutually convenient time.

The classes are held at the instructor's house, in the community of Rundle in northeast Calgary. It is a couple of block from the Rundle CTrain station, a few blocks from the Peter Lougheed Hospital, and a few blocks from the intersection of 16 Ave (Hwy 1) and 36 St NE.

What if you want to learn more? The school also offers a 2-hour session teaching the next steps in knitting: how to read patterns, how to do some fancy stitches, and how to sew knitted pieces together.

See some of the books that I have in my personal library. See also the Other Knitting Books page for additional material.

If you take a Crocus Needle Arts School workshop for beginner knitters, there is a huge BONUS for you.

In fact, I think that it is the BEST part about taking this beginner class in knitting.

From that point on, you have FREE email-based or phone-based support.

Let us say that you have gone home from the beginner’s class, and you have decided to stretch yourself a bit, and you bought a pattern and some yarn, but you are not sure how to proceed.

Just email the knitting instructor with your question, and you will get the answer that you need to continue working on the project.

Even if you need help with each line in the pattern, you can still ask the instructor for assistance, and it will not cost you a cent!

And you do not have to travel to get this assistance. Your paid attendance at the beginner knitting workshop includes the email-based help.

If you prefer to have a face-to-face conversation about your problem, that will be another private session, costing $25/hour, with a minimum time of 15 minutes ($6.25).