Project one, stage 1 and a few more..

Project one - the baby blanket aka operation teach the ones with the short attention span to knit.

The first stage of this I had decided was to knit something for our other leaders baby that was due in February. This started as me knitting some booties and perhaps some hats but as my ideas progressed I thought it would be nice to teach my guides so they could make something for her too. Now my guides are between 10 and 16 (because I have a few young leaders) and some have a particularly short attention span, oh and did I mention there's 18 of them! This may have been a death wish but I was determind..

Gathering equipment:

The first challenge was to gather everything I needed to teach the girls. I checked through my knitting needles box and I definitely didn't have enough, and most of mine were bent as they were a hand me down from my heavy handed Nana. After horrible images of sword fights with metal needles I settle on the idea of trying to get plastic 'guide friendly' needles for them to learn with. After some failed exploration missions I decided to write to the magasine I had been buying and see if they could help me with any of the spare free bee's they give away. My luck was in, and the very lovely editor of 'Lets get crafting' sent my enough needles for the whole gaggle to get learning. 

Next was wool. I had some but I thought it would be easier for girls to have a ball each and I felt this was getting a little expensive. So I put a plea out at work on our sales and wants, asking odds and ends of wool and explained our predicament. I got a great response and one lady sent me all the free balls of wool she has been getting with her magasine for the last few months which meant they each had a ball of brightly coloured double knit each. 

Perfect you think.... but now I have to teach them!

The quickest meeting in history

Now my guides meets for an hour and a half. This particular week seemed like I was there for 5 minutes! I had to choose a meeting when Rachel wouldn't be there so it would still be a surprise when we handed her our finished blanket, did I mention I decided to make a blanket? I thought each girl could make me a square or two and I would put them together to make a mini blanket to give to Rachel for her baby. I decided on 20 stitches and then how ever many rows it took to make it square, as I hadn't worked it out with the wool and needles the girls were using. I showed most of the girls how to cast on, and some taught each other as they went to knitting club at school. Some girls were not interested at all, so I set them a challenge to write thank you letters for all that had helped me so far. My young leader got very into it and even suggested we all joined in with Movember next year.

Grace, getting in the swing of it all

Others got the hang of it super quickly and couldn't put it down even while the were walking out to meet their parents. Before I knew it, it was time to go home and I hadn't even gotten around to all the girls yet, so I told them to work on it at home if they wanted and bring me back the squares in the next few weeks, but they had to remember to do it carefully so that Rachel didn't see the squares and get suspicious.

The next few weeks of my life...

The new weeks I had around 15 squares brought to me, which was great! Two of the girls brought me a large package of tinfoil, encased in side were 8 squares they had made together. I'm not sure why it was wrapped in tin foil, but it hid it and it made me laugh! One girl brought me her square still attached to the needles as I hadn't shown her how to cast off yet! So I showed her and she cam back with another square the next week! a few girls brought me 2 squares each, one they had made and one their mum had made which I thought was a really nice way for them to be learning together (or remembering together). One girl brought me a square twice the size of all the others as she had restarted it at home and forgotten the size I had told her. I had only asked them to use garter stitch, though one girl was ahead of me and brought three squares back in that used sticking stitch, she did better than I could at that point! My life since has mainly consisted of making more squares or sewing them together. I had to make more, even though the girls have still been bringing me some in sporadically, as my Grandma advised me it wasn't big enough. To be fair I doubt it would had fit around a baby but it did look good!. 

This is before I started sewing them together, but after I had done a few squares

With the squares all being at slightly different tensions, and quite of few of them done a different needle size once they got home, putting the together was harder than it looked. I started with the extra large on in the middle and I have been sewing them round in getting bigger and bigger.

This is after I have sewn quite a lot on, but I have still got a way to go

My life is still concentrated on making this blanket and my deadline is the end of February so stand by for finished photos!

Time spent so far 6 hours and counting...