Yesterday I enrolled in a knitting class. The first class was last night, actually it was the second class as I missed the first, but it was MY first class and off I went very excited. This was my first ever evening outing on my own since Isabelle was born. Actually, there was one night a few months ago when I baby sat for Amber and Richard, but really, wasn’t that their outing?

Isabelle and I had discussed the possibility that she might like to go to bed with just Jesse there to help her sleep as a special treat. Clearly she agreed with your assessment that this might be a special treat for me but not so much for her. After all I was the one pushing the idea that going to sleep without me would be “a treat”. In the end we agreed that I would go to my class while she did dinner, bath, jammies and stories with Jesse and I would come home in time for the ritual teeth brushing and bedtime. I only had to leave the class 15 minutes in order to achieve this and I figured an hour and forty five minutes of knitting class was better than no class at all.

I decided to go to this class partly so I could stop hassling poor Alison every time I have a question I can’t find an answer for in a book and partly because of a baby blanket. Around the time I started knitting again some friends of ours had a beautiful baby girl and every time we see her she is wrapped in an a stunning purple hand knit blanket. It will be a long time before I can knit anything quite that lovely but I didn’t let that stop me asking who knit it and whether it might be possible to find out where the pattern came from. It turns out the blanket it question was knit by a dear friend of theirs during knitting class to a pattern devised for the occasion by the instructor. Said friend has been going to these classes for seven years and I figured any class which is worth going to for that long and results in such a lovely custom designed FO had to be worth checking out.

There is no question that the teacher knows her stuff, the instructions she gave me were helpful and what I overheard of her discussions with the other students sounded good too. But (did you hear the but coming?) I am not sure how well I am going to mesh with her personality wise and to be honest I left the class with a bitter taste in my mouth. This was in part due to the very odd (rude?) farewell from the teacher, partly due to Jesse calling me 10 minutes before I was planning to leave wondering why I wasn’t home yet (don’t men ever listen to the things we tell them?) and partly due to my wondering whether the 10 minutes of personal attention I got during the class was worth the fee. In the end I think the fact that I had to enroll (and pay) for the entire 8 week course in order to find out if I like it was a good thing. After last night I might not have gone back if I had only paid for the one class but truth be told that would probably have been an overly hasty decision and I am going to really make the most of the classes I have paid for and see what I think in six weeks time.

What would have mad the class better? If the teacher had asked how long I had been knitting and a few other basic questions when I arrived (she did ask my name), if she had looked me in the eye and smiled when I said goodbye. Also, seaming the Phildar baby hoody was what I was up to last night, so that is what I was working on, but really I think having something actually on the needles to sit and knit would have made for a more productive and less solitary class (I had to sit off on my own to get a decent light on my work). I hope next week will be better and I think it is not unrealistic to think it will be.