Welp, here goes - how to teach people stuff

[kitewithfish]

I volunteered to give a couple of my co workers a basic "intro to knitting" lesson today over lunch and help establish a group hang out with crafters who nibble at lunch once a week. So I have some plans and some hopes and also some concerns!  

Have you ever taught someone something? were you super prepared about it beforehand or just relying on your own expertise to carry you thru?

Comments

[elaiel]

A friend and I ended up starting a knitting club where we used to work, and I taught a few people to knit. We weren't very well prepared. I've taught more people to knit since.

The one thing I definitely do differently now is teach people to knit with cotton yarn not wool. You can see what you're doing better and unpick easier. Also, if you knit smallish squares, they're finishable quickly and are either facecloths or dishcloths depending on whether you use nicer knitting cotton or cheap craft cotton.

They're actually pretty good facecloths to use with face/body scrubs as the loose knit means the pumice/ground nutshell/sea salt or whatever particles will rinse straight out. I now knit them specifically for myself.

[kitewithfish]

I ended up using acrylic because I had lots of it leftover from my early 'learning to knit' stage - I only learned myself how to do this about two years ago. I think things went pretty ok, and I let people take stuff so that they could practice at home. We'll see how things go.