String ensemble

I take my hat off to Mr Holdgate. Which, given the current weather, is the Terry Pratchett fedora; this is just as well, as one can doff that much more elegantly than a knitted beanie.

Mr Holdgate, you see, thinks eight children is a good number for a netting class. So I thought to myself, "Well, I'm primarily aiming this at adults; we may get a few older children along too, and the netting needles come in packs of three, so let's say nine." I duly prepared for nine people. Everyone was issued with one netting needle in size either 21 cm, 19 cm, or 17 cm, pre-wound, with a pre-made grommet on it; one button toggle, already threaded through the grommet, to anchor it; one ball of string; and three mesh sticks in sizes large, medium, and small. (They were going to be using the medium ones in the class, and on these I had written the web link for the site where one can buy more netting needles.) The medium and small mesh sticks were lollipop sticks in sizes jumbo and regular, while the large one was a fairly rubbishy ruler I bought very cheaply in a pack of ten from Ryman. As a ruler I don't rate it at all (the scale's about 1 mm out over the 30 cm, and it's quite flimsy), but as a mesh stick it does have a lot going for it. I also took the precaution of bringing some sandpaper. Lollipop sticks are usually pretty smooth, but just occasionally there's the odd little snag that catches on the string. As it happened, it wasn't needed this time.

The church provided a couple of sheets of paper bearing a large QR code from which people could download the netting book (anyone without a smartphone could just e-mail me for a copy), and so I put one of those at each end of my table, with the sandpaper and some follow-up cards bearing my e-mail address in the middle. I also had an enthusiastic helper (I think we're safe to give him his name; he's Michael, which is a pretty common name). Michael hadn't done netting before but he knits and crochets, and he'd been trying to teach himself from YouTube videos in advance. Without actually having a needle. Can't blame him for that as he knew he was going to be getting one anyway (and if I'd been in a fit state to go to church on Palm Sunday I'd have brought him one), but it did mean that just before the session started I had to show him how you do the basic knot with the needle. It took him a few goes, but he got it; and I was deeply grateful he was there, because I'd have been floundering on my own, especially since I couldn't easily get round the table in the mobility scooter.

I'd had an idea in my head how it was going to go. I'd imagined a class of adults all arriving at 2.30 prompt, sitting down at the table, and concentrating on what they were doing. I'd expected to start by showing them the samples I'd brought (different gauges from very fine to string-bag; I was wearing one of them), explaining that we were going to start on string bags today, and then taking it from there. I'd get them all to anchor their toggles to something (probably a table leg), teach them the basic mesh knot, wait till they'd all done one round, show them how to do a drop knot to start the next round, and then show them how to increase. What with that and sorting out any teething problems, I reckoned that would be plenty for two hours, and they could get everything else they needed from the book. I also reckoned that I could give them a little bit of spiel on the history of the craft during those two hours, and maybe even talk a bit about filet; I hadn't actually managed to make that filet sample because of the shingles, but I could still mention it.

Needless to say, it went nothing like that.

Most of my class turned out to be children and teenagers, apart from one 71-year-old grandmother (who did pretty well, but then she was already an avid knitter - pretty much any other craft helps with netting, simply because it's a dexterity thing). They arrived in dribs and drabs. First of all I got Enthusiastic Homeschool Mum's two boys, who are both really nice kids and pretty bright, and EHM kept an eye on them to ensure they weren't getting stuck, especially the younger one, who's rather shy about asking for help. That was fine, but then their friend joined them and sat at the far end of the table, so I pretty much had to leave him entirely to Michael, who kept coming to me just to check what you did next. Next, small Asian child wandered up; I feared she might be a bit too small, but no, she had very neat fingers. Unfortunately what she didn't have was perseverance. I expect she'll grow into that. I got her started off and she was doing really well, but not well enough for her own satisfaction, so when I had to take a moment to sort out EHM's younger son, she abandoned her netting and bunked off. A pity, because she showed real promise. EHM's younger son left a few minutes later; he'd had a good try but decided it was just a bit too hard for him at that stage (his brother, meanwhile, was going great guns).

Then we got Church Teenager, who took to it like a duck to water, but... she has weird memory glitches. She'd done almost a whole round and then suddenly completely forgot what she was doing, which I think shook her confidence. I showed her again, and once again she started out well and confidently, but then she managed to get a knot in her string somehow and that just threw her right out. She, too, walked. While I was trying to untie the knot, EHM's sons' friend also decamped, but then we got an eleven-year-old boy in the congregation and his grandma, who was visiting... and again they sat up at the far end, so I basically had to leave them to Michael, especially as EHM's remaining son had run into a problem. He'd accidentally increased twice into the same loop. That wasn't hard to sort out, but a little later it turned out that he'd also accidentally worked two loops together, and I was just trying to sort that one for him when we ran out of time. I'm afraid his mother is going to have to do some very fiddly unpicking (unpicking netting is definitely not like unpicking knitting or crochet!).

Well, the results are in. Michael learnt how to net and is very happy about it. So did EHM's older son and I think also Elderly Granny (not so sure about her grandson, but she can always give him a hand if he wants to continue). Small Asian Child and Church Teenager nearly did, but for different reasons neither of them could keep going long enough to get properly confident. And we had a surprising number of fallers. I'd have been up a gum tree without Michael; how anyone could teach a class of eight on their own, and eight children at that, is totally beyond me. Mr Holdgate must have been a remarkably gifted educationalist as well as a skilled netter (although, to be fair, he probably did get all the members of his class in at the same time, and they were probably also not in a room where there were a whole lot of other craft tables running at the same time). As for me, I have learnt... that I am never doing anything like that again. One-to-one, fine. I might even run to a class of two or three. Seven, which was what I got in the end... no way.

I have also learnt that actually not many people find netting immediately easy (the only one who did was Church Teenager). In fact, a lot of people find it surprisingly hard. And there was I thinking "it's a dead easy craft, you really only have to know one knot, anyone can learn as long as they have reasonable concentration and dexterity". Well... maybe not.

Oh, and the file still won't upload, so I think it's probably too big; so if you want a copy of Mr Holdgate's book, I suggest you go to my last post now and grab it from the link there, because it's not going to be up there for very long. I may see what I can do later about splitting it so it'll upload, but not right now. Right now I need to chill a little. I think I'll make some more bead earrings!