It may take a while!

Tonight is our monthly Downtown (Toronto) Knit Collective meeting - about alpacas. My dear friend Ilze who is the closest thing I have to a sister, has been coming with me for 1 1/2 years even though she is not a knitter. She enjoys the meetings and is otherwise very crafty and comes for the outing and the company.

We have known each other since we were 4 and lived on the same street. Ilze has been trying to teach me Latvian most of that time and I have been trying to teach her to knit. We bought her some blue yarn when we were about 12 and several starts ended up in frustration and ripping out the yarn. Now Ilze is a saver and she still has that darn blue yarn!

About 2 years ago, Ilze wanted to learn to knit socks to go with her Latvian dance costume so we got together and I diagrammed it all out. We did the math and in an incredibly small amount of time, Ilze had produced a pair of creamy white knee socks (KNEE socks - I haven't even ever knit knee socks!) in the finest gauge you can do with fingering weight wool and 2.0mm needles (about 10st to the inch). Quite a feat for a non-knitter.

That was her last knitting project until about a week or so ago when we talked on the phone and she told me she had STARTED KNITTING! - some wash cloths ! and WAS ENJOYING IT!!!!.

I guess the moral of the story is never give up or persistence is its own reward or if you beat your friend with knitting needles long enough, eventually she will start knitting.

We are talking about decades here - not just years.

I am so proud of Ilze! and so happy that she likes knitting now.

And I still don't speak Latvian.

PS. Ilze, a non-weaver, decided that she wanted to weave the 5 yards of cloth to make the skirt for her Latvian dance costume, so with the help of one of her weaving friends, got going on it and made the most gorgeous, evenly woven, fine wool and cotton cloth I have seen. It is amazing and Ilze is a genius!