A knitting class

Way of knitting and observation

A knitting class, for me, isn’t just a place where people knit and work on projects.

It’s a place where small things happen.

Yes, we enjoy it. Knitting is a hobby. No one is here out of obligation. We chat, we share, we move forward slowly.

But while all that is happening, I’m watching.

When someone new arrives, even in a group of six, my attention goes straight to her. I watch how she sits—whether her back is relaxed or tense, if her shoulders lift without noticing, how she holds the needles, where she forms the stitch.

She might work very close to the tip. Or drift too far back without realizing it. She might close the loop gently. Or pull a little more than necessary.

They’re micro-movements, almost invisible. But that’s where everything is decided.

When the stitch is formed too far back on the needle, the loop ends up slightly larger than it should be. When the stitch is pulled through too abruptly or with too much force, the gauge changes. The right side of the fabric may look fine—but the wrong side usually tells the truth.

If the horizontal lines on the wrong side are even, the structure is balanced. If small gaps appear, if the spacing varies, the loop is longer than it should be. It’s not a problem, but it is revealing.

Structure is what will support the garment after washing. It determines whether it will relax more than expected, whether an alpaca will stay where it falls, or a merino will try to recover part of its shape.

That’s why I insist so much on the swatch—not to tick a box, but to understand.

A swatch tells us how we knit. It shows how the yarn responds in our hands. It helps us choose the right needle with intention.

My role isn’t to point out mistakes. It’s to guide.

Guiding means making those small decisions visible—the ones almost no one notices: adjusting a posture that creates unnecessary tension, refining a movement before it turns into a habit. It also means staying one step ahead, without becoming overwhelming. She moves at her own pace. I simply mark small lights along the way.

And there’s something else that isn’t often said.

Knitting carries the moment in which it was made. The way she holds her work, the evenness of the stitches knitted at home, the tension or calm that lives in the piece.

Often, nothing needs to be explained. You can feel it in how the garment falls in your hands.

The class remains a gentle space, but beneath that calm there’s a lot of observation. And little by little, almost without her noticing, her knitting begins to change.

Knitting well isn’t just practice without direction. It’s practice with awareness. The coordination between hand, eye, and material isn’t imposed—it’s trained.

And when she begins to feel she no longer needs to ask me which needle to use, when she adjusts her tension on her own or understands why a garment has grown, I know the work is done.

In class, I’m not looking for perfection. I’m looking for understanding.

Because when you understand structure, knitting stops being repetition and becomes decision.

You’re knitting with judgment.

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→ The memory of the fiber
→ Reading the fabric